Chapter 3

A captive's wife pleads with the barbarian chief for the life of her husband, Frontispiece Painting by R. Peacock.

Mahomet, preaching the unity of God, enters Mecca at the head of his victorious followers, Painting by A. Mueller.

AN OUTLINE NARRATIVE

TRACING BRIEFLY THE CAUSES, CONNECTIONS, AND CONSEQUENCES OF THE GREAT EVENTS

(FROM THE FALL OF ROME TO THE EMPIRE OF CHARLEMAGNE)

CHARLES F. HORNE

Our modern civilization is built up on three great corner-stones, three inestimably valuable heritages from the past. The Græco-Roman civilization gave us our arts and our philosophies, the bases of intellectual power. The Hebrews bequeathed to us the religious idea, which has saved man from despair, has been the potent stimulus to two thousand years of endurance and hope. The Teutons gave us a healthy, sturdy, uncontaminated physique, honest bodies and clean minds, the lack of which had made further progress impossible to the ancient world.

This last is what made necessary the barbarian overthrow of Rome, if the world was still to advance. The slowly progressing knowledge of the arts and handicrafts which we have seen passed down from Egypt to Babylonia, to Persia, Greece, and Rome, had not been acquired without heavy loss. The system of slavery which allowed the few to think, while the many were constrained to toil as beasts, had eaten like a canker into the heart of society. The Roman world was repeating the oft-told tale of the past, and sinking into the lifeless formalism of which Egypt was the type. Man had become wise, but worthless.

As though on purpose to prove to future generations how utterly worthless, the Roman civilization was allowed to continue uninterrupted in one unneeded corner of its former domains. For over a thousand years the successors of Theodosius and of Constantine held unbroken sway in the capital which the latter had founded. They only succeeded in emphasizing how futile their culture had become.

The entire ten centuries that followed the overthrow of Rome have long been spoken of as the "Dark Ages," but, considering how infinitely darker those same ages must have become without the intervention of the Teutons, present criticism begins to protest against the term. All that was lost with the ancient world was something of intellectual keenness, something of artistic culture, quickly regained when man was once more ripe for them. What the Teutons had to offer of infinitely greater worth, what they had developed in their cold, northern forests, was their sense of liberty and equality, their love of honesty, their respect for womankind. It is not too much to say that, without these, any higher progress was, and always will be, impossible.

In short, the Roman and Grecian races had become impotent and decrepit. The high destiny of man lay not with them, but with the younger race, for whom all earlier civilizations had but prepared the way.

Who were these Teutons? Rome knew them only vaguely as wild tribes dwelling in the gloom of the great forest wilderness. In reality they were but the vanguard of vast races of human beings who through ages had been slowly populating all Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. Beyond the Teutons were other Aryans, the Slavs. Beyond these were vague non-Aryan races like the Huns, content to direct their careers of slaughter against one another, and only occasionally and for a moment flaring with red-fire beacons of ruin along the edge of the Aryan world.

Some at least of the Teutonic tribes had grown partly civilized. The Germans along the Rhine, and the Goths along the Danube, had been from the time of Augustus in more or less close contact with Rome. Germanicus had once subdued almost the whole of Germany; later emperors had held temporarily the broad province of Dacia, beyond the Danube. The barbarians were eagerly enlisted in the Roman army. During the closing centuries of decadence they became its main support; they rose to high commands; there were even barbarian emperors at last. The intermingling of the two worlds thus became extensive, and the Teutons learned much of Rome. The Goths whom Theodosius permitted to settle within its dominions were already partly Christian.

THE PERIOD OF INVASION

It was these same Goths who became the immediate cause of Rome's downfall. Theodosius had kept them in restraint; his feeble sons scarce even attempted it. The intruders found a famous leader in Alaric, and, after plundering most of the Grecian peninsula, they ravaged Italy, ending in 410 with the sack of Rome itself.[1]

This seems to us, perhaps, a greater event than it did to its own generation. The "Emperor of the West," the degenerate son of Theodosius, was not within the city when it fell; and the story is told that, on hearing the news, he expressed relief, because he had at first understood that the evil tidings referred to the death of a favorite hen named Rome. The tale emphasizes the disgrace of the famous capital; it had sunk to be but one city among many. Alaric's Goths had been nominally an army belonging to the Emperor of the East; their invasion was regarded as only one more civil war.

Besides, the Roman world might yet have proved itself big enough to assimilate and engulf the entire mass of this already half-civilized people. Its name was still a spell on them. Ataulf, the successor of Alaric, was proud to accept a Roman title and become a defender of the Empire. He marched his followers into Gaul under a commission to chastise the "barbarians" who were desolating it.

These later comers were the instruments of that more overwhelming destruction for which the Goths had but prepared the way. To resist Alaric, the Roman legions had been withdrawn from all the western frontiers, and thus more distant and far more savage tribes of the Teutons beheld the glittering empire unprotected, its pathways most alluringly left open. They began streaming across the undefended Rhine and Danube. Their bands were often small and feeble, such as earlier emperors would have turned back with ease; but now all this fascinating world of wealth, so dimly known and doubtless fiercely coveted, lay helpless, open to their plundering. The Vandals ravaged Gaul and Spain, and, being defeated by the Goths, passed on into Africa. The Saxons and Angles penetrated England[2] and fought there for centuries against the desperate Britons, whom the Roman legions had perforce abandoned to their fate. The Franks and Burgundians plundered Gaul.

Fortunately the invading tribes were on the whole a kindly race. When they joyously whirled their huge battle-axes against iron helmets, smashing down through bone and brain beneath, their delight was not in the scream of the unlucky wretch within, but in their own vigorous sweep of muscle, in the conscious power of the blow. Fierce they were, but not coldly cruel like the ancients. The condition of the lower classes certainly became no worse for their invasion; it probably improved. Much the new-comers undoubtedly destroyed in pure wantonness. But there was much more that they admired, half understood, and sought to save.

Behind them, however, came a conqueror of far more terrible mood. We have seen that when the Goths first entered Roman territory they were driven on by a vast migration of the Asiatic Huns. These wild and hideous tribes then spent half a century roaming through central Europe, ere they were gathered into one huge body by their great chief, Attila, and in their turn approached the shattered regions of the Mediterranean.[3] Their invasion, if we are to trust the tales of their enemies, from whom alone we know of them, was incalculably more destructive than all those of the Teutons combined. The Huns delighted in suffering; they slew for the sake of slaughter. Where they passed they left naught but an empty desert, burned and blackened and devoid of life.

Crossing the Danube, they ravaged the Roman Empire of the East almost without opposition. Only the impregnable walls of Constantinople resisted the destruction. A few years later the savage horde appeared upon the Rhine, and in enormous numbers penetrated Gaul. No people had yet understood them, none had even checked their career. The white races seemed helpless against this "yellow peril," this "Scourge of God," as Attila was called.

Goths and Romans and all the varied tribes which were ranging in perturbed whirl through unhappy Gaul laid aside their lesser enmities and met in common cause against this terrible invader. The battle of Châlons, 451,[4] was the most tremendous struggle in which Turanian was ever matched against Aryan, the one huge bid of the stagnant, unprogressive races, for earth's mastery.

Old chronicles rise into poetry at thought of that immeasurable battle. They figure the slain by hundred thousands; they describe the souls of the dead as rising above the bodies and continuing their furious struggle in the air. Attila was checked and drew back. Defeated we can scarce call him, for only a year or so later we find him ravaging Italy. Fugitives fleeing before him to the marshes lay the first stones of Venice.[5] Leo, the great Pope, pleads with him for Rome. His forces, however, are obviously weaker than they were. He retreats; and after his death his irresponsible followers disappear forever in the wilderness.

THE PERIOD OF SETTLEMENT

Toward the close of this tumultuous fifth century, the various Teutonic tribes show distinct tendencies toward settling down and forming kingdoms amid the various lands they have overrun. The Vandals build a state in Africa, and from the old site of Carthage send their ships to the second sack of Rome. The Visigoths form a Spanish kingdom, which lasts over two hundred years. The Ostrogoths construct an empire in Italy (493-554), and, under the wise rule of their chieftain Theodoric, men joyfully proclaim that peace and happiness and prosperity have returned to earth. Most important of all in its bearing upon later history, the Franks under Clovis begin the building of France.[6]

Encouraged by these milder days, the Roman emperors of Constantinople attempt to reclaim their old domain. The reign of Justinian begins (527-565), and his great general Belisarius temporarily wins back for him both Africa and Italy. This was a comparatively unimportant detail, a mere momentary reversal of the historic tide. Justinian did for the future a far more noted service.

If there was one subject which Roman officials had learned thoroughly through their many generations of rule, it was the set of principles by which judges must be guided in their endeavor to do justice. Long practical experience of administration made the Romans the great law-givers of antiquity. And now Justinian set his lawyers to work to gather into a single code, or "digest," all the scattered and elaborate rules and decisions which had place in their gigantic system.[7]

It is this Code of Justinian which, handed down through the ages, stands as the basis of much of our law to-day. It shapes our social world, it governs the fundamental relations between man and man. There are not wanting those who believe its principles are wrong, who aver that man's true attitude toward his fellows should be wholly different from its present artificial pose. But whether for better or for worse we live to-day by Roman law.

This law the Teutons were slowly absorbing. They accepted the general structure of the world into which they had thrust themselves; they continued its style of building and many of its rougher arts; they even adopted its language, though in such confused and awkward fashion that Italy, France, and Spain grew each to have a dialect of its own. And most important of all, they accepted the religion, the Christian religion of Rome. Missionaries venture forth again. Augustine preaches in England.[8] Boniface penetrates the German wilds.

It must not be supposed that the moment a Teuton accepted baptism he became filled with a pure Christian spirit of meekness and of love. On the contrary, he probably remained much the same drunken, roistering heathen as before. But he was brought in contact with noble examples in the lives of some of the Christian bishops around him; great truths began to touch his mobile nature; he was impressed, softened; he began to think and feel.

Given a couple of centuries of this, we really begin to see some very encouraging results. We realize that for once we are being allowed to study a civilization in its earlier stages, to be present almost at its birth, to watch the methods of the Master-builder in the making of a race. Gazing at similar developments in the days of Egypt and Babylon, we guessed vaguely that they must have been of slowest growth. Here at last one takes place under our eyes, and it does not need so many ages after all. There is no study more fascinating than to trace the slow changes stamping themselves ineradicably upon the Teutonic mind and soul during these misty far-off centuries of turmoil.

On the whole, of course, the sixth, seventh, and even the eighth centuries form a period of strife. The Teutons had spent too many ages warring against one another in petty strife to abandon the pleasure in a single generation. Men fought because they liked fighting, much as they play football to-day. Then, too, there came another great outburst of Semite religious enthusiasm. Mahomet[9] started the Arabs on their remarkable career of conquest.

THE MAHOMETAN OUTBURST

Mahomet himself died (632) before he had fully established his influence even over Arabia: his successors had practically to reconquer it. Yet within five years of his death the Arabs had mastered Syria.[10] They spread like some sudden, unexpected, immeasurable whirlwind. Ancient Persia went down before them. By 640 they had trampled Egypt under foot, and destroyed the celebrated Alexandrian library.[11] They swept over all Africa, completely obliterating every trace of Vandal or of Roman. Their dominion reached farther east than that of Alexander. They wrested most of its Asiatic possessions from the pretentious Empire at Constantinople, and reduced that exhausted State to a condition of weakness from which it never arose. Then, passing on through their African possessions, they entered Spain and overthrew the kingdom of the Visigoths.[12] It was a storm whose end no man could measure, whose coming none could have foreseen. And then, just a century after Mahomet's death, the Arabs, pressing on through Spain, encountered the Franks on the plains of France.

A thousand years had passed since Semitic Carthage had fallen before Aryan Rome. Now once again the Semites, far more dangerous because in the full tide of the religious frenzy of their race, threatened to engulf the Aryan world. They were repulsed by the still sturdy Franks under their great leader, Charles Martel, at Tours. The battle of Tours[13] was only less momentous to the human race than that of Châlons. What the Arab domination of Europe would have meant we can partly guess by looking at the lax and lawless states of Northern Africa to-day. These fair lands, under both Roman and Vandal, had long been sharing the lot of Aryan Europe; they seemed destined to follow in its growth and fortune. But the Arab conquest restored them to Semitism, made Asia the seat from which they were to have their training, attached them to the chariot of sloth instead of that of effort. What they are to-day, all Europe might have been.

Yet with the picture of these fifth and sixth and seventh centuries of battle full before us, we are not tempted to glory overmuch even in such victories as Tours and Châlons. We see war for what it has ever been--the curse of man, the hugest hinderance to our civilization. While men fight they have small time for thought or art or any soft or kindly sentiment. The survivors may with good luck develop into a stronger breed; they are inevitably more brutal.

We thus begin to recognize just how necessary for human progress was the work Rome had been engaged in. By holding the world at peace, she had given humankind at least the opportunity to grow. The moment her restraining hand was shaken off, war sprang up everywhere. Not only do we find the inheritors of her territory fighting among themselves, they are exposed to the savagery of Attila, the fury of the Arabs. New bands of more distant Teutons come, ever pushing in amid their half-settled brethren, overthrowing them in turn. The Lombards capture Northern Italy, only Venice remaining safe amid her marshes.[14] The East-Franks--that is, the semi-barbarians still remaining in the wilderness--master the more cultured West-Franks, who hold Gaul. No sooner does civilization start up than it is trodden on.

THE EMPIRE OF CHARLEMAGNE

At length there arose among the Franks a series of stalwart rulers, keen-eyed, penetrating somewhat at least into the meaning of their world, determined to have peace if they must fight for it. Charles Martel was one of these. Then came his son Pépin,[15] who held out his hand to the bishops of Rome, acknowledged their vast civilizing influence, saved them from the Lombards, and joined church and state once more in harmony. After Pépin came his son, Charlemagne, whose reign marks an epoch of the world. The peace his fathers had striven for, he won at last, though only, as they had done, by constant fighting. He attacked the Arabs and reduced them to permanent feebleness in Spain. He turned backward the Teutonic movement, marching his Franks into the German forests, and in campaign after campaign defeating the wild tribes that still remained there. The strongest of them, the Saxons, accepted an enforced Christianity. Even the vague races beyond the German borders were so harried, so weakened, that they ceased to be a serious menace.

Charlemagne[16] had thus in very truth created a new empire. He had established at least one central spot, so hedged round by border dependencies that no later wave of barbarians ever quite succeeded in submerging it. The bones of the great Emperor, in their cathedral sepulchre at Aix, have never been disturbed by an unfriendly hand, Paris submitted to no new conquest until over a thousand years later, when the nineteenth century had stolen the barbarity from war. It was then no more than a just acknowledgment of Charlemagne's work when, on Christmas Day of the year 800, as he rose from kneeling at the cathedral altar in Rome, he was crowned by the Pope whom he had defended, and hailed by an enthusiastic people as lord of a re-created "Holy Roman Empire."

In England, also, the centuries of warfare among the Britons and the various antagonistic Teutonic tribes seemed drawing to an end. Egbert established the "heptarchy";[17] that is, became overlord of all the lesser kings. Truly for a moment civilization seemed reëstablished. The arts returned to prominence. England could send so noteworthy a scholar as Alcuin to the aid of the great Emperor. Charlemagne encouraged learning; Alcuin established schools. Once more men sowed and reaped in security. The "Roman peace" seemed come again.

[FOR THE NEXT SECTION OF THIS GENERAL SURVEY SEE VOLUME V.]

FOOTNOTES:

[1] See _Visigoths Pillage Rome_, page 1.

[2] See _The English Conquest of Britain_, page 55.

[3] See _Huns Invade the Eastern Roman Empire_, page 28.

[4] See _Attila Invades Western Europe_, page 72.

[5] See _Foundation of Venice_, page 95.

[6] See _Clovis Founds the Kingdom of the Franks_, page 113.

[7] See _Publication of the Justinian Code_, page 138.

[8] See _Augustine's Missionary Work in England_, page 182.

[9] See _The Hegira_, page 198.

[10] See _The Saracen Conquest of Syria_, page 247.

[11] See _Saracens Conquer Egypt_, page 278.

[12] See _Saracens in Spain_, page 301.

[13] See _Battle of Tours_, page 313.

[14] See _Evolution of the Dogeship in Venice_, page 292.

[15] See _Founding of the Carlovingian Dynasty_, page 324.

[16] See _Career of Charlemagne_, page 334.

[17] See _Egbert Becomes King of the Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy_, page 372.

VISIGOTHS PILLAGE ROME

A.D. 410

EDWARD GIBBON

Of the two great historical divisions of the Gothic race the Visigoths or West Goths were admitted into the Roman Empire in A.D. 376, when they sought protection from the pursuing Huns, and were transported across the Danube to the Moesian shore. The story of their gradual progress in civilization and growth in military power, which at last enabled them to descend with overwhelming force upon Rome itself, forms one of the romances of history.

From their first reception into Lower Moesia the Visigoths were subjected to the most contemptuous and oppressive treatment by the Romans who had admitted them into their domains. At last the outraged colonists were provoked to revolt, and a stubborn war ensued, which was ended at Adrianople, August 9, A.D. 378, by the defeat of the emperor Valens and the destruction of his army, two-thirds of his soldiers perishing with Valens himself, whose body was never found.

In 382 a treaty was made which restored peace to the Eastern Empire, the Visigoths nominally owning the sovereignty of Rome, but living in virtual independence. They continued to increase in numbers and in power, and in A.D. 395, under Alaric, their King, they invaded Greece, but were compelled by Stilicho, in 397, to retire into Epirus. Stilicho was the commander-in-chief of the Roman army, and the guardian of the young emperor Honorius. Alaric soon afterward became commander-in-chief of the Roman forces in Eastern Illyricum and held that office for four years. During that time he remained quiet, 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 A.D. 400, while Stilicho was campaigning in Gaul, Alaric made his first invasion of Italy, and for more than a year he ranged at will over the northern part of the peninsula. Rome was made ready for defence, and Honorius, the weak Emperor of the Western Empire, prepared for flight into Gaul; but on March 19th of the year 402, Stilicho surprised the camp of Alaric, near Pollentia, while most of his followers were at worship, and after a desperate battle they were beaten. Alaric made a safe retreat, and soon afterward crossed the Po, intending to march against Rome, but desertions from his ranks caused him to abandon that purpose. In 403 he was overtaken and again defeated by Stilicho at Verona, Alaric himself barely escaping capture. Stilicho, however, permitted him--some historians say, bribed him--to withdraw to Illyricum, and he was made prefect of Western Illyricum by Honorius. Such is the prelude, followed in history by the amazing exploits of Alaric's second invasion of Italy.

His troops having revolted at Pavia, Stilicho fled to Ravenna, where the ungrateful Emperor had him put to death August 23, 408. In October of that year Alaric crossed the Alps, advancing without resistance until he reached Ravenna; after threatening Ravenna he marched upon Rome and began the preparations that ended in the sack of the city.

The incapacity of a weak and distracted government may often assume the appearance, and produce the effects, of a treasonable correspondence with the public enemy. If Alaric himself had been introduced into the council of Ravenna, he would probably have advised the same measures which were actually pursued by the ministers of Honorius. The King of the Goths would have conspired, perhaps with some reluctance, to destroy the formidable adversary, by whose arms, in Italy as well as in Greece, he had been twice overthrown. Their active and interested hatred laboriously accomplished the disgrace and ruin of the great Stilicho. The valor of Sarus, his fame in arms, and his personal, or hereditary, influence over the confederate Barbarians, could recommend him only to the friends of their country, who despised, or detested, the worthless characters of Turpilio, Varanes, and Vigilantius. By the pressing instances of the new favorites, these generals, unworthy as they had shown themselves of the names of soldiers, were promoted to the command of the cavalry, of the infantry, and of the domestic troops. The Gothic prince would have subscribed with pleasure the edict which the fanaticism of Olympius dictated to the simple and devout Emperor.

Honorius excluded all persons who were adverse to the Catholic Church from holding any office in the State; obstinately rejected the service of all those who dissented from his religion; and rashly disqualified many of his bravest and most skilful officers who adhered to the pagan worship or who had imbibed the opinions of Arianism. These measures, so advantageous to an enemy, Alaric would have approved, and might perhaps have suggested; but it may seem doubtful whether the Barbarian would have promoted his interest at the expense of the inhuman and absurd cruelty which was perpetrated by the direction, or at least with the connivance, of the imperial ministers. The foreign auxiliaries who had been attached to the person of Stilicho lamented his death; but the desire of revenge was checked by a natural apprehension for the safety of their wives and children, who were detained as hostages in the strong cities of Italy, where they had likewise deposited their most valuable effects.

At the same hour, and as if by a common signal, the cities of Italy were polluted by the same horrid scenes of universal massacre and pillage which involved in promiscuous destruction the families and fortunes of the Barbarians. Exasperated by such an injury, which might have awakened the tamest and most servile spirit, they cast a look of indignation and hope toward the camp of Alaric, and unanimously swore to pursue, with just and implacable war, the perfidious nation that had so basely violated the laws of hospitality. By the imprudent conduct of the ministers of Honorius the republic lost the assistance, and deserved the enmity, of thirty thousand of her bravest soldiers; and the weight of that formidable army, which alone might have determined the event of the war, was transferred from the scale of the Romans into that of the Goths.

In the arts of negotiation, as well as in those of war, the Gothic King maintained his superior ascendant over an enemy, whose seeming changes proceeded from the total want of counsel and design. From his camp, on the confines of Italy, Alaric attentively observed the revolutions of the palace, watched the progress of faction and discontent, disguised the hostile aspect of a Barbarian invader, and assumed the more popular appearance of the friend and ally of the great Stilicho; to whose virtues, when they were no longer formidable, he could pay a just tribute of sincere praise and regret.

The pressing invitation of the malcontents, who urged the King of the Goths to invade Italy, was enforced by a lively sense of his personal injuries; and he might speciously complain that the Imperial ministers still delayed and eluded the payment of the four thousand pounds of gold which had been granted by the Roman senate, either to reward his services or to appease his fury. His decent firmness was supported by an artful moderation, which contributed to the success of his designs. He required a fair and reasonable satisfaction; but he gave the strongest assurances that, as soon as he had obtained it, he would immediately retire. He refused to trust the faith of the Romans, unless Aetius and Jason, the sons of two great officers of state, were sent as hostages to his camp; but he offered to deliver, in exchange, several of the noblest youths of the Gothic nation. The modesty of Alaric was interpreted, by the ministers of Ravenna, as a sure evidence of his weakness and fear. They disdained either to negotiate a treaty or to assemble an army; and with a rash confidence, derived only from their ignorance of the extreme danger, irretrievably wasted the decisive moments of peace and war. While they expected, in sullen silence, that the Barbarians should evacuate the confines of Italy, Alaric, with bold and rapid marches, passed the Alps and the Po; hastily pillaged the cities of Aquileia, Altinum, Concordia, and Cremona, which yielded to his arms; increased his forces by the accession of thirty thousand auxiliaries; and, without meeting a single enemy in the field, advanced as far as the edge of the morass which protected the impregnable residence of the Emperor of the West.

Instead of attempting the hopeless siege of Ravenna, the prudent leader of the Goths proceeded to Rimini, stretched his ravages along the sea-coast of the Adriatic, and meditated the conquest of the ancient mistress of the world. An Italian hermit, whose zeal and sanctity were respected by the Barbarians themselves, encountered the victorious monarch, and boldly denounced the indignation of heaven against the oppressors of the earth; but the saint himself was confounded by the solemn asseveration of Alaric, that he felt a secret and preternatural impulse, which directed, and even compelled, his march to the gates of Rome. He felt that his genius and his fortune were equal to the most arduous enterprises; and the enthusiasm which he communicated to the Goths insensibly removed the popular, and almost superstitious, reverence of the nations for the majesty of the Roman name. His troops, animated by the hopes of spoil, followed the course of the Flaminian way, occupied the unguarded passes of the Apennine, descended into the rich plains of Umbria; and, as they lay encamped on the banks of the Clitumnus, might wantonly slaughter and devour the milk-white oxen, which had been so long reserved for the use of Roman triumphs. A lofty situation, and a seasonable tempest of thunder and lightning, preserved the little city of Narni; but the King of the Goths, despising the ignoble prey, still advanced with unabated vigor; and after he had passed through the stately arches, adorned with the spoils of Barbaric victories, he pitched his camp under the walls of Rome.

By a skilful disposition of his numerous forces, who impatiently watched the moment of an assault, Alaric encompassed the walls, commanded the twelve principal gates, intercepted all communication with the adjacent country, and vigilantly guarded the navigation of the Tiber, from which the Romans derived the surest and most plentiful supply of provisions. The first emotions of the nobles and of the people were those of surprise and indignation that a vile Barbarian should dare to insult the capital of the world; but their arrogance was soon humbled by misfortune; and their unmanly rage, instead of being directed against an enemy in arms, was meanly exercised on a defenceless and innocent victim. Perhaps in the person of Serena, the Romans might have respected the niece of Theodosius, the aunt, nay, even the adoptive mother, of the reigning Emperor; but they abhorred the widow of Stilicho; and they listened with credulous passion to the tale of calumny, which accused her of maintaining a secret and criminal correspondence with the Gothic invader. Actuated or overawed by the same popular frenzy, the senate, without requiring any evidence of her guilt, pronounced the sentence of her death. Serena was ignominiously strangled; and the infatuated multitude were astonished to find that this cruel act of injustice did not immediately produce the retreat of the Barbarians and the deliverance of the city.

That unfortunate city gradually experienced the distress of scarcity, and at length the horrid calamities of famine. The daily allowance of three pounds of bread was reduced to one-half, to one-third, to nothing; and the price of corn still continued to rise in a rapid and extravagant proportion. The poorer citizens, who were unable to purchase the necessaries of life, solicited the precarious charity of the rich; and for a while the public misery was alleviated by the humanity of Læta, the widow of the emperor Gratian, who had fixed her residence at Rome, and consecrated to the use of the indigent the princely revenue which she annually received from the grateful successors of her husband. But these private and temporary donatives were insufficient to appease the hunger of a numerous people; and the progress of famine invaded the marble palaces of the senators themselves. The persons of both sexes, who had been educated in the enjoyment of ease and luxury, discovered how little is requisite to supply the demands of nature, and lavished their unavailing treasures of gold and silver to obtain the coarse and scanty sustenance which they would formerly have rejected with disdain. The food the most repugnant to sense or imagination, the aliments the most unwholesome and pernicious to the constitution, were eagerly devoured, and fiercely disputed, by the rage of hunger. A dark suspicion was entertained that some desperate wretches fed on the bodies of their fellow-creature, whom they had secretly murdered; and even mothers--such was the horrid conflict of the two most powerful instincts implanted by nature in the human breast--even mothers are said to have tasted the flesh of their slaughtered infants!

Many thousands of the inhabitants of Rome expired in their houses or in the streets for want of sustenance; and as the public sepulchres without the walls were in the power of the enemy, the stench which arose from so many putrid and unburied carcasses infected the air; and the miseries of famine were succeeded and aggravated by the contagion of a pestilential disease. The assurances of speedy and effectual relief, which were repeatedly transmitted from the court of Ravenna, supported for some time the fainting resolution of the Romans, till at length the despair of any human aid tempted them to accept the offers of a preternatural deliverance. Pompeianus, prefect of the city, had been persuaded, by the art or fanaticism of some Tuscan diviners, that, by the mysterious force of spells and sacrifices, they could extract the lightning from the clouds, and point those celestial fires against the camp of the Barbarians. The important secret was communicated to Innocent, the Bishop of Rome; and the successor of St. Peter is accused, perhaps with foundation, of preferring the safety of the republic to the rigid severity of the Christian worship. But when the question was agitated in the senate; when it was proposed, as an essential condition, that those sacrifices should be performed in the Capitol, by the authority, and in the presence, of the magistrates, the majority of that respectable assembly, apprehensive either of the divine or of the Imperial displeasure, refused to join in an act which appeared almost equivalent to the public restoration of paganism.

The last resource of the Romans was in the clemency, or at least in the moderation, of the King of the Goths. The senate, who in this emergency assumed the supreme powers of government, appointed two ambassadors to negotiate with the enemy. This important trust was delegated to Basilius, a senator of Spanish extraction, and already conspicuous in the administration of provinces; and to John, the first tribune of the notaries, who was peculiarly qualified by his dexterity in business, as well as by his former intimacy with the Gothic prince. When they were introduced into his presence, they declared, perhaps in a more lofty style than became their abject condition, that the Romans were resolved to maintain their dignity, either in peace or war; and that, if Alaric refused them a fair and honorable capitulation, he might sound his trumpets, and prepare to give battle to an innumerable people, exercised in arms, and animated by despair. "The thicker the hay, the easier it is mowed," was the concise reply of the Barbarian; and this rustic metaphor was accompanied by a loud and insulting laugh, expressive of his contempt for the menaces of an unwarlike populace, enervated by luxury before they were emaciated by famine. He then condescended to fix the ransom which he would accept as the price of his retreat from the walls of Rome: _all_ the gold and silver in the city, whether it were the property of the State or of individuals; _all_ the rich and precious movables; and _all_ the slaves who could prove their title to the name of _Barbarians_. The ministers of the senate presumed to ask, in a modest and suppliant tone, "If such, O king, are your demands, what do you intend to leave us?"

"_Your lives_!" replied the haughty conqueror.

They trembled and retired. Yet, before they retired, a short suspension of arms was granted, which allowed some time for a more temperate negotiation. The stern features of Alaric were insensibly relaxed; he abated much of the rigor of his terms; and at length consented to raise the siege on the immediate payment of five thousand pounds of gold, of thirty thousand pounds of silver, of four thousand robes of silk, of three thousand pieces of fine scarlet cloth, and of three thousand pounds weight of pepper. But the public treasury was exhausted; the annual rents of the great estates in Italy and the provinces were intercepted by the calamities of war; the gold and gems had been exchanged, during the famine, for the vilest sustenance; the hoards of secret wealth were still concealed by the obstinacy of avarice; and some remains of consecrated spoils afforded the only resource that could avert the impending ruin of the city.

As soon as the Romans had satisfied the rapacious demands of Alaric, they were restored, in some measure, to the enjoyment of peace and plenty. Several of the gates were cautiously opened; the importation of provisions from the river and the adjacent country was no longer obstructed by the Goths; the citizens resorted in crowds to the free market, which was held during three days in the suburbs; and while the merchants who undertook this gainful trade made a considerable profit, the future subsistence of the city was secured by the ample magazines which were deposited in the public and private granaries.

A more regular discipline than could have been expected was maintained in the camp of Alaric; and the wise Barbarian justified his regard for the faith of treaties by the just severity with which he chastised a party of licentious Goths who had insulted some Roman citizens on the road to Ostia. His army, enriched by the contributions of the capital, slowly advanced into the fair and fruitful province of Tuscany, where he proposed to establish his winter quarters; and the Gothic standard became the refuge of forty thousand Barbarian slaves, who had broken their chains, and aspired, under the command of their great deliverer, to revenge the injuries and the disgrace of their cruel servitude. About the same time he received a more honorable reinforcement of Goths and Huns, whom Adolphus, the brother of his wife, had conducted, at his pressing invitation, from the banks of the Danube to those of the Tiber; and who had cut their way, with some difficulty and loss, through the superior numbers of the Imperial troops. A victorious leader, who united the daring spirit of a Barbarian with the art and discipline of a Roman general, was at the head of a hundred thousand fighting men; and Italy pronounced, with terror and respect, the formidable name of Alaric.

At the distance of fourteen centuries, we may be satisfied with relating the military exploits of the conquerors of Rome, without presuming to investigate the motives of their political conduct.

In the midst of his apparent prosperity, Alaric was conscious, perhaps, of some secret weakness, some internal defect; or perhaps the moderation which he displayed was intended only to deceive and disarm the easy credulity of the ministers of Honorius. The King of the Goths repeatedly declared that it was his desire to be considered as the friend of peace and of the Romans. Three senators, at his earnest request, were sent ambassadors to the court of Ravenna, to solicit the exchange of hostages and the conclusion of the treaty; and the proposals, which he more clearly expressed during the course of the negotiations, could only inspire a doubt of his sincerity as they might seem inadequate to the state of his fortune. The Barbarian still aspired to the rank of master-general of the armies of the West; he stipulated an annual subsidy of corn and money; and he chose the provinces of Dalmatia, Noricum, and Venetia for the seat of his new kingdom, which would have commanded the important communication between Italy and the Danube. If these modest terms should be rejected, Alaric showed a disposition to relinquish his pecuniary demands, and even to content himself with the possession of Noricum; an exhausted and impoverished country perpetually exposed to the inroads of the Barbarians of Germany.

But the hopes of peace were disappointed by the weak obstinacy, or interested views, of the minister Olympius. Without listening to the salutary remonstrances of the senate, he dismissed their ambassadors under the conduct of a military escort, too numerous for a retinue of honor and too feeble for an army of defence. Six thousand Dalmatians, the flower of the Imperial legions, were ordered to march from Ravenna to Rome, through an open country which was occupied by the formidable myriads of the Barbarians. These brave legionaries, encompassed and betrayed, fell a sacrifice to ministerial folly; their general, Valens, with a hundred soldiers, escaped from the field of battle; and one of the ambassadors, who could no longer claim the protection of the law of nations, was obliged to purchase his freedom with a ransom of thirty thousand pieces of gold. Yet Alarie, instead of resenting this act of impotent hostility, immediately renewed his proposals of peace; and the second embassy of the Roman senate, which derived weight and dignity from the presence of Innocent, bishop of the city, was guarded from the dangers of the road by a detachment of Gothic soldiers.

Olympius might have continued to insult the just resentment of a people who loudly accused him as the author of the public calamities; but his power was undermined by the secret intrigues of the palace. The favorite eunuchs transferred the government of Honorius, and the Empire, to Jovius, the prætorian prefect; an unworthy servant, who did not atone, by the merit of personal attachment, for the errors and misfortunes of his administration. The exile, or escape, of the guilty Olympius, reserved him for more vicissitudes of fortune: he experienced the adventure of an obscure and wandering life; he again rose to power; he fell a second time into disgrace; his ears were cut off; he expired under the lash; and his ignominious death afforded a grateful spectacle to the friends of Stilicho.

After the removal of Olympius, whose character was deeply tainted with religious fanaticism, the pagans and heretics were delivered from the impolitic proscription which excluded them from the dignities of the State. The brave Gennerid, a soldier of Barbarian origin, who still adhered to the worship of his ancestors, had been obliged to lay aside the military belt; and though he was repeatedly assured by the Emperor himself that laws were not made for persons of his rank or merit, he refused to accept any partial dispensation, and persevered in honorable disgrace till he had extorted a general act of justice from the distress of the Roman Government. The conduct of Gennerid, in the important station to which he was promoted or restored, of master-general of Dalmatia, Pannonia, Noricum, and Rhætia, seemed to revive the discipline and spirit of the republic. From a life of idleness and want, his troops were soon habituated to severe exercise and plentiful subsistence; and his private generosity often supplied the rewards which were denied by the avarice, or poverty, of the court of Ravenna.

The valor of Gennerid, formidable to the adjacent Barbarians, was the firmest bulwark of the Illyrian frontier; and his vigilant care assisted the Empire with a reinforcement of ten thousand Huns, who arrived on the confines of Italy, attended by such a convoy of provisions, and such a numerous train of sheep and oxen, as might have been sufficient, not only for the march of an army, but for the settlement of a colony.

But the court and councils of Honorius still remained a scene of weakness and distraction, of corruption and anarchy. Instigated by the prefect Jovius, the guards rose in furious mutiny, and demanded the heads of two generals and of the two principal eunuchs. The generals, under a perfidious promise of safety, were sent on shipboard and privately executed; while the favor of the eunuchs procured them a mild and secure exile at Milan and Constantinople. Eusebius the eunuch, and the Barbarian Allobich, succeeded to the command of the bed-chamber and of the guards; and the mutual jealousy of these subordinate ministers was the cause of their mutual destruction. By the insolent order of the count of the domestics, the great chamberlain was shamefully beaten to death with sticks, before the eyes of the astonished Emperor; and the subsequent assassination of Allobich, in the midst of a public procession, is the only circumstance of his life in which Honorius discovered the faintest symptom of courage or resentment.

Yet before they fell, Eusebius and Allobich had contributed their part to the ruin of the Empire, by opposing the conclusion of a treaty which Jovius, from a selfish, and perhaps a criminal, motive, had negotiated with Alaric, in a personal interview under the walls of Rimini. During the absence of Jovius, the Emperor was persuaded to assume a lofty tone of inflexible dignity, such as neither his situation nor his character could enable him to support; and a letter, signed with the name of Honorius, was immediately despatched to the prætorian prefect, granting him a free permission to dispose of the public money, but sternly refusing to prostitute the military honors of Rome to the proud demands of a Barbarian. This letter was imprudently communicated to Alaric himself; and the Goth, who in the whole transaction had behaved with temper and decency, expressed, in the most outrageous language, his lively sense of the insult so wantonly offered to his person and to his nation.

The conference of Rimini was hastily interrupted; and the prefect Jovius, on his return to Ravenna, was compelled to adopt, and even to encourage, the fashionable opinions of the court. By his advice and example, the principal officers of the State and army were obliged to swear that, without listening, in any circumstances, to any conditions of peace, they would still persevere in perpetual and implacable war against the enemy of the republic. This rash engagement opposed an insuperable bar to all future negotiation. The ministers of Honorius were heard to declare that if they had only invoked the name of the Deity they would consult the public safety, and trust their souls to the mercy of heaven; but they had sworn by the sacred head of the Emperor himself; they had touched, in solemn ceremony, that august seat of majesty and wisdom; and the violation of their oath would expose them, to the temporal penalties of sacrilege and rebellion.

While the Emperor and his court enjoyed, with sullen pride, the security of the marshes and fortifications of Ravenna, they abandoned Rome, almost without defence, to the resentment of Alaric. Yet such was the moderation which he still preserved, or affected, that, as he moved with his army along the Flaminian way, he successively despatched the bishops of the towns of Italy to reiterate his offers of peace and to conjure the Emperor that he would save the city and its inhabitants from hostile fire and the sword of the Barbarians. These impending calamities were, however, averted, not indeed by the wisdom of Honorius, but by the prudence or humanity of the Gothic King; who employed a milder, though not less effectual, method of conquest. Instead of assaulting the capital, he successfully directed his efforts against the port of Ostia, one of the boldest and most stupendous works of Roman magnificence.

The accidents to which the precarious subsistence of the city was continually exposed in a winter navigation and an open road, had suggested to the genius of the first Cæsar the useful design which was executed under the reign of Claudius. The artificial moles, which formed the narrow entrance, advanced far into the sea, and firmly repelled the fury of the waves, while the largest vessels securely rode at anchor within three deep and capacious basins, which received the northern branch of the Tiber, about two miles from the ancient colony of Ostia. The Roman port insensibly swelled to the size of an episcopal city, where the corn of Africa was deposited in spacious granaries for the use of the capital. As soon as Alaric was in possession of that important place, he summoned the city to surrender at discretion; and his demands were enforced by the positive declaration that a refusal, or even a delay, should be instantly followed by the destruction of the magazines, on which the life of the Roman people depended. The clamors of that people, and the terror of famine, subdued the pride of the senate; they listened, without reluctance, to the proposal of placing a new emperor on the throne of the unworthy Honorius; and the suffrage of the Gothic conqueror bestowed the purple on Attalus, prefect of the city. The grateful monarch immediately acknowledged his protector as master-general of the armies of the West; Adolphus, with the rank of count of the domestics, obtained the custody of the person of Attalus; and the two hostile nations seemed to be united in the closest bands of friendship and alliance.

The gates of the city were thrown open, and the new Emperor of the Romans, encompassed on every side by the Gothic arms, was conducted, in tumultuous procession, to the palace of Augustus and Trajan. After he had distributed the civil and military dignities among his favorites and followers, Attalus convened an assembly of the senate; before whom, in a formal and florid speech, he asserted his resolution of restoring the majesty of the republic, and of uniting to the Empire the provinces of Egypt and the East which had once acknowledged the sovereignty of Rome. Such extravagant promises inspired every reasonable citizen with a just contempt for the character of an unwarlike usurper, whose elevation was the deepest and most ignominious wound which the republic had yet sustained from the insolence of the Barbarians. But the populace, with their usual levity, applauded the change of masters. The public discontent was favorable to the rival of Honorius; and the sectaries, oppressed by his persecuting edicts, expected some degree of countenance, or at least of toleration, from a prince who, in his native country of Ionia, had been educated in the pagan superstition, and who had since received the sacrament of baptism from the hands of an Arian bishop.

The first days of the reign of Attains were fair and prosperous. An officer of confidence was sent with an inconsiderable body of troops to secure the obedience of Africa; the greatest part of Italy submitted to the terror of the Gothic powers; and though the city of Bologna made a vigorous and effectual resistance, the people of Milan, dissatisfied perhaps with the absence of Honorius, accepted, with loud acclamations, the choice of the Roman senate. At the head of a formidable army, Alaric conducted his royal captive almost to the gates of Ravenna; and a solemn embassy of the principal ministers, of Jovius, the prætorian prefect, of Valens, master of the cavalry and infantry, of the quæstor Potamius, and of Julian, the first of the notaries, was introduced, with martial pomp, into the Gothic camp. In the name of their sovereign, they consented to acknowledge the lawful election of his competitor, and to divide the provinces of Italy and the West between the two emperors. Their proposals were rejected with disdain; and the refusal was aggravated by the insulting clemency of Attalus, who condescended to promise that, if Honorius would instantly resign the purple, he should be permitted to pass the remainder of his life in the peaceful exile of some remote island. So desperate indeed did the situation of the son of Theodosius appear, to those who were the best acquainted with his strength and resources, that Jovius and Valens, his minister and his general, betrayed their trust, infamously deserted the sinking cause of their benefactor, and devoted their treacherous allegiance to the service of his more fortunate rival.

Astonished by such examples of domestic treason, Honorius trembled at the approach of every servant, at the arrival of every messenger. He dreaded the secret enemies who might lurk in his capital, his palace, his bed-chamber; and some ships lay ready in the harbor of Ravenna to transport the abdicated monarch to the dominions of his infant nephew, the Emperor of the East.

But there is a Providence--such at least was the opinion of the historian Procopius--that watches over innocence and folly; and the pretensions of Honorius to its peculiar care cannot reasonably be disputed. At the moment when his despair, incapable of any wise or manly resolution, meditated a shameful flight, a seasonable reinforcement of four thousand veterans unexpectedly landed in the port of Ravenna. To these valiant strangers, whose fidelity had not been corrupted by the factions of the court, he committed the walls and gates of the city; and the slumbers of the Emperor were no longer disturbed by the apprehension of imminent and internal danger. The favorable intelligence which was received from Africa suddenly changed the opinions of men and the state of public affairs. The troops and officers whom Attalus had sent into that province were defeated and slain; and the active zeal of Heraclian maintained his own allegiance and that of his people. The faithful Count of Africa transmitted a large sum of money, which fixed the attachment of the Imperial guards; and his vigilance in preventing the exportation of corn and oil introduced famine, tumult, and discontent into the walls of Rome.

The failure of the African expedition was the source of mutual complaint and recrimination in the party of Attalus; and the mind of his protector was insensibly alienated from the interest of a prince who wanted spirit to command, or docility to obey. The most imprudent measures were adopted, without the knowledge, or against the advice, of Alaric; and the obstinate refusal of the senate to allow, in the embarkation, the mixture even of five hundred Goths, betrayed a suspicious and distrustful temper, which, in their situation, was neither generous nor prudent. The resentment of the Gothic King was exasperated by the malicious arts of Jovius, who had been raised to the rank of patrician, and who afterward excused his double perfidy, by declaring, without a blush, that he had only _seemed_ to abandon the service of Honorius, more effectually to ruin the cause of the usurper. In a large plain near Rimini, and in the presence of an innumerable multitude of Romans and Barbarians, the wretched Attalus was publicly despoiled of the diadem and purple; and those ensigns of royalty were sent by Alaric, as the pledge of peace and friendship, to the son of Theodosius.

The officers who returned to their duty were reinstated in their employments, and even the merit of a tardy repentance was graciously allowed; but the degraded Emperor of the Romans, desirous of life and insensible of disgrace, implored the permission of following the Gothic camp, in the train of a haughty and capricious Barbarian.

The degradation of Attalus removed the only real obstacle to the conclusion of the peace; and Alaric advanced within three miles of Ravenna, to press the irresolution of the Imperial ministers, whose insolence soon returned with the return of fortune. His indignation was kindled by the report that a rival chieftain, that Sarus, the personal enemy of Adolphus, and the hereditary foe of the house of Balti, had been received into the palace. At the head of three hundred followers, that fearless Barbarian immediately sallied from the gates of Ravenna; surprised, and cut in pieces, a considerable body of Goths; reëntered the city in triumph; and was permitted to insult his adversary by the voice of a herald, who publicly declared that the guilt of Alaric had forever excluded him from the friendship and alliance of the Emperor.

The crime and folly of the court of Ravenna were expiated a third time by the calamities of Rome. The King of the Goths, who no longer dissembled his appetite for plunder and revenge, appeared in arms under the walls of the capital; and the trembling senate, without any hopes of relief, prepared, by a desperate resistance, to delay the ruin of their country. But they were unable to guard against the secret conspiracy of their slaves and domestics; who, either from birth or interest, were attached to the cause of the enemy. At the hour of midnight the Salarian gate was silently opened, and the inhabitants were awakened by the tremendous sound of the Gothic trumpet. Eleven hundred and sixty-three years after the foundation of Rome, the Imperial city, which had subdued and civilized so considerable a part of mankind, was delivered to the licentious fury of the tribes of Germany and Scythia.

The proclamation of Alaric, when he forced his entrance into a vanquished city, discovered, however, some regard for the laws of humanity and religion. He encouraged his troops boldly to seize the rewards of valor, and to enrich themselves with the spoils of a wealthy and effeminate people; but he exhorted them, at the same time, to spare the lives of the unresisting citizens, and to respect the churches of the apostles St. Peter and St. Paul as holy and inviolable sanctuaries. Amid the horrors of a nocturnal tumult, several of the Christian Goths displayed the fervor of a recent conversion; and some instances of their uncommon piety and moderation are related, and perhaps adorned, by the zeal of ecclesiastical writers.

While the Barbarians roamed through the city in quest of prey, the humble dwelling of an aged virgin, who had devoted her life to the service of the altar, was forced open by one of the powerful Goths. He immediately demanded, though in civil language, all the gold and silver in her possession; and was astonished at the readiness with which she conducted him to a splendid hoard of massy plate, of the richest materials and the most curious workmanship. The Barbarian viewed with wonder and delight this valuable acquisition, till he was interrupted by a serious admonition, addressed to him in the following words: "These," said she, "are the consecrated vessels belonging to St. Peter; if you presume to touch them, the sacrilegious deed will remain on your conscience. For my part, I dare not keep what I am unable to defend." The Gothic captain, struck with reverential awe, despatched a messenger to inform the King of the treasure which he had discovered; and received a peremptory order from Alaric, that all the consecrated plate and ornaments should be transported, without damage or delay, to the church of the apostle.

From the extremity, perhaps, of the Quirinal hill, to the distant quarter of the Vatican, a numerous detachment of Goths, marching in order of battle through the principal streets, protected, with glittering arms, the long train of their devout companions, who bore aloft on their heads the sacred vessels of gold and silver; and the martial shouts of the Barbarians were mingled with the sound of religious psalmody. From all the adjacent houses a crowd of Christians hastened to join this edifying procession; and a multitude of fugitives, without distinction of age, or rank, or even of sect, had the good fortune to escape to the secure and hospitable sanctuary of the Vatican. The learned work, concerning the _City of God_, was professedly composed by St. Augustine, to justify the ways of Providence in the destruction of the Roman greatness. He celebrates, with peculiar satisfaction, this memorable triumph of Christ; and insults his adversaries by challenging them to produce some similar example of a town taken by storm, in which the fabulous gods of antiquity had been able to protect either themselves or their deluded votaries.

In the sack of Rome, some rare and extraordinary examples of Barbarian virtue have been deservedly applauded. But the holy precincts of the Vatican, and the apostolic churches, could receive a very small proportion of the Roman people; many thousand warriors, more especially of the Huns, who served under the standard of Alaric, were strangers to the name, or at least to the faith, of Christ; and we may suspect, without any breach of charity or candor, that in the hour of savage license, when every passion was inflamed, and every restraint was removed, the precepts of the Gospel seldom influenced the behavior of the Gothic Christians. The writers the best disposed to exaggerate their clemency have freely confessed that a cruel slaughter was made of the Romans; and that the streets of the city were filled with dead bodies, which remained without burial during the general consternation. The despair of the citizens was sometimes converted into fury; and whenever the Barbarians were provoked by opposition, they extended the promiscuous massacre to the feeble, the innocent, and the helpless. The private revenge of forty thousand slaves was exercised without pity or remorse; and the ignominious lashes which they had formerly received were washed away in the blood of the guilty or obnoxious families. The matrons and virgins of Rome were exposed to injuries more dreadful, in the apprehension of chastity, than death itself; and the ecclesiastical historian has selected an example of female virtue for the admiration of future ages.

A Roman lady, of singular beauty and orthodox faith, had excited the impatient desires of a young Goth, who, according to the sagacious remark of Sozomen, was attached to the Arian heresy. Exasperated by her obstinate resistance, he drew his sword, and, with the anger of a lover, slightly wounded her neck. The bleeding heroine still continued to brave his resentment and to repel his love, till the ravisher desisted from his unavailing efforts, respectfully conducted her to the sanctuary of the Vatican, and gave six pieces of gold to the guards of the church, on condition that they should restore her inviolate to the arms of her husband. Such instances of courage and generosity were not extremely common.

Avarice is an insatiate and universal passion; since the enjoyment of almost every object that can afford pleasure to the different tastes and tempers of mankind may be procured by the possession of wealth. In the pillage of Rome a just preference was given to gold and jewels, which contain the greatest value in the smallest compass and weight; but after these portable riches had been removed by the more diligent robbers, the palaces of Rome were rudely stripped of their splendid and costly furniture. The sideboards of massy plate, and the variegated wardrobes of silk and purple, were irregularly piled in the wagons, that always followed the march of a Gothic army. The most exquisite works of art were roughly handled or wantonly destroyed; many a statue was melted for the sake of the precious materials; and many a vase, in the division of the spoil, was shivered into fragments by the stroke of a battle-axe. The acquisition of riches served only to stimulate the avarice of the rapacious Barbarians, who proceeded, by threats, by blows, and by tortures, to force from their prisoners the confession of hidden treasure. Visible splendor and expense were alleged as the proof of a plentiful fortune; the appearance of poverty was imputed to a parsimonious disposition; and the obstinacy of some misers, who endured the most cruel torments before they would discover the secret object of their affection, was fatal to many unhappy wretches, who expired under the lash for refusing to reveal their imaginary treasures.

The edifices of Rome--though the damage has been much exaggerated--received some injury from the violence of the Goths. At their entrance through the Salarian gate they fired the adjacent houses to guide their march, and to distract the attention of the citizens; the flames, which encountered no obstacle in the disorder of the night, consumed many private and public buildings; and the ruins of the palace of Sallust remained, in the age of Justinian, a stately monument of the Gothic conflagration. Yet a contemporary historian has observed that fire could scarcely consume the enormous beams of solid brass, and that the strength of man was insufficient to subvert the foundations of ancient structures. Some truth may possibly be concealed in his devout assertion that the wrath of heaven supplied the imperfections of hostile rage; and that the proud Forum of Rome, decorated with the statues of so many gods and heroes, was levelled in the dust by the stroke of lightning.

Whatever might be the number of equestrian or plebeian rank who perished in the massacre of Rome, it is confidently affirmed that only one senator lost his life by the sword of the enemy. But it was not easy to compute the multitudes who, from an honorable station and a prosperous fortune, were suddenly reduced to the miserable condition of captives and exiles. As the Barbarians had more occasion for money than for slaves, they fixed a moderate price for the redemption of their indigent prisoners; and the ransom was often paid by the benevolence of their friends or the charity of strangers.

The captives, who were regularly sold either in open market or by private contract, would have legally regained their native freedom, which it was impossible for a citizen to lose or to alienate. But as it was soon discovered that the vindication of their liberty would endanger their lives; and that the Goths, unless they were tempted to sell, might be provoked to murder their useless prisoners; the civil jurisprudence had been already qualified by a wise regulation that they should be obliged to serve the moderate term of five years, till they had discharged by their labor the price of their redemption.

The nations who invaded the Roman Empire had driven before them, into Italy, whole troops of hungry and affrighted provincials, less apprehensive of servitude than of famine. The calamities of Rome and Italy dispersed the inhabitants to the most lonely, the most secure, the most distant places of refuge. While the Gothic cavalry spread terror and desolation along the sea-coast of Campania and Tuscany, the little island of Igilium, separated by a narrow channel from the Argentarian promontory, repulsed, or eluded, their hostile attempts; and at so small a distance from Rome, great numbers of citizens were securely concealed in the thick woods of that sequestered spot. The ample patrimonies, which many senatorian families possessed in Africa, invited them, if they had time, and prudence, to escape from the ruin of their country, to embrace the shelter of that hospitable province. The most illustrious of these fugitives was the noble and pious Proba, the widow of the prefect Petronius. After the death of her husband, the most powerful subject of Rome, she had remained at the head of the Anician family, and successively supplied, from her private fortune, the expense of the consulships of her three sons. When the city was besieged and taken by the Goths, Proba supported, with Christian resignation, the loss of immense riches; embarked in a small vessel, from whence she beheld, at sea, the flames of her burning palace, and fled with her daughter Læta, and her granddaughter, the celebrated virgin Demetrias, to the coast of Africa. The benevolent profusion with which the matron distributed the fruits, or the price, of her estates, contributed to alleviate the misfortunes of exile and captivity. But even the family of Proba herself was not exempt from the rapacious oppression of Count Heraclian, who basely sold, in matrimonial prostitution, the noblest maidens of Rome to the lust or avarice of the Syrian merchants.

The Italian fugitives were dispersed through the provinces, along the coast of Egypt and Asia, as far as Constantinople and Jerusalem; and the village of Bethlehem, the solitary residence of St. Jerome and his female converts, was crowded with illustrious beggars of either sex, and every age, who excited the public compassion by the remembrance of their past fortune. This awful catastrophe of Rome filled the astonished Empire with grief and terror. So interesting a contrast of greatness and ruin disposed the fond credulity of the people to deplore, and even to exaggerate, the afflictions of the queen of cities. The clergy, who applied to recent events the lofty metaphors of oriental prophecy, were sometimes tempted to confound the destruction of the capital and the dissolution of the globe.

There exists in human nature a strong propensity to depreciate the advantages, and to magnify the evils, of the present times. Yet, when the first emotions had subsided, and a fair estimate was made of the real damage, the more learned and judicious contemporaries were forced to confess that infant Rome had formerly received more essential injury from the Gauls than she had now sustained from the Goths in her declining age. The experience of eleven centuries has enabled posterity to produce a much more singular parallel, and to affirm with confidence that the ravages of the Barbarians, whom Alaric had led from the banks of the Danube, were less destructive than the hostilities exercised by the troops of Charles V, a Catholic prince, who styled himself Emperor of the Romans.

The Goths evacuated the city at the end of six days, but Rome remained above nine months in the possession of the Imperialists, and every hour was stained by some atrocious act of cruelty, lust, and rapine. The authority of Alaric preserved some order and moderation among the ferocious multitude which acknowledged him for their leader and king; but the constable of Bourbon had gloriously fallen in the attack of the walls; and the death of the general removed every restraint of discipline from an army which consisted of three independent nations, the Italians, the Spaniards, and the Germans.

The retreat of the victorious Goths, who evacuated Rome on the sixth day, might be the result of prudence; but it was not surely the effect of fear. At the head of an army encumbered with rich and weighty spoils, their intrepid leader advanced along the Appian way into the southern provinces of Italy, destroying whatever dared to oppose his passage, and contenting himself with the plunder of the unresisting country.

Above four years elapsed from the successful invasion of Italy by the arms of Alaric to the voluntary retreat of the Goths under the conduct of his successor Adolphus; and during the whole time they reigned without control over a country which, in the opinion of the ancients, had united all the various excellences of nature and art. The prosperity, indeed, which Italy had attained in the auspicious age of the Antonines had gradually declined with the decline of the Empire. The fruits of a long peace perished under the rude grasp of the Barbarians; and they themselves were incapable of tasting the more elegant refinements of luxury which had been prepared for the use of the soft and polished Italians. Each soldier, however, claimed an ample portion of the substantial plenty, the corn and cattle, oil and wine that was daily collected and consumed in the Gothic camp; and the principal warriors insulted the villas and gardens, once inhabited by Lucullus and Cicero, along the beauteous coast of Campania. Their trembling captives, the sons and daughters of Roman senators, presented, in goblets of gold and gems, large draughts of Falernian wine to the haughty victors, who stretched their huge limbs under the shade of plane trees, artificially disposed to exclude the scorching rays and to admit the genial warmth of the sun. These delights were enhanced by the memory of past hardships; the comparison of their native soil, the bleak and barren hills of Scythia, and the frozen banks of the Elbe and Danube added new charms to the felicity of the Italian climate.[18]

Whether fame or conquest or riches were the object of Alaric, he pursued that object with an indefatigable ardor which could neither be quelled by adversity nor satiated by success. No sooner had he reached the extreme land of Italy than he was attracted by the neighboring prospect of a fertile and peaceful island. Yet even the possession of Sicily he considered only as an intermediate step to the important expedition which he already meditated against the continent of Africa.

The whole design was defeated by the premature death of Alaric, which fixed, after a short illness, the fatal term of his conquests. The ferocious character of the Barbarians was displayed in the funeral of a hero whose valor and fortune they celebrated with mournful applause. By the labor of a captive multitude, they forcibly diverted the course of the Busentinus, a small river that washes the walls of Consentia. The royal sepulchre, adorned with the splendid spoils and trophies of Rome, was constructed in the vacant bed; the waters were then restored to their natural channel, and the secret spot where the remains of Alaric had been deposited was forever concealed by the inhuman massacre of the prisoners who had been employed to execute the work.

The personal animosities and hereditary feuds of the Barbarians were suspended by the strong necessity of their affairs, and the brave Adolphus, the brother-in-law of the deceased monarch, was unanimously elected to succeed to his throne. The character and political system of the new King of the Goths may be best understood from his own conversation with an illustrious citizen of Narbonne; who afterward, in a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, related it to St. Jerome, in the presence of the historian Orosius. "In the full confidence of valor and victory, I once aspired (said. Adolphus) to change the face of the universe; to obliterate the name of Rome; to erect on its ruins the dominion of the Goths; and to acquire, like Augustus, the immortal fame of the founder of a new empire. By repeated experiments I was gradually convinced that laws are essentially necessary to maintain and regulate a well-constituted state; and that the fierce, untractable humor of the Goths was incapable of bearing the salutary yoke of laws and civil government. From that moment I proposed to myself a different object of glory and ambition; and it is now my sincere wish that the gratitude of future ages should acknowledge the merit of a stranger who employed the sword of the Goths, not to subvert, but to restore and maintain, the prosperity of the Roman Empire." With these pacific views, the successor of Alaric suspended the operations of war, and seriously negotiated with the Imperial court a treaty of friendship and alliance. It was the interest of the ministers of Honorius, who were now released from, the obligation of their extravagant oath, to deliver Italy from the intolerable weight of the Gothic powers; and they readily accepted their service against the tyrants and Barbarians who infested the provinces beyond the Alps. Adolphus, assuming the character of a Roman general, directed his march from the extremity of Campania to the southern provinces of Gaul. His troops, either by force or agreement, immediately occupied the cities of Narbonne, Toulouse, and Bordeaux; and though they were repulsed by Count Boniface from the walls of Marseilles, they soon extended their quarters from the Mediterranean to the ocean. The oppressed provincials might exclaim that the miserable remnant which the enemy had spared was cruelly ravished by their pretended allies; yet some specious colors were not wanting to palliate, or justify, the violence of the Goths. The cities of Gaul, which they attacked, might perhaps be considered as in a state of rebellion against the government of Honorius; the articles of the treaty or the secret instructions of the court might sometimes be alleged in favor of the seeming usurpations of Adolphus; and the guilt of any irregular, unsuccessful act of hostility might always be imputed, with an appearance of truth, to the ungovernable spirit of a Barbarian host, impatient of peace or discipline. The luxury of Italy had been less effectual to soften the temper than to relax the courage of the Goths; and they had imbibed the vices, without imitating the arts and institutions, of civilized society.

The professions of Adolphus were probably sincere, and his attachment to the cause of the republic was secured by the ascendant which a Roman princess had acquired over the heart and understanding of the Barbarian king. Placidia, the daughter of the great Theodosius, and of Galla, his second wife, had received a royal education in the palace of Constantinople; but the eventful story of her life is connected with the revolutions which agitated the Western Empire under the reign of her brother Honorius. When Rome was first invested by the arms of Alaric, Placidia, who was then about twenty years of age, resided in the city; and her ready consent to the death of her cousin Serena has a cruel and ungrateful appearance, which, according to the circumstances of the action, may be aggravated, or excused, by the consideration of her tender age. The victorious Barbarians detained, either as a hostage or a captive, the sister of Honorius; but, while she was exposed to the disgrace of following round Italy the motions of a Gothic camp, she experienced, however, a decent and respectful treatment. The authority of Jornandes, who praises the beauty of Placidia, may perhaps be counterbalanced by the silence, the expressive silence, of her flatterers; yet the splendor of her birth, the bloom of youth, the elegance of manners, and the dexterous insinuation which she condescended to employ, made a deep impression on the mind of Adolphus, and the Gothic King aspired to call himself the brother of the Emperor. The ministers of Honorius rejected with disdain the proposal of an alliance so injurious to every sentiment of Roman pride, and repeatedly urged the restitution of Placidia as an indispensable condition of the treaty of peace. But the daughter of Theodosius submitted, without reluctance, to the desires of the conqueror, a young and valiant prince, who yielded to Alaric in loftiness of stature, but who excelled in the more attractive qualities of grace and beauty. The marriage of Adolphus and Placidia was consummated before the Goths retired from Italy; and the solemn, perhaps the anniversary, day of their nuptials was afterward celebrated in the house of Ingenuus, one of the most illustrious citizens of Narbonne in Gaul. The bride, attired and adorned like a Roman empress, was placed on a throne of state; and the King of the Goths, who assumed, on this occasion, the Roman habit, contented himself with a less honorable seat by her side. The nuptial gift which, according to the custom of his nation, was offered to Placidia, consisted of the rare and magnificent spoils of her country. Fifty beautiful youths, in silken robes, carried a basin in each hand; and one of these basins was filled with pieces of gold, the other with precious stones of an inestimable value. Attalus, so long the sport of fortune and of the Goths, was appointed to lead the chorus of the hymeneal song; and the degraded Emperor might aspire to the praise of a skilful musician. The Barbarians enjoyed the insolence of their triumph; and the provincials rejoiced in this alliance, which tempered, by the mild influence of love and reason, the fierce spirit of their Gothic lord.

After the deliverance of Italy from the oppression of the Goths, some secret counsellor was permitted, amid the factions of the palace, to heal the wounds of that afflicted country. By a wise and humane regulation the eight provinces which had been the most deeply injured, Campania, Tuscany, Picenum, Samnium, Apulia, Calabria, Bruttium, and Lucania, obtained an indulgence of five years; the ordinary tribute was reduced to one-fifth, and even that fifth was destined to restore and support the useful institution of the public posts. By another law, the lands which had been left without inhabitants or cultivation were granted, with some diminution of taxes, to the neighbors who should occupy or the strangers who should solicit them; and the new possessors were secured against the future claims of the fugitive proprietors. About the same time a general amnesty was published in the name of Honorius, to abolish the guilt and memory of all the _involuntary_ offences which had been committed by his unhappy subjects during the term of the public disorder and calamity. A decent and respectful attention was paid to the restoration of the capital; the citizens were encouraged to rebuild the edifices which had been destroyed or damaged by hostile fire; and extraordinary supplies of corn were imported from the coast of Africa. The crowds that so lately fled before the sword of the Barbarians were soon recalled by the hopes of plenty and pleasure; and Albinus, prefect of Rome, informed the Court, with some anxiety and surprise, that in a single day he had taken an account of the arrival of fourteen thousand strangers. In less than seven years the vestiges of the Gothic invasion were almost obliterated, and the city appeared to resume its former splendor and tranquillity. The venerable matron replaced her crown of laurel, which had been ruffled by the storms of war; and was still amused, in the last moment of her decay, with the prophecies of revenge, of victory, and of eternal dominion.

FOOTNOTE:

[18]

"The prostrate South to the destroyer yields Her boasted titles and her golden fields; With grim delight the brood of winter view A brighter day and skies of azure hue; Scent the new fragrance of the opening rose, And quaff the pendent vintage as it grows."

See Gray's _Poems_, published by Mr. Mason, p. 197.

HUNS INVADE THE EASTERN ROMAN EMPIRE

ATTILA DICTATES A TREATY OF PEACE

A.D. 441

EDWARD GIBBON

Beyond the Great Wall of China, erected to secure the empire from their encroachments, were numerous tribes of troublesome Hiongnou who, becoming united under one head, were successful in an invasion of that country. These confederated tribes became known as the Huns. Until the advent of M. Deguignes all was dark concerning them. That learned and laborious scholar conceived the idea that the Huns might be thus identified, and has written the history from Chinese sources, of those who since that time have poured down upon the civilized countries of Asia and Europe and wasted them. Boulger also identifies these tribes with the Huns of Attila. After driving the Alani across the Danube and compelling them to seek an asylum within the borders of the Roman Empire, the terrible Huns had halted in their march westward for something more than a generation. They were hovering, meantime, on the eastern frontiers of the empire, "taking part like other barbarians in its disturbances and alliances." Emperors paid them tribute, and Roman generals kept up a politic or a questionable correspondence with them. Stilicho had detachments of Huns in the armies which fought against Alaric, King of the Goths, the greatest Roman soldier after Stilicho--and, like Stilicho, of barbarian parentage--Aetius, who was to be their most formidable antagonist, had been a hostage and messmate in their camps. All historians agree that the influx of these barbaric peoples hastened, more than any other cause, the rapid decline of the great empire which the Romans had built up.

About A.D. 433 Attila, equally famous in history and legend, became the King of the Huns. The attraction of his daring character, and of his genius for the war which nomadic tribes delight in, gave him absolute ascendency over his nation, and over the Teutonic and Slavonic tribes near him. Like other conquerors of his race he imagined and attempted an empire of ravage and desolation, a vast hunting ground and preserve, in which men and their works should supply the objects and zest of the chase.

The gradual encroachments of the Huns on the northern frontiers of the Roman domain led to a terrific war in 441. Attila was king. His first assault upon the Roman power was directed against the Eastern Empire. The court at Constantinople had been duly obsequious to him, but he found a pretext for war. The dreadful ravages of his hordes and the shameful treaty which he forced upon the empire form a thrilling yet terrible chapter in the history of the world.

The western world was oppressed by the Goths and Vandals, who fled before the Huns; but the achievements of the Huns themselves were not adequate to their power and prosperity. Their victorious hordes had spread from the Volga to the Danube; but the public force was exhausted by the discord of independent chieftains; their valor was idly consumed in obscure and predatory excursions; and they often degraded their national dignity by condescending, for the hopes of spoil, to enlist under the banners of their fugitive enemies. In the reign of Attila the Huns again became the terror of the world; and I shall now describe the character and actions of that formidable Barbarian; who alternately insulted and invaded the East and the West, and urged the rapid downfall of the Roman Empire.

In the tide of emigration which impetuously rolled from the confines of China to those of Germany, the most powerful and populous tribes may commonly be found on the verge of the Roman provinces. The accumulated weight was sustained for a while by artificial barriers; and the easy condescension of the emperors invited, without satisfying, the insolent demands of the Barbarians, who had acquired an eager appetite for the luxuries of civilized life. The Hungarians, who ambitiously insert the name of Attila among their native kings, may affirm with truth that the hordes, which were subject to his uncle Roas, or Rugilas, had formed their encampments within the limits of modern Hungary,[19] in a fertile country, which liberally supplied the wants of a nation of hunters and shepherds. In this advantageous situation, Rugilas and his valiant brothers, who continually added to their power and reputation, commanded the alternative of peace or war with the two empires. His alliance with the Romans of the West was cemented by his personal friendship for the great Aetius, who was always secure of finding, in the Barbarian camp, a hospitable reception and a powerful support. At his solicitation, and in the name of John the Usurper, sixty thousand Huns advanced to the confines of Italy; their march and their retreat were alike expensive to the State; and the grateful policy of Aetius abandoned the possession of Pannonia to his faithful confederates.

The Romans of the East were not less apprehensive of the arms of Rugilas, which threatened the provinces, or even the capital. Some ecclesiastical historians have destroyed the Barbarians with lightning and pestilence; but Theodosius was reduced to the more humble expedient of stipulating an annual payment of three hundred and fifty pounds of gold, and of disguising this dishonorable tribute by the title of general, which the King of the Huns condescended to accept. The public tranquillity was frequently interrupted by the fierce impatience of the Barbarians and the perfidious intrigues of the Byzantine court. Four dependent nations, among whom we may distinguish the Bavarians, disclaimed the sovereignty of the Huns; and their revolt was encouraged and protected by a Roman alliance, till the just claims and formidable power of Rugilas were effectually urged by the voice of Eslaw his ambassador. Peace was the unanimous wish of the senate: their decree was ratified by the Emperor; and two ambassadors were named, Plinthas, a general of Scythian extraction, but of consular rank; and the quæstor Epigenes, a wise and experienced statesman, who was recommended to that office by his ambitious colleague.

The death of Rugilas suspended the progress of the treaty. His two nephews, Attila and Bleda, who succeeded to the throne of their uncle, consented to a personal interview with the ambassadors of Constantinople; but as they proudly refused to dismount, the business was transacted on horseback, in a spacious plain near the city of Margus, in the Upper Mæsia. The kings of the Huns assumed the solid benefits, as well as the vain honors, of the negotiation. They dictated the conditions of peace, and each condition was an insult on the majesty of the empire. Besides the freedom of a safe and plentiful market on the banks of the Danube, they required that the annual contribution should be augmented from three hundred and fifty to seven hundred pounds of gold; that a fine or ransom of eight pieces of gold should be paid for every Roman captive who had escaped from his Barbarian master; that the Emperor should renounce all treaties and engagements with the enemies of the Huns; and that all the fugitives who had taken refuge in the court or provinces of Theodosius should be delivered to the justice of their offended sovereign. This justice was rigorously inflicted on some unfortunate youths of a royal race. They were crucified on the territories of the empire, by the command of Attila: and as soon as the King of the Huns had impressed the Romans with the terror of his name, he indulged them in a short and arbitrary respite, while he subdued the rebellious or independent nations of Scythia and Germany.

Attila, the son of Mundzuk, deduced his noble, perhaps his regal, descent from the ancient Huns, who had formerly contended with the monarchs of China. His features, according to the observation of a Gothic historian, bore the stamp of his national origin; and the portrait of Attila exhibits the genuine deformity of a modern Calmuk; a large head, a swarthy complexion, small, deep-seated eyes, a flat nose, a few hairs in the place of a beard, broad shoulders, and a short square body, of nervous strength, though of a disproportioned form. The haughty step and demeanor of the King of the Huns expressed the consciousness of his superiority above the rest of mankind; and he had a custom of fiercely rolling his eyes, as if he wished to enjoy the terror which he inspired. Yet this savage hero was not inaccessible to pity; his suppliant enemies might confide in the assurance of peace or pardon; and Attila was considered by his subjects as a just and indulgent master.

He delighted in war; but, after he had ascended the throne in a mature age, his head, rather than his hand, achieved the conquest of the North; and the fame of an adventurous soldier was usefully exchanged for that of a prudent and successful general. The effects of personal valor are so inconsiderable, except in poetry or romance, that victory, even among Barbarians, must depend on the degree of skill with which the passions of the multitude are combined and guided for the service of a single man. The Scythian conquerors, Attila and Zingis, surpassed their rude countrymen in art rather than in courage; and it may be observed that the monarchies, both of the Huns and of the Moguls, were erected by their founders on the basis of popular superstition. The miraculous conception, which fraud and credulity ascribed to the virgin-mother of Zingis, raised him above the level of human nature; and the naked prophet, who in the name of the Deity invested him with the empire of the earth, pointed the valor of the Moguls with irresistible enthusiasm.

The religious arts of Attila were not less skilfully adapted to the character of his age and country. It was natural enough that the Scythians should adore, with peculiar devotion, the god of war; but as they were incapable of forming either an abstract idea or a corporeal representation, they worshipped their tutelar deity under the symbol of an iron cimeter. One of the shepherds of the Huns perceived, that a heifer, who was grazing, had wounded herself in the foot, and curiously followed the track of the blood, till he discovered, among the long grass, the point of an ancient sword, which he dug out of the ground and presented to Attila. That magnanimous, or rather that artful, prince accepted, with pious gratitude, this celestial favor, and, as the rightful possessor of the _sword of Mars,_ asserted his divine and indefeasible claim to the dominion of the earth. If the rites of Scythia were practised on this solemn occasion, a lofty altar, or rather pile of fagots, three hundred yards in length and in breadth, was raised in a spacious plain; and the sword of Mars was placed erect on the summit of this rustic altar, which was annually consecrated by the blood of sheep, horses, and of the hundredth captive.

Whether human sacrifices formed any part of the worship of Attila, or whether he propitiated the god of war with the victims which he continually offered in the field of battle, the favorite of Mars soon acquired a sacred character, which rendered his conquests more easy and more permanent; and the Barbarian princes confessed, in the language of devotion or flattery, that they could not presume to gaze, with a steady eye, on the divine majesty of the King of the Huns. His brother Bleda, who reigned over a considerable part of the nation, was compelled to resign his sceptre and his life. Yet even this cruel act was attributed to a supernatural impulse; and the vigor with which Attila wielded the sword of Mars convinced the world that it had been reserved alone for his invincible arm. But the extent of his empire affords the only remaining evidence of the number and importance of his victories; and the Scythian monarch, however ignorant of the value of science and philosophy, might perhaps lament that his illiterate subjects were destitute of the art which could perpetuate the memory of his exploits.

If a line of separation were drawn between the civilized and the savage climates of the globe; between the inhabitants of cities, who cultivated the earth, and the hunters and shepherds, who dwelt in tents, Attila might aspire to the title of supreme and sole monarch of the Barbarians. He alone, among the conquerors of ancient and modern times, united the two mighty kingdoms of Germany and Scythia; and those vague appellations, when they are applied to his reign, may be understood with an ample latitude. Thuringia, which stretched beyond its actual limits as far as the Danube, was in the number of his provinces; he interposed, with the weight of a powerful neighbor, in the domestic affairs of the Franks; and one of his lieutenants chastised, and almost exterminated, the Burgundians of the Rhine. He subdued the islands of the ocean, the kingdoms of Scandinavia, encompassed and divided by the waters of the Baltic; and the Huns might derive a tribute of furs from that northern region, which has been protected from all other conquerors by the severity of the climate and the courage of the natives.

Toward the east, it is difficult to circumscribe the dominion of Attila over the Scythian deserts: yet we may be assured that he reigned on the banks of the Volga; that the King of the Huns was dreaded, not only as a warrior, but as a magician; that he insulted and vanquished the khan of the formidable Geougen; and that he sent ambassadors to negotiate an equal alliance with the empire of China. In the proud review of the nations who acknowledged the sovereignty of Attila, and who never entertained, during his lifetime, the thought of a revolt, the Gepidæ and the Ostrogoths were distinguished by their numbers, their bravery, and the personal merit of their chiefs. The renowned Ardaric, King of the Gepidæ, was the faithful and sagacious counsellor of the monarch, who esteemed his intrepid genius, while he loved the mild and discreet virtues of the noble Walamir, King of the Ostrogoths. The crowd of vulgar kings, the leaders of so many martial tribes, who served under the standard of Attila, were ranged in the submissive order of guards and domestics round the person of their master. They watched his nod; they trembled at his frown; and at the first signal of his will they executed, without murmur or hesitation, his stern and absolute commands. In time of peace the dependent princes, with their national troops, attended the royal camp in regular succession; but when Attila collected his military force he was able to bring into the field an army of five or, according to another account, of seven hundred thousand Barbarians.

The ambassadors of the Huns might awaken the attention of Theodosius, by reminding him that they were his neighbors both in Europe and Asia; since they touched the Danube on one hand, and reached, with the other, as far as the Tanais. In the reign of his father Arcadius, a band of adventurous Huns had ravaged the provinces of the East, from whence they brought away rich spoils and innumerable captives. They advanced, by a secret path, along the shores of the Caspian Sea; traversed the snowy mountains of Armenia; passed the Tigris, the Euphrates, and the Halys; recruited their weary cavalry with the generous breed of Cappadocian horses: occupied the hilly country of Cilicia, and disturbed the festal songs and dances of the citizens of Antioch.

Egypt trembled at their approach; and the monks and pilgrims of the Holy Land prepared to escape their fury by a speedy embarkation. The memory of this invasion was still recent in the minds of the orientals. The subjects of Attila might execute, with superior forces, the design which these adventurers had so boldly attempted; and it soon became the subject of anxious conjecture whether the tempest would fall on the dominions of Rome or of Persia. Some of the great vassals of the King of the Huns, who were themselves in the rank of powerful princes, had been sent to ratify an alliance and society of arms with the Emperor, or rather with the general, of the West. They related, during their residence at Rome, the circumstances of an expedition which they had lately made into the East.

After passing a desert and a morass, supposed by the Romans to be the lake Mæotis, they penetrated through the mountains, and arrived, at the end of fifteen days' march, on the confines of Media; where they advanced as far as the unknown cities of Basic and Cursic. They encountered the Persian army in the plains of Media; and the air, according to their own expression, was darkened by a cloud of arrows. But the Huns were obliged to retire before the numbers of the enemy. Their laborious retreat was effected by a different road; they lost the greater part of their booty; and at length returned to the royal camp, with some knowledge of the country, and an impatient desire of revenge. In the free conversation of the imperial ambassadors, who discussed, at the court of Attila, the character and designs of their formidable enemy, the ministers of Constantinople expressed their hope that his strength might be diverted and employed in a long and doubtful contest with the princes of the house of Sassan.

The more sagacious Italians admonished their eastern brethren of the folly and danger of such a hope; and convinced them, that the Medes and Persians were incapable of resisting the arms of the Huns; and that the easy and important acquisition would exalt the pride, as well as power, of the conqueror. Instead of contenting himself with a moderate contribution and a military title, which equalled him only to the generals of Theodosius, Attila would proceed to impose a disgraceful and intolerable yoke on the necks of the prostrate and captive Romans, who would then be encompassed, on all sides, by the empire of the Huns.

While the powers of Europe and Asia were solicitous to avert the impending danger, the alliance of Attila maintained the Vandals in the possession of Africa. An enterprise had been concerted between the courts of Ravenna and Constantinople for the recovery of that valuable province; and the ports of Sicily were already filled with the military and naval forces of Theodosius. But the subtle Genseric, who spread his negotiations round the world, prevented their designs, by exciting the King of the Huns to invade the Eastern Empire; and a trifling incident soon became the motive, or pretence, of a destructive war. Under the faith of the treaty of Margus, a free market was held on the northern side of the Danube, which was protected by a Roman fortress surnamed Constantia. A troop of Barbarians violated the commercial security, killed or dispersed the unsuspecting traders, and levelled the fortress with the ground. The Huns justified this outrage as an act of reprisal, alleged that the Bishop of Margus had entered their territories to discover and steal a secret treasure of their kings, and sternly demanded the guilty prelate, the sacrilegious spoil, and the fugitive subjects who had escaped from the justice of Attila.

The refusal of the Byzantine court was the signal of war; and the Mæsians at first applauded the generous firmness of their sovereign. But they were soon intimidated by the destruction of Viminiacum and the adjacent towns; and the people were persuaded to adopt the convenient maxim that a private citizen, however innocent or respectable, may be justly sacrificed to the safety of his country. The Bishop of Margus, who did not possess the spirit of a martyr, resolved to prevent the designs which he suspected. He boldly treated with the princes of the Huns; secured, by solemn oaths, his pardon and reward; posted a numerous detachment of Barbarians, in silent ambush, on the banks of the Danube; and, at the appointed hour, opened, with his own hand, the gates of his episcopal city. This advantage, which had been obtained by treachery, served as a prelude to more honorable and decisive victories.

The Illyrian frontier was covered by a line of castles and fortresses; and though the greatest part of them consisted only of a single tower, with a small garrison, they were commonly sufficient to repel or to intercept the inroads of an enemy who was ignorant of the art and impatient of the delay of a regular siege. But these slight obstacles were instantly swept away by the inundation of the Huns. They destroyed, with fire and sword, the populous cities of Sirmium and Singidunum, of Ratiaria and Marcianopolis, of Naissus and Sardica; where every circumstance of the discipline of the people and the construction of the buildings had been gradually adapted to the sole purpose of defence. The whole breadth of Europe, as it extends above five hundred miles from the Euxine to the Hadriatic, was at once invaded and occupied and desolated by the myriads of Barbarians whom Attila led into the field. The public danger and distress could not, however, provoke Theodosius to interrupt his amusements and devotion or to appear in person at the head of the Roman legions.

But the troops which had been sent against Genseric were hastily recalled from Sicily; the garrisons on the side of Persia were exhausted; and a military force was collected in Europe, formidable by their arms and numbers, if the generals had understood the science of command and their soldiers the duty of obedience. The armies of the Eastern Empire were vanquished in three successive engagements; and the progress of Attila may be traced by the fields of battle. The two former, on the banks of the Utus and under the walls of Marcianapolis, were fought in the extensive plains between the Danube and Mount Hæmus. As the Romans were pressed by a victorious enemy, they gradually and unskilfully retired toward the Chersonesus of Thrace; and that narrow peninsula, the last extremity of the land, was marked by their third, and irreparable, defeat.

By the destruction of this army Attila acquired the indisputable possession of the field. From the Hellespont to Thermopylæ, and the suburbs of Constantinople, he ravaged, without resistance and without mercy, the provinces of Thrace and Macedonia. Heraclea and Hadrianople might, perhaps, escape this dreadful irruption of the Huns; but the words, the most expressive of total extirpation and erasure, are applied to the calamities which they inflicted on seventy cities of the Eastern Empire. Theodosius, his court, and the unwarlike people were protected by the walls of Constantinople; but those waits had been shaken by a recent earthquake, and the fall of fifty-eight towers had opened a large and tremendous breach. The damage indeed was speedily repaired; but this accident was aggravated by a superstitious fear, that heaven itself had delivered the imperial city to the shepherds of Scythia, who were strangers to the laws, the language, and the religion of the Romans.

In all their invasions of the civilized empires of the South, the Scythian shepherds have been uniformly actuated by a savage and destructive spirit. The laws of war, that restrain the exercise of national rapine and murder, are founded on two principles of substantial interest: the knowledge of the permanent benefits which may be obtained by a moderate use of conquest; and a just apprehension, lest the desolation which we inflict on the enemy's country may be retaliated on our own. But these considerations of hope and fear are almost unknown in the pastoral state of nations. The Huns of Attila may, without injustice, be compared to the Moguls and Tartars, before their primitive manners were changed by religion and luxury.

After the Moguls had subdued the northern provinces of China, it was seriously proposed, not in the hour of victory and passion, but in calm deliberate council, to exterminate all the inhabitants of that populous country, that the vacant land might be converted to the pasture of cattle. The firmness of a Chinese mandarin, who insinuated some principles of rational policy into the mind of Genghis, diverted him from the execution of this horrid design. But in the cities of Asia, which yielded to the Moguls, the inhuman abuse of the rights of war was exercised with a regular form of discipline, which may, with equal reason, though not with equal authority, be imputed to the victorious Huns. The inhabitants, who had submitted to their discretion, were ordered to evacuate their houses, and to assemble in some plain adjacent to the city; where a division was made of the vanquished into three parts. The first class consisted of the soldiers of the garrison, and of the young men capable of bearing arms; and their fate was instantly decided; they were either enlisted among the Moguls, or they were massacred on the spot by the troops, who, with pointed spears and bended bows, had formed a circle round-the captive multitude. The second class, composed of the young and beautiful women, of the artificers of every rank and profession, and of the more wealthy or honorable citizens, from whom a private ransom might be expected, was distributed in equal or proportionable lots. The remainder, whose life or death was alike useless to the conquerors, were permitted to return to the city; which, in the mean while, had been stripped of its valuable furniture; and a tax was imposed on those wretched inhabitants for the indulgence of breathing their native air.

Such was the behavior of the Moguls, when they were not conscious of any extraordinary rigor. But the most casual provocation, the slightest motive of caprice or convenience, often provoked them to involve a whole people in an indiscriminate massacre; and the ruin of some flourishing cities was executed with such unrelenting perseverance that, according to their own expression, horses might run, without stumbling, over the ground where they had once stood. The three great capitals of Khorassan, and Maru, Neisabour, and Herat, were destroyed by the armies of Genghis, and the exact account which was taken of the slain amounted to four million three hundred and forty-seven thousand persons. Timur, or Tamerlane, was educated in a less barbarous age, and in the profession of the Mahometan religion; yet, if Attila equalled the hostile ravages of Tamerlane,[20] either the Tartar or the Hun might deserve the epithet of the "Scourge of God."

It may be affirmed, with bolder assurance, that the Huns depopulated the provinces of the Empire, by the murder of Roman subjects whom they led away into captivity. In the hands of a wise legislator, such an industrious colony might have contributed to diffuse through the deserts of Scythia the rudiments of the useful and ornamental arts; but these captives, who had been taken in war, were accidentally dispersed among the hordes that obeyed the empire of Attila. The estimate of their respective value was formed by the simple judgment of unenlightened and unprejudiced Barbarians. Perhaps they might not understand the merit of a theologian, profoundly skilled in the controversies of the Trinity and the Incarnation; yet they respected the ministers of every religion; ind the active zeal of the Christian missionaries, without approaching the person or the palace of the monarch, successfully labored in the propagation of the Gospel.

The pastoral tribes, who were ignorant of the distinction of landed property, must have disregarded the use, as well as the abuse, of civil jurisprudence; and the skill of an eloquent lawyer could excite only their contempt or their abhorrence. The perpetual intercourse of the Huns and the Goths had communicated the familiar knowledge of the two national dialects; and the Barbarians were ambitious of conversing in Latin, the military idiom even of the Eastern Empire. But they disdained the language and the sciences of the Greeks; and the vain sophist, or grave philosopher, who had enjoyed the flattering applause of the schools, was mortified to find that his robust servant was a captive of more value and importance than himself. The mechanic arts were encouraged and esteemed, as they tended to satisfy the wants of the Huns. An architect in the service of Onegesius, one of the favorites of Attila, was employed to construct a bath; but this work was a rare example of private luxury; and the trades of the smith, the carpenter, the armorer, were much more adapted to supply a wandering people with the useful instruments of peace and war.

But the merit of the physician was received with universal favor and respect: the Barbarians, who despised death, might be apprehensive of disease; and the haughty conqueror trembled in the presence of a captive to whom he ascribed perhaps an imaginary power of prolonging or preserving his life. The Huns might be provoked to insult the misery of their slaves, over whom they exercised a despotic command; but their manners were not susceptible of a refined system of oppression; and the efforts of courage and diligence were often recompensed by the gift of freedom. The historian Priscus, whose embassy is a source of curious instruction, was accosted in the camp of Attila by a stranger, who saluted him in the Greek language, but whose dress and figure displayed the appearance of a wealthy Scythian. In the siege of Viminiacum he had lost, according to his own account, his fortune and liberty; he became the slave of Onegesius; but his faithful services, against the Romans and the Acatzires, had gradually raised him to the rank of the native Huns; to whom he was attached by the domestic pledges of a new wife and several children. The spoils of war had restored and improved his private property; he was admitted to the table of his former lord; and the apostate Greek blessed the hour of his captivity, since it had been the introduction to a happy and independent state, which he held by the honorable tenure of military service.

This reflection naturally produced a dispute on the advantages and defects of the Roman government, which was severely arraigned by the apostate, and defended by Priscus in a prolix and feeble declamation. The freedman of Onegesius exposed, in true and lively colors, the vices of a declining empire, of which he had so long been the victim; the cruel absurdity of the Roman princes, unable to protect their subjects against the public enemy, unwilling to trust them with arms for their own defence; the intolerable weight of taxes, rendered still more oppressive by the intricate or arbitrary modes of collection; the obscurity of numerous and contradictory laws; the tedious and expensive forms of judicial proceedings; the partial administration of justice; and the universal corruption, which increased the influence of the rich and aggravated the misfortunes of the poor. A sentiment of patriotic sympathy was at length revived in the breast of the fortunate exile: and he lamented, with a flood of tears, the guilt or weakness of those magistrates who had perverted the wisest and most salutary institutions.

The timid or selfish policy of the Western Romans had abandoned the Eastern Empire to the Huns. The loss of armies, and the want of discipline or virtue, were not supplied by the personal character of the monarch. Theodosius might still affect the style, as well as the title, of "Invincible Augustus"; but he was reduced to solicit the clemency of Attila, who imperiously dictated these harsh and humiliating conditions of peace:

I. The Emperor of the East resigned, by an express or tacit convention, an extensive and important territory, which stretched along the southern banks of the Danube, from Singidunum, or Belgrade, as far as Novæ, in the diocese of Thrace. The breadth was defined by the vague computation of fifteen days' journey; but, from the proposal of Attila to remove the situation of the national market, it soon appeared that he comprehended the ruined city of Naissus within the limits of his dominions.

II. The King of the Huns required and obtained that his tribute or subsidy should be augmented from seven hundred pounds of gold to the annual sum of two thousand one hundred; and he stipulated the immediate payment of six thousand pounds of gold to defray the expenses or to expiate the guilt of the war. One might imagine that such a demand, which scarcely equalled the measure of private wealth, would have been readily discharged by the opulent Empire of the East; and the public distress affords a remarkable proof of the impoverished, or at least of the disorderly, state of the finances. A large proportion of the taxes extorted from the people was detained and intercepted in their passage, through the foulest channels, to the treasury of Constantinople. The revenue was dissipated by Theodosius and his favorites in wasteful and profuse luxury, which was disguised by the name of imperial magnificence or Christian charity. The immediate supplies had been exhausted by the unforeseen necessity of military preparations. A personal contribution, rigorously but capriciously imposed on the members of the senatorian order, was the only expedient that could disarm, without loss of time, the impatient avarice of Attila; and the poverty of the nobles compelled them to adopt the scandalous resource of exposing to public auction the jewels of their wives and the hereditary ornaments of their palaces.

III. The King of the Huns appears to have established, as a principle of national jurisprudence, that he could never lose the property, which he had once acquired, in the persons who had yielded either a voluntary or reluctant submission to his authority. From this principle he concluded, and the conclusions of Attila were irrevocable laws, that the Huns, who had been, taken prisoners in war, should be released without delay and without ransom; that every Roman captive who had presumed to escape should purchase his right to freedom at the price of twelve pieces of gold; and that all the Barbarians who had deserted the standard of Attila should be restored, with out any promise or stipulation of pardon. In the execution of this cruel and ignominious treaty the imperial officers were forced to massacre several loyal and noble deserters who refused to devote themselves to certain death; and the Romans forfeited all reasonable claims to the friendship of any Scythian people, by this public confession, that they were destitute either of faith or power to protect the suppliant who had embraced the throne of Theodosius.

It would have been strange, indeed, if Theodosius had purchased, by the loss of honor, a secure and solid tranquillity, or if his tameness had not invited the repetition of injuries. The Byzantine court was insulted by five or six successive embassies, and the ministers of Attila were uniformly instructed to press the tardy or imperfect execution of the last treaty; to produce the names of fugitives and deserters, who were still protected by the Empire; and to declare, with seeming moderation, that, unless their sovereign obtained complete and immediate satisfaction, it would be impossible for him, were it even his wish, to check the resentment of his warlike tribes. Besides the motives of pride and interest, which might prompt the King of the Huns to continue this train of negotiation, he was influenced by the less honorable view of enriching his favorites at the expense of his enemies. The imperial treasury was exhausted to procure the friendly offices of the ambassadors and their principal attendants, whose favorable report might conduce to the maintenance of peace.

The Barbarian monarch was flattered by the liberal reception of his ministers; he computed, with pleasure, the value and splendor of their gifts, rigorously exacted the performance of every promise which would contribute to their private emolument, and treated as an important business of state the marriage of his secretary Constantius. That Gallic adventurer, who was recommended by Aetius to the King of the Huns, had engaged his service to the ministers of Constantinople, for the stipulated reward of a wealthy and noble wife; and the daughter of Count Saturninus was chosen to discharge the obligations of her country. The reluctance of the victim, some domestic troubles, and the unjust confiscation of her fortune cooled the ardor of her interested lover; but he still demanded, in the name of Attila, an equivalent alliance; and, after many ambiguous delays and excuses, the Byzantine court was compelled to sacrifice to this insolent stranger the widow of Armatius, whose birth, opulence, and beauty placed her in the most illustrious rank of the Roman matrons.

For these importunate and oppressive embassies Attila claimed a suitable return: he weighed, with suspicious pride, the character and station of the imperial envoys; but he condescended to promise that he would advance as far as Sardica to receive any ministers who had been invested with the consular dignity. The council of Theodosius eluded this proposal, by representing the desolate and ruined condition of Sardica, and even ventured to insinuate that every officer of the army or household was qualified to treat with the most powerful princes of Scythia. Maximin, a respectable courtier, whose abilities had been long exercised in civil and military employments, accepted, with reluctance, the troublesome, and perhaps dangerous, commission of reconciling the angry spirit of the King of the Huns.

His friend, the historian Priscus, embraced the opportunity of observing the Barbarian hero in the peaceful and domestic scenes of life: but the secret of the embassy, a fatal and guilty secret, was intrusted only to the interpreter Vigilius. The two last ambassadors of the Huns, Orestes, a noble subject of the Pannonian province, and Edecon, a valiant chieftain of the tribe of the Scyrri, returned at the same time from Constantinople to the royal camp. Their obscure names were afterward illustrated by the extraordinary fortune and the contrast of their sons: the two servants of Attila became the fathers of the last Roman Emperor of the West, and of the first Barbarian King of Italy.

The ambassadors, who were followed by a numerous train of men and horses, made their first halt at Sardica, at the distance of three hundred and fifty miles, or thirteen days' journey, from Constantinople. As the remains of Sardica were still included within the limits of the Empire, it was incumbent on the Romans to exercise the duties of hospitality. They provided, with the assistance of the provincials, a sufficient number of sheep and oxen, and invited the Huns to a splendid, or, at least, a plentiful supper. But the harmony of the entertainment was soon disturbed by mutual prejudice and indiscretion. The greatness of the Emperor and the empire was warmly maintained by their ministers; the Huns, with equal ardor, asserted the superiority of their victorious monarch: the dispute was inflamed by the rash and unseasonable flattery of Vigilius, who passionately rejected the comparison of a mere mortal with the divine Theodosius; and it was with extreme difficulty that Maximin and Priscus were able to divert the conversation, or to soothe the angry minds, of the Barbarians. When they rose from the table, the Imperial ambassador presented Edecon and Orestes with rich gifts of silk robes and Indian pearls, which they thankfully accepted.

Yet Orestes could not forbear insinuating that _he_ had not always been treated with such respect and liberality; and the offensive distinction which was implied, between his civil office and the hereditary rank of his colleague seems to have made Edecon a doubtful friend and Orestes an irreconcilable enemy. After this entertainment they travelled about one hundred miles from Sardica to Naissus. That flourishing city, which had given birth to the great Constantine, was levelled with the ground; the inhabitants were destroyed or dispersed; and the appearance of some sick persons, who were still permitted to exist among the ruins of the churches, served only to increase the horror of the prospect. The surface of the country was covered with the bones of the slain; and the ambassadors, who directed their course to the northwest, were obliged to pass the hills of modern Servia before they descended into the flat and marshy grounds which are terminated by the Danube.

The Huns were masters of the great river: their navigation was performed in large canoes, hollowed out of the trunk of a single tree; the ministers of Theodosius were safely landed on the opposite bank; and their Barbarian associates immediately hastened to the camp of Attila, which was equally prepared for the amusements of hunting or of war. No sooner had Maximin advanced about two miles from the Danube than he began to experience the fastidious insolence of the conqueror. He was sternly forbidden to pitch his tents in a pleasant valley, lest he should infringe the distant awe that was due to the royal mansion. The ministers of Attila pressed him to communicate the business, and the instructions, which he reserved for the ear of their sovereign. When Maximin temperately urged the contrary practice of nations, he was still more confounded to find that the resolutions of the Sacred Consistory, those secrets (says Priscus) which should not be revealed to the gods themselves, had been treacherously disclosed to the public enemy. On his refusal to comply with such ignominious terms, the Imperial envoy was commanded instantly to depart; the order was recalled; it was again repeated; and the Huns renewed their ineffectual attempts to subdue the patient firmness of Maximin.

At length, by the intercession of Scotta, the brother of Onegesius, whose friendship had been purchased by a liberal gift, he was admitted to the royal presence; but, instead of obtaining a decisive answer, he was compelled to undertake a remote journey toward the north, that Attila might enjoy the proud satisfaction of receiving, in the same camp, the ambassadors of the Eastern and Western empires. His journey was regulated by the guides, who obliged him to halt, to hasten his march, or to deviate from the common road, as it best suited the convenience of the King. The Romans, who traversed the plains of Hungary, suppose that they passed _several_ navigable rivers, either in canoes or portable boats; but there is reason to suspect that the winding stream of the Teyss, or Tibiscus, might present itself in different places under different names.

From the contiguous villages they received a plentiful and regular supply of provisions; mead instead of wine, millet in the place of bread, and a certain liquor named _camus_, which, according to the report of Priscus, was distilled from barley.[21] Such fare might appear coarse and indelicate to men who had tasted the luxury of Constantinople; but, in their accidental distress, they were relieved by the gentleness and hospitality of the same Barbarians, so terrible and so merciless in war. The ambassadors had encamped on the edge of a large morass. A violent tempest of wind and rain, of thunder and lightning, overturned their tents, immersed their baggage and furniture in the water, and scattered their retinue, who wandered in the darkness of the night, uncertain of their road, and apprehensive of some unknown danger, till they awakened by their cries the inhabitants of a neighboring village, the property of the widow of Bleda. A bright illumination, and, in a few moments, a comfortable fire of reeds, was kindled by their officious benevolence; the wants, and even the desires, of the Romans were liberally satisfied; and they seem to have been embarrassed by the singular politeness of Bleda's widow, who added to her other favors the gift, or at least the loan, of a sufficient number of beautiful and obsequious damsels.

The sunshine of the succeeding day was dedicated to repose, to collect and dry the baggage, and to the refreshment of the men and horses; but, in the evening, before they pursued their journey, the ambassadors expressed their gratitude to the bounteous lady of the village, by a very acceptable present of silver cups, red fleeces, dried fruits, and Indian pepper. Soon after this adventure, they rejoined the march of Attila, from whom they had been separated about six days, and slowly proceeded to the capital of an empire, which did not contain, in the space of several thousand miles, a single city.

As far as we may ascertain the vague and obscure geography of Priscus, this capital appears to have been seated between the Danube, the Teyss, and the Carpathian hills, in the plains of Upper Hungary, and most probably in the neighborhood of Jezberin, Agria, or Tokay. In its origin it could be no more than an accidental camp, which, by the long and frequent residence of Attila, had insensibly swelled into a huge village, for the reception of his court, of the troops who followed his person, and of the various multitude of idle or industrious slaves and retainers. The baths, constructed by Onegesius, were the only edifice of stone; the materials had been transported from Pannonia; and since the adjacent country was destitute even of large timber, it may be presumed that the meaner habitations of the royal village consisted of straw, or mud, or of canvas. The wooden houses of the more illustrious Huns were built and adorned with rude magnificence, according to the rank, the fortune, or the taste of the proprietors. They seemed to have been distributed with some degree of order and symmetry; and each spot became more honorable as it approached the person of the sovereign.

The palace of Attila, which surpassed all other houses in his dominions, was built entirely of wood, and covered an ample space of ground. The outward enclosure was a lofty wall, or palisade, of smooth square timber, intersected with high towers, but intended rather for ornament than defence. This wall, which seems to have encircled the declivity of the hill, comprehended a great variety of wooden edifices, adapted to the uses of royalty. A separate house was assigned to each of the numerous wives of Attila; and, instead of the rigid and illiberal confinement imposed by Asiatic jealousy, they politely admitted the Roman ambassadors to their presence, their table, and even to the freedom of an innocent embrace. When Maximin offered his presents to Cerce, the principal Queen, he admired the singular architecture of her mansion, the height of the round columns, the size and beauty of the wood, which was curiously shaped or turned, or polished or carved; and his attentive eye was able to discover some taste in the ornaments and some regularity in the proportions.

After passing through the guards, who watched before the gate, the ambassadors were introduced into the private apartment of Cerce. The wife of Attila received their visit sitting, or rather lying, on a soft couch; the floor was covered with a carpet; the domestics formed a circle round the Queen; and her damsels, seated on the ground, where employed in working the variegated embroidery which adorned the dress of the Barbaric warriors. The Huns were ambitious of displaying those riches which were the fruit and evidence of their victories; the trappings of their horses, their swords, and even their shoes were studded with gold and precious stones; and their tables were profusely spread with plates, and goblets, and vases of gold and silver, which had been fashioned by the labor of Grecian artists. The monarch alone assumed the superior pride of still adhering to the simplicity of his Scythian ancestors. The dress of Attila, his arms, and the furniture of his horse were plain, without ornament, and of a single color. The royal table was served in wooden cups and platters; flesh was his only food; and the conqueror of the North never tasted the luxury of bread.

When Attila first gave audience to the Roman ambassadors on the banks of the Danube, his tent was encompassed with a formidable guard. The monarch himself was seated in a wooden chair. His stern countenance, angry gestures, and impatient tone, astonished the firmness of Maximin; but Vigilius had more reason to tremble, since he distinctly understood the menace, that if Attila did not respect the law of nations, he would nail the deceitful interpreter to the cross, and leave his body to the vultures. The Barbarian condescended, by producing an accurate list, to expose the bold falsehood of Vigilius, who had affirmed that no more than seventeen deserters could be found. But he arrogantly declared that he apprehended only the disgrace of contending with his fugitive slaves; since he despised their impotent efforts to defend the provinces which Theodosius had intrusted to their arms: "For what fortress," added Attila, "what city, in the wide extent of the Roman Empire, can hope to exist, secure and impregnable, if it is our pleasure that it should be erased from the earth?"

He dismissed, however, the interpreter, who returned to Constantinople with his peremptory demand of more complete restitution and a more splendid embassy. His anger gradually subsided, and his domestic satisfaction in a marriage which he celebrated on the road with the daughter of Eslam, might perhaps contribute to mollify the native fierceness of his temper. The entrance of Attila into the royal village was marked by a very singular ceremony. A numerous troop of women came out to meet their hero and their King. They marched before him, distributed into long and regular files; the intervals between the files were filled by white veils of thin linen, which the women on either side bore aloft in their hands, and which formed a canopy for a chorus of young virgins, who chanted hymns and songs in the Scythian language. The wife of his favorite Onegesius, with a train of female attendants, saluted Attila at the door of her own house, on his way to the palace; and offered, according to the custom of the country, her respectful homage, by entreating him to taste the wine and meat which she had prepared for his reception. As soon as the monarch had graciously accepted her hospitable gift, his domestics lifted a small silver table to a convenient height, as he sat on horseback; and Attila, when he had touched the goblet with his lips, again saluted the wife of Onegesius, and continued his march.

During his residence at the seat of empire, his hours were not wasted in the recluse idleness of a seraglio; and the King of the Huns could maintain his superior dignity, without concealing his person from the public view. He frequently assembled his council, and gave audience to the ambassadors of the nations; and his people might appeal to the supreme tribunal, which he held at stated times, and, according to the Eastern custom, before the principal gate of his wooden palace. The Romans, both of the East and of the West, were twice invited to the banquets, where Attila feasted with the princes and nobles of Scythia. Maximin and his colleagues were stopped on the threshold, till they had made a devout libation to the health and prosperity of the King of the Huns, and were conducted, after this ceremony, to their respective seats in a spacious hall. The royal table and couch, covered with carpets and fine linen, was raised by several steps in the midst of the hall; and a son, an uncle, or perhaps a favorite king were admitted to share the simple and homely repast of Attila.

Two lines of small tables, each of which contained three or four guests, were ranged in order on either hand; the right was esteemed the most honorable, but the Romans ingenuously confess that they were placed on the left; and that Beric, an unknown chieftain, most probably of the Gothic race, preceded the representatives of Theodosius and Valentinian. The Barbarian monarch received from his cup-bearer a goblet filled with wine, and courteously drank to the health of the most distinguished guest, who rose from his seat and expressed in the same manner his loyal and respectful vows. This ceremony was successively performed for all, or at least, for the illustrious persons of the assembly; and a considerable time must have been consumed, since it was thrice repeated as each course or service was placed on the table. But the wine still remained after the meat had been removed; and the Huns continued to indulge their intemperance long after the sober and decent ambassadors of the two empires had withdrawn themselves from the nocturnal banquet. Yet before they retired, they enjoyed a singular opportunity of observing the manners of the nation in their convivial amusements. Two Scythians stood before the couch of Attila, and recited the verses which they had composed, to celebrate his valor and his victories.

A profound silence prevailed in the hall; and the attention of the guests was captivated by the vocal harmony, which revived and perpetuated the memory of their own exploits; a martial ardor flashed from the eyes of the warriors, who were impatient for battle; and the tears of the old men expressed their generous despair, that they could no longer partake the danger and glory of the field. This entertainment, which might be considered as a school of military virtue, was succeeded by a farce, that debased the dignity of human nature. A Moorish and a Scythian buffoon successively excited the mirth of the rude spectators, by their deformed figure, ridiculous dress, antic gestures, absurd speeches, and the strange, unintelligible confusion of the Latin, the Gothic, and the Hunnic languages; and the hall resounded with loud and licentious peals of laughter. In the midst of this intemperate riot, Attila alone, without a change of countenance, maintained his steadfast and inflexible gravity; which was never relaxed, except on the entrance of Irnac, the youngest of his sons: he embraced the boy with a smile of paternal tenderness, gently pinched him by the cheek, and betrayed a partial affection, which was justified by the assurance of his prophets that Irnac would be the future support of his family and empire.

Two days afterward, the ambassadors received a second invitation: and they had reason to praise the politeness, as well as the hospitality, of Attila. The King of the Huns held a long and familiar conversation with Maximin; but his civility was interrupted by rude expressions and haughty reproaches; and he was provoked, by a motive of interest, to support, with unbecoming zeal, the private claims of his secretary Constantius. "The Emperor," said Attila, "has long promised him a rich wife: Constantius must not be disappointed; nor should a Roman emperor deserve the name of liar." On the third day the ambassadors were dismissed: the freedom of several captives was granted, for a moderate ransom, to their pressing entreaties; and, besides the royal presents, they were permitted to accept from each of the Scythian nobles the honorable and useful gift of a horse. Maximin returned, by the same road, to Constantinople; and though he was involved in an accidental dispute with Beric, the new ambassador of Attila, he flattered himself that he had contributed, by the laborious journey, to confirm the peace and alliance of the two nations.[22]

But the Roman ambassador was ignorant of the treacherous design which had been concealed under the mask of the public faith. The surprise and satisfaction of Edecon, when he contemplated the splendor of Constantinople, had encouraged the interpreter Vigilius to procure for him a secret interview with the eunuch Chrysaphius,[23] who governed the Emperor and the empire. After some previous conversation, and a mutual oath of secrecy, the eunuch, who had not from his own feelings or experience imbibed any exalted notions of ministerial virtue, ventured to propose the death of Attila as an important service, by which Edecon might deserve a liberal share of the wealth and luxury which he admired. The ambassador of the Huns listened to the tempting offer; and professed, with apparent zeal, his ability, as well as readiness, to execute the bloody deed: the design was communicated to the master of the offices, and the devout Theodosius consented to the assassination of his invincible enemy. But this perfidious conspiracy was defeated by the dissimulation, or the repentance, of Edecon; and though he might exaggerate his inward abhorrence for the treason, which he seemed to approve, he dexterously assumed the merit of an early and voluntary confession.

If we _now_ review the embassy of Maximin and the behavior of Attila, we must applaud the Barbarian, who respected the laws of hospitality, and generously entertained and dismissed the minister of a prince who had conspired against his life. But the rashness of Vigilius will appear still more extraordinary, since he returned, conscious of his guilt and danger, to the royal camp, accompanied by his son, and carrying with him a weighty purse of gold, which the favorite eunuch had furnished, to satisfy the demands of Edecon and to corrupt the fidelity of the guards. The interpreter was instantly seized, and dragged before the tribunal of Attila, where he asserted his innocence with specious firmness, till the threat of inflicting instant death on his son extorted from him a sincere discovery of the criminal transaction. Under the name of ransom, or confiscation, the rapacious King of the Huns accepted two hundred pounds of gold for the life of a traitor whom he disdained to punish. He pointed his just indignation against a nobler object. His ambassadors, Eslaw and Orestes, were immediately despatched to Constantinople, with a peremptory instruction, which it was much safer for them to execute than to disobey.

They boldly entered the Imperial presence, with the fatal purse hanging down from the neck of Orestes, who interrogated the eunuch Chrysaphius, as he stood beside the throne, whether he recognized the evidence of his guilt. But the office of reproof was reserved for the superior dignity of his colleague, Eslaw, who gravely addressed the Emperor of the East in the following words: "Theodosius is the son of an illustrious and respectable parent: Attila likewise is descended from a noble race; and _he_ has supported, by his actions, the dignity which he inherited from his father Mundzuk. But Theodosius has forfeited his paternal honors, and, by consenting to pay tribute, has degraded himself to the condition of a slave. It is therefore just, that he should reverence the man whom fortune and merit have placed above him, instead of attempting, like a wicked slave, clandestinely to conspire against his master." The son of Arcadius, who was accustomed only to the voice of flattery, heard with astonishment the severe language of truth: he blushed and trembled, nor did he presume directly to refuse the head of Chrysaphius, which Eslaw and Orestes were instructed to demand.

A solemn embassy, armed with full powers and magnificent gifts, was hastily sent to deprecate the wrath of Attila; and his pride was gratified by the choice of Nomius and Anatolius, two ministers of consular or patrician rank, of whom the one was great treasurer, and the other was master-general of the armies of the East. He condescended to meet these ambassadors on the banks of the river Drenco; and though he at first affected a stern and haughty demeanor, his anger was insensibly mollified by their eloquence and liberality. He condescended to pardon the Emperor, the eunuch, and the interpreter; bound himself by an oath to observe the conditions of peace; released a great number of captives; abandoned the fugitives and deserters to their fate; and resigned a large territory, to the south of the Danube, which he had already exhausted of its wealth and inhabitants. But this treaty was purchased at an expense which might have supported a vigorous and successful war: and the subjects of Theodosius were compelled to redeem the safety of a worthless favorite by oppressive taxes, which they would more cheerfully have paid for his destruction.

FOOTNOTES:

[19] Hungary has been successively occupied by three Scythian colonies: 1. The Huns of Attila; 2. The Abares, in the sixth century; and, 3. The Turks or Magyars, A.D. 889, the immediate and genuine ancestors of the modern Hungarians, whose connection with the two former is extremely faint and remote.

[20] Cherefeddin Ali, his servile panegyrist, would afford us many horrid examples. In his camp before Delhi, Timur massacred one hundred thousand Indian prisoners who had _smiled_ when the army of their countrymen appeared in sight. The people of Ispahan supplied seventy thousand human skulls for the structure of several lofty towers. A similar tax was levied on the revolt of Bagdad; and the exact account, which Cherefeddin was not able to procure from the proper officers, is stated by another historian (Ahmed Arabsiada) at ninety thousand heads.

[21] The Huns themselves still continued to despise the labors of agriculture: they abused the privilege of a victorious nation; and the Goths, their industrious subjects, who cultivated the earth, dreaded their neighborhood, like that of so many ravenous wolves.

[22] The curious narrative of this embassy, which required few observations, and was not susceptible of any collateral evidence, may be found in Priscus. But I have not confined myself to the same order; and I had previously extracted the historical circumstances, which were less intimately connected with the journey, and business, of the Roman ambassadors.

[23] M. de Tillemont has very properly given the succession of chamberlains who reigned in the name of Theodosius. Chrysaphius was the last, and, according to the unanimous evidence of history, the worst of these favorites. His partiality for his godfather, the heresiarch Eutyches, engaged him to persecute the orthodox party.

THE ENGLISH CONQUEST OF BRITAIN

A.D. 449-579

JOHN R. GREEN CHARLES KNIGHT

If we look for the fatherland of the English race, we must, as modern historians have clearly shown, direct our search "far away from England herself." In the fifth century of the Christian era a region in what is now called Schleswig was known by the name of Anglen (England). But the inhabitants of this district are believed to have comprised only a small detached portion of the Engle (English), while the great body of this people probably dwelt within the limits of the present Oldenburg and lower Hanover.

On several sides of Anglen were the homes of various tribes of Saxons and Jutes, and these peoples were all kindred, being members of one branch (Low German) of the Teutonic family. History first finds them becoming united through community of blood, of language, institutions, and customs, although it was too early yet to justify the historian in giving to them the inclusive name of Englishmen. They all, however, had part in the conquest of England, and it was their union in that land that gave birth to the English people.

Little is known of the actual character and life of these people who made the earliest England, but their Germanic inheritance is traceable in their social and political framework, which already prefigured the national organization that through centuries of gradual development became modern England.

Out of their early modes grew the forms of English citizenship and legislation, and the individual and public freedom which has slowly broadened down from generation to generation. Later came the modifying, if not transforming, influence of Christianity, replacing the ancient nature-worship which they took with them to their new home. On these foundations the English race, as it has grown up in the land they made their own, and in other lands to which like men and institutions have been carried, has reared its various structures of nationality.

JOHN R. GREEN

Of the three English tribes the Saxons lay nearest to the empire, and they were naturally the first to touch the Roman world; before the close of the third century indeed their boats appeared in such force in the English Channel as to call for a special fleet to resist them. The piracy of our fathers had thus brought them to the shores of a land which, dear as it is now to Englishmen, had not as yet been trodden by English feet. This land was Britain. When the Saxon boats touched its coast the island was the westernmost province of the Roman Empire. In the fifty-fifth year before Christ a descent of Julius Cæsar revealed it to the Roman world; and a century after Cæsar's landing the emperor Claudius undertook its conquest. The work was swiftly carried out. Before thirty years were over the bulk of the island had passed beneath the Roman sway, and the Roman frontier had been carried to the firths of Forth and of Clyde. The work of civilization followed fast on the work of the sword. To the last indeed the distance of the island from the seat of empire left her less Romanized than any other province of the west. The bulk of the population scattered over the country seem in spite of imperial edicts to have clung to their old law as to their old language, and to have retained some traditional allegiance to their native chiefs. But Roman civilisation rested mainly on city life, and in Britain as elsewhere the city was thoroughly Roman. In towns such as Lincoln or York, governed by their own municipal officers, guarded by massive walls, and linked together by a network of magnificent roads which reached from one end of the island to the other, manners, language, political life, all were of Rome.

For three hundred years the Roman sword secured order and peace without Britain and within, and with peace and order came a wide and rapid prosperity. Commerce sprang up in ports among which London held the first rank; agriculture flourished till Britain became one of the corn-exporting countries of the world; the mineral resources of the province were explored in the tin mines of Cornwall, the lead mines of Somerset or Northumberland, and the iron mines of the Forest of Dean. But evils which sapped the strength of the whole empire told at last, on the province of Britain.

Wealth and population alike declined under a crushing system of taxation, under restrictions which fettered industry, under a despotism which crushed out all local independence. And with decay within came danger from without. For centuries past the Roman frontier had held back the Barbaric world beyond it--the Parthian of the Euphrates, the Numidian of the African desert, the German of the Danube or the Rhine. In Britain a wall drawn from Newcastle to Carlisle bridled the British tribes, the Picts as they were called, who had been sheltered from Roman conquest by the fastnesses of the Highlands.

It was this mass of savage barbarism which broke upon the empire as it sank into decay. In its western dominions the triumph of these assailants was complete. The Franks conquered and colonized Gaul. The West Goths conquered and colonized Spain. The Vandals founded a kingdom in Africa. The Burgundians encamped in the borderland between Italy and the Rhone. The East Goths ruled at last in Italy itself.

It was to defend Italy against the Goths that Rome in the opening of the fifth century withdrew her legions from Britain, and from that moment the province was left to struggle unaided against the Picts. Nor were these its only enemies. While marauders from Ireland, whose inhabitants then bore the name of Scots, harried the west, the boats of Saxon pirates, as we have seen, were swarming off its eastern and southern coasts.

For forty years Britain held bravely out against these assailants; but civil strife broke its powers of resistance, and its rulers fell back at last on the fatal policy by which the empire invited its doom while striving to avert it, the policy of matching barbarian against barbarian. By the usual promises of land and pay a band of warriors was drawn for this purpose from Jutland in 449 with two ealdormen, Hengist and Horsa, at their head.

If by English history we mean the history of Englishmen in the land which from that time they made their own, it is with this landing of Hengist's war band that English history begins. They landed on the shores of the Isle of Thanet at a spot known since as Ebbsfleet. No spot can be so sacred to Englishmen as the spot which first felt the tread of English feet. There is little to catch the eye in Ebbsfleet itself, a mere lift of ground with a few gray cottages dotted over it, cut off nowadays from the sea by a reclaimed meadow and a sea-wall.

But taken as a whole the scene has a wild beauty of its own. To the right the white curve of Ramsgate cliffs looks down on the crescent of Pegwell Bay; far away to the left across gray marsh levels where smoke wreaths mark the site of Richborough and Sandwich the coast line trends dimly toward Deal. Everything in the character of the spot confirms the national tradition which fixed here the landing-place of our fathers; for the physical changes of the country since the fifth century have told little on its main features. At the time of Hengist's landing a broad inlet of sea parted Thanet from the mainland of Britain; and through this inlet the pirate boats would naturally come sailing with a fair wind to what was then the gravel spit of Ebbsfleet.

The work for which the mercenaries had been hired was quickly done; and the Picts are said to have been scattered to the winds in a battle fought on the eastern coast of Britain. But danger from the Pict was hardly over when danger came from the jutes themselves. Their fellow-pirates must have flocked from the channel to their settlement in Thanet; the inlet between Thanet and the mainland was crossed, and the Englishmen won their first victory over the Britons in forcing their passage of the Medway at the village of Aylesford.

A second defeat at the passage of the Cray drove the British forces in terror upon London; but the ground was soon won back again, and it was not till 465 that a series of petty conflicts which had gone on along the shores of Thanet made way for a decisive struggle at Wippedsfleet. Here however the overthrow was so terrible that from this moment all hope of saving northern Kent seems to have been abandoned, and it was only on its southern shore that the Britons held their ground. Ten years later, in 475, the long contest was over, and with the fall of Lymne, whose broken walls look from the slope to which they cling over the great flat of Romney Marsh, the work of the first English conqueror was done.

The warriors of Hengist had been drawn from the Jutes, the smallest of the three tribes who were to blend in the English people. But the greed of plunder now told on the great tribe which stretched from the Elbe to the Rhine, and in 477 Saxon invaders were seen pushing slowly along the strip of land which lay westward of Kent between the weald and the sea. Nowhere has the physical aspect of the country more utterly changed. A vast sheet of scrub, woodland, and waste which then bore the name of the Andredsweald stretched for more than a hundred miles from the borders of Kent to the Hampshire Downs, extending northward almost to the Thames and leaving only a thin strip of coast which now bears the name of Sussex between its southern edge and the sea.

This coast was guarded by a fortress which occupied the spot now called Pevensey, the future landing-place of the Norman Conqueror; and the fall of this fortress of Anderida in 491 established the kingdom of the South Saxons. "Ælle and Cissa beset Anderida," so ran the pitiless record of the conquerors, "and slew all that were therein, nor was there afterward one Briton left."

But Hengist and Ælle's men had touched hardly more than the coast, and the true conquest of Southern Britain was reserved for a fresh band of Saxons, a tribe known as the Gewissas, who landed under Cerdic and Cynric on the shores of the Southampton Water, and pushed in 495 to the great downs or Gwent where Winchester offered so rich a prize. Nowhere was the strife fiercer than here; and it was not till 519 that a decisive victory at Charford ended the struggle for the "Gwent" and set the crown of the West Saxons on the head of Cerdic. But the forest belt around it checked any further advance; and only a year after Charford the Britons rallied under a new leader, Arthur, and threw back the invaders as they pressed westward through the Dorsetshire woodlands in a great overthrow at Badbury or Mount Badon. The defeat was followed by a long pause in the Saxon advance from the southern coast, but while the Gewissas rested, a series of victories whose history is lost was giving to men of the same Saxon tribe the coast district north of the mouth of the Thames.

It is probable, however, that the strength of Camulodunum, the predecessor of our modern Colchester, made the progress of these assailants a slow and doubtful one; and even when its reduction enabled the East Saxons to occupy the territory to which they have given their name of Essex a line of woodland which has left its traces in Epping and Hainault forests checked their farther advance into the island.

Though seventy years had passed since the victory of Aylesford only the outskirts of Britain were won. The invaders were masters as yet but of Kent, Sussex, Hampshire, and Essex. From London to St. David's Head, from the Andredsweald to the Firth of Forth the country still remained unconquered, and there was little in the years which followed Arthur's triumph to herald that onset of the invaders which was soon to make Britain England. Till now its assailants had been drawn from two only of the three tribes whom we saw dwelling by the northern sea, from the Saxons and the jutes. But the main work of conquest was to be done by the third, by the tribe which bore that name of Engle or Englishmen which was to absorb that of Saxon or Jute and to stamp itself on the people which sprang from the union of the conquerors as on the land that they won.

The Engle had probably been settling for years along the coast of Northumbria and in the great district which was cut off from the rest of Britain by the Wash and the Fens, the later East Anglia. But it was not till the moment we have reached that the line of defences which had hitherto held the invaders at bay was turned by their appearance in the Humber and the Trent. This great river line led like a highway into the heart of Britain; and civil strife seems to have broken the strength of British resistance. But of the incidents of this final struggle we know nothing. One part of the English force marched from the Humber over the Yorkshire wolds to found what was called the kingdom of the Deirans.

Under the empire political power had centred in the district between the Humber and the Roman wall; York was the capital of Roman Britain; villas of rich land-owners studded the valley of the Ouse; and the bulk of the garrison maintained in the island lay camped along its northern border. But no record tells us how Yorkshire was won, or how the Engle made themselves masters of the uplands about Lincoln. It is only by their later settlements that we follow their march into the heart of Britain. Seizing the valley of the Don and whatever breaks there were in the woodland that then filled the space between the Humber and the Trent, the Engle followed the curve of the latter river, and struck along the line of its tributary the Soar. Here round the Roman Ratæ, the predecessor of our Leicester, settled a tribe known as the Middle English, while a small body pushed farther southward, and under the name of "South Engle" occupied the oölitic upland that forms our present Northamptonshire.

But the mass of the invaders seem to have held to the line of the Trent and to have pushed westward to its head-waters. Repton, Lichfield, and Tamworth mark the country of these western Englishmen, whose older name was soon lost in that of Mercians, or Men of the March. Their settlement was in fact a new march or borderland between conqueror and conquered; for here the impenetrable fastness of the Peak, the mass of Cannock Chase, and the broken country of Staffordshire enabled the Briton to make a fresh and desperate stand.

It was probably this conquest of Mid-Britain by the Engle that roused the West Saxons to a new advance. For thirty years they had rested inactive within the limits of the Gwent, but in 552 their capture of the hill fort of Old Sarum threw open the reaches of the Wiltshire downs, and a march of King Cuthwulf on the Thames made them masters in 571 of the districts which now form Oxfordshire and Berkshire.

Pushing along the upper valley of Avon to a new battle at Barbury Hill they swooped at last from their uplands on the rich prey that lay along the Severn. Gloucester, Cirencester, and Bath, cities which had leagued under their British kings to resist this onset, became in 577 the spoil of an English victory at Deorham, and the line of the great western river lay open to the arms of the conquerors. Once the West Saxons penetrated to the borders of Chester, and Uriconium, a town beside the Wrekin which has been recently brought again to light, went up in flames. The raid ended in a crushing defeat which broke the West-Saxon strength, but a British poet in verses still left to us sings piteously the death song of Uriconium, "the white town in the valley," the town of white stone gleaming among the green woodlands. The torch of the foe had left it a heap of blackened ruins where the singer wandered through halls he had known in happier days, the halls of its chief Kyndylan, "without fire, without light, without song," their stillness broken only by the eagle's scream, the eagle who "has swallowed fresh drink, heart's blood of Kyndylan the fair."

With the victory of Deorham the conquest of the bulk of Britain was complete. Eastward of a line which may be roughly drawn along the moorlands of Northumberland and Yorkshire through Derbyshire and the Forest of Arden to the Lower Severn, and thence by Mendip to the sea, the island had passed into English hands. Britain had in the main become England. And within this new England a Teutonic society was settled on the wreck of Rome. So far as the conquest had yet gone it had been complete. Not a Briton remained as subject or slave on English ground. Sullenly, inch by inch, the beaten men drew back from the land which their conquerors had won; and eastward of the border line which the English sword had drawn all was now purely English.

CHARLES KNIGHT

"They" [the Romans], says Bede, "resided within the rampart that Severus made across the island, on the south side of it; as the cities, temples, bridges, and paved ways do testify to this day." On the north of the wall were the nations that no severity had reduced to subjection, and no resistance could restrain from plunder. At the extreme west of England were the people of Cornwall, or little Wales, as it was called; having the most intimate relations with the people of Britannia Secunda, or Wales; and both connected with the colony of Armorica. The inhabitants of Cornwall and Wales, we may assume, were almost exclusively of the old British stock. The abandonment of the country by the Romans had affected them far less than that change affected the more cultivated country, that had been the earliest subdued, and for nearly four centuries had received the Roman institutions and adopted the Roman customs.

But in the chief portion of the island, from the southern and eastern coasts to the Tyne and the Solway, there was a mixed population, among whom it would be difficult to trace that common bond which would constitute nationality. The British families of the interior had become mingled with the settlers of Rome and its tributaries to whom grants of land had been assigned as the rewards of military service; and the coasts from the Humber to the Exe had been here and there peopled with northern settlers, who had gradually planted themselves among the Romanized British; and were, we may well believe, among the most active of those who carried forward the commercial intercourse of Britain with Gaul and Italy.

When, therefore, we approach the period of what is termed the Saxon invasion, and hear of the decay, the feebleness, the cowardice, and the misery of the Britons--all which attributes have been somewhat too readily bestowed upon the population which the Romans had left behind--it would be well to consider what these so-called Britons really were, to enable us properly to understand the transition state through which the country passed.

Our first native historian is Gildas, who lived in the middle of the sixth century. "From the early part of the fifth century, when the Greek and Roman writers cease to notice the affairs of Britain, his narrative, on whatever authority it may have been founded, has been adopted without question by Bede and succeeding authors, and accepted, notwithstanding its barrenness of facts and pompous obscurity, by all but general consent, as the basis of early English history." Gibbon has justly pointed out his inconsistencies, his florid descriptions of the flourishing condition of agriculture and commerce after the departure of the Romans, and his denunciations of the luxury of the people; when he, at the same time, describes a race who were ignorant of the arts, incapable of building walls of defence, or of arming themselves with proper weapons. When "this monk," as Gibbon calls him, "who, in the profound ignorance of human life, presumes to exercise the office of historian," tells us that the Romans, who were occasionally called in to aid against the Picts and Scots, "give energetic counsel to the timorous natives, and leave them patterns by which to manufacture arms," we seem to be reading an account of some remote tribe, to whom the Roman sword and buckler were as unfamiliar as the musket was to the Otaheitans when Cook first went among them.

When Gildas describes the soldiers on the wall as "equally slow to fight and ill-adapted to run away"; and tells the remarkable incident which forms part of every schoolboy's belief, that the defenders of the wall were pulled down by great hooked weapons and dashed against the ground, we feel a pity akin to contempt for a people so stupid and passive, and are not altogether sorry that the Picts and Scots, "differing one from another in manners, but inspired with the same avidity for blood," had come with their bushy beards and their half-clothed bodies, to supplant so effeminate a race. When he makes this feeble people send an embassy to a Roman in Gaul to say, "The barbarians drive us to the sea; the sea throws us back on the barbarians: thus two modes of death await us; we are either slain or drowned," we must wonder at the very straitened limits in which this unhappy people were shut up.

Surely much of this is little more than the tumid rhetoric of the cloister; for all the assumptions that have been raised of the physical degeneracy of the people are quite unsupported by any real historical evidence. M. Guizot considers it unjust and cruel to view their humble supplications, so declared by Gildas, to Rome for aid, as evidences of the effeminacy of that nation, whose resistance to the Saxons has given a chapter to history at a time when history has few traces of Italians, Spaniards, and Gauls.

That the representations of Gildas could only be partially true, as applied to some particular districts, is sufficiently proved, by the undoubted fact that within little more than twenty years from the date of these cowardly demonstrations Anthemius, the Emperor, solicited the aid of the Britons against the Visigoths; and twelve thousand men from this island, under one of the native chieftains, Rhiothimus, sailed up the Loire, and fought under the Roman command. They are described by a contemporary Roman writer as quick, well-armed; turbulent and contumacious from their bravery, their numbers, and their common agreement. These were not the people who were likely to have stood upon a wall to be pulled down by hooked weapons. They might have been the people who had clung, more than the other inhabitants of the Roman provinces, to their original language and customs; but it is not improbable that they would have been of the mixed races with whom Rome had been in more intimate relations, and to whom she continued to render offices of friendship after the separation of the island province from her empire.

Amid all this conflict of testimony there is the undoubted fact that out of the Roman municipal institutions had risen the establishment of separate sovereignties, as Procopius relates. Britain, according to St. Jerome, was "a province fertile in tyrants." The Roman municipal government was kept compact and uniform under a great centralizing power. It fell to pieces here, as in Gaul, when that power was withdrawn. It resolved itself into a number of local governments without any principle of cohesion. The vicar of the municipium became an independent ruler and head of a little republic; and that his authority was contested by some who had partaken of his delegated dignity may be reasonably inferred.

The difference of races would also promote the contests for command. If East Anglia contained a preponderance of one race of settlers, and Kent and Sussex of another, they might well quarrel for supremacy. But when all the settlers on the Saxon shore had lost the control and protection of the Count who once governed them, it may also be imagined that the more exclusively British districts would not readily coöperate for defence with those who were more strange to their kindred even than the Roman. All the European Continent was in a state of political dislocation; and we may safely conclude that when the great power was shattered that had so long held the government of the world, the more distant and subordinate branch of its empire would resolve itself into some of the separate elements of authority and of imperfect obedience by which a clan is distinguished from a nation.

Nor was the power of the Christian Church in Britain of a more united character than that of the civil rulers. No doubt a church had been formed and organized. There were bishops, so called, in the several cities; but their authority was little concentrated and their tenets were discordant. Pilgrimages were even made to the sacred places of Palestine; and at a very early period monasteries were founded. That of Bangor, or the Great Circle, seems to have had some relation to the ancient Druidical worship, upon which it was probably engrafted in that region where Druidism had long flourished. There were British versions of the Bible. But that the church had no sustaining power at the period when civil society was so wholly disorganized, may be inferred from circumstances which preceded the complete overthrow of Christian rites by Saxon heathendom.

Bede devotes several chapters of his _Ecclesiastical History_ to the actions of St. Germanus, who came expressly to Britain to put down the Pelagian heresy; and, amid the multitude of miraculous circumstances, records how "the authors of the perverse notions lay hid, and, like the evil spirits, grieved for the loss of the people that was rescued from them. At length, after mature deliberation, they had the boldness to enter the lists, and appeared, being conspicuous for riches, glittering in apparel, and supported by the flatteries of many." The people, according to Bede, were the judges of this great controversy, and gave their voices for the orthodox belief.

Whether the Pelagians were expelled from Britain by reason or by force, it is evident that, in the middle of the fifth century, there was a strong element of religious disunion very generally prevailing; and that at a period when the congregations were in a great degree independent of each other, and therefore difficult of subjection to a common authority, the rich and the powerful had adopted a creed which was opposed to the centralizing rule of the Roman Church, and were arguing about points of faith as strongly as they were contesting for worldly supremacy. Dr. Lappenberg justly points out this celebrated controversy in our country as "indicating the weakness of that religious connection which was so soon to be totally annihilated." We may, in some degree, account for the reception of the doctrine of Pelagius by knowing that he was a Briton, whose plain unlatinized name was Morgan.

Macaulay has startled many a reader of the most familiar histories of England, in saying, "Hengist and Horsa, Vortigern and Rowena, Arthur and Mordred, are mythical persons, whose very existence may be questioned, and whose adventures must be classed with those of Hercules and Romulus." It is difficult to write of a period of which the same writer has said, "an age of fable completely separates two ages of truth." Yet no one knew better than this accomplished historian himself that an age of fable and an age of truth cannot be distinguished with absolute precision. It is not that what is presented to us through the haze of tradition must necessarily be unreal, any more than that what comes to us in an age of literature must be absolutely true. An historical fact, a real personage, may be handed down from a remote age in the songs of bards; but it is not therefore to be inferred that these national lyrics are founded upon pure invention. It is curious to observe that, wandering amid these traces of events and persons that have been shaped into history, how ready we are to walk in the footsteps of some half-fabulous records, and wholly to turn away from others which seem as strongly impressed upon the shifting sands of national existence.

We derive Hengist and Horsa from the old Anglo-Saxon authorities; and modern history generally adopts them. Arthur and Mordred have a Celtic origin, and they are as generally rejected as "mythical persons." It appears to us that it is as precipitate wholly to renounce the one as the other, because they are both surrounded with an atmosphere of the fabulous. Hengist and Horsa come to us encompassed with Gothic traditions that belong to other nations. Arthur presents himself with his attributes of the magician Merlin, and the knights of the Round Table. But are we therefore to deny altogether their historical existence? In following the _ignis fatuus_ of tradition, the credulous annalists of the monastic age were lost in the treacherous ground over which it led them. The more patient research of a critical age sees in that doubtful light a friendly warning of what to avoid, and hence a guide to more stable pathways.

Hengist and Horsa--who, according to the Anglo-Saxon historians, landed in the year 449 on the shore which is called Ebbsfleet--were personages of more than common mark. "They were the sons of Wihtgils; Wihtgils son of Witta, Witta of Wecta, Wecta of Woden." So says the _Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_, and adds, "From this Woden sprang all our royal families." These descendants, in the third generation from the great Saxon divinity, came over in three boats. They came by invitation of Wyrtgeone--Vortigern--King of the Britons. The King gave them land in the southeast of the country, on condition that they should fight against the Picts; and they did fight, and had the victory wheresoever they came. And then they sent for the Angles, and told them of the worthlessness of the people and the excellences of the land. This is the Saxon narrative. The seductive graces of Rowena, the daughter of Horsa, who corrupted the King of the Britons by love and wine, is an embellishment of the British traditions.

Then came the great battles for possession of the land. At Aylesford and Crayford the Kentish Britons were overthrown. Before the Angles the Welsh fled like fire. These events occupy a quarter of a century. While they are going on, the Roman Emperor, as we have mentioned upon indubitable authority, receives an auxiliary force of twelve thousand men from Britain. We cannot rely upon narratives that tell us of _the_ king of the Britons, when we learn from no suspicious sources that the land was governed by many separate chiefs; and which represent a petty band of fugitives as gaining mighty triumphs for a great ruler, and then subduing him themselves in a wonderfully short time.

The pretensions of Hengist and Horsa to be the immediate descendants of Woden would seem to imply their mythical origin. But many Saxon chiefs of undoubted reality rested their pretensions upon a similar genealogy. The myth was as flattering to the Anglo-Saxon pride of descent as the corresponding myth that the ancient inhabitants of the island were descended from the Trojan Brute was acceptable to the British race. But amid much of fable there is the undoubted fact that Germanic tribes were gradually possessing themselves of the fairest parts of Britain--a progressive usurpation, far different from a sudden conquest. Amid the wreck of the social institutions left by Rome, when all that remained of a governing power was centred in the towns, it may be readily conceived that the rich districts of the eastern and southern coasts would be eagerly peopled by new settlers, whose bond of society was founded upon the occupation of the land; and who, extending the area of their occupation, would eventually come into hostile conflict with the previous possessors.

For a century and a half a thick darkness seems to overspread the history of our country. In the Anglo-Saxon writers we can trace little, with any distinctness, beyond the brief and monotonous records of victories and slaughters. Hengist and Æsc slew four troops of Britons with the edge of the sword. Hengist then vanishes, and Ælla comes with his three sons. In 491 they besieged Andres-cester, "and slew all that dwelt therein, so that not a single Briton was there left." Then come Cerdic and Cynric his son; then Port and his two sons, and land at Portsmouth; and so we reach the sixth century. Cerdic and Cynric now stand foremost among the slaughterers, and they establish the kingdom of the West Saxons and conquer the Isle of Wight.

In the middle of the century Ida begins to reign, from whom arose the royal race of North-humbria. In 565 Ethelbert succeeded to the kingdom of the Kentish-men, and held it fifty-three years. The war goes on in the south-midland counties, where Cuthwulf is fighting; and it reaches the districts of the Severn, where Cuthwine and Ceawlin slay great kings, and take Gloucester and Cirencester and Bath. One of these fierce brethren is killed at last, and Ceawlin, "having taken many spoils and towns innumerable, wrathful returned to his own." Where "his own" was we are not informed.

We reach, at length, the year 596, when "Pope Gregory sent Augustin to Britain, with a great many monks, who preached the word of God to the nation of the Angles." Bede very judiciously omits all such details. He tells us that "they carried on the conflagration from the eastern to the western sea, without any opposition, and almost covered all the superfices of the perishing island. Public as well as private structures were overturned; the priests were everywhere slain before the altars; the prelates and the people, without any respect of persons, were destroyed with fire and sword." There is little to add to these impressive words, which no doubt contain the general truth. But if we open the British history of Geoffrey of Monmouth, we find ourselves relieved from the thick darkness of the Anglo-Saxon records, by the blue lights and red lights of the most wondrous romance. Rowena comes with her golden wine-cup. Merlin instructs Vortigern how to discover the two sleeping dragons who hindered the foundation of his tower. Aurelius, the Christian King, burns Vortigern in his Cambrian city of refuge. Eldol fights a duel with Hengist, cuts off his head, and destroys the Saxons without mercy. Merlin the magician, and Uther Pendragon, with fifteen thousand men, bring over "the Giant's Dance" from Ireland, and set it up in Salisbury Plain. Uther Pendragon is made the Christian king over all Britain.

At length we arrive at Arthur, the son of Uther. To him the entire monarchy of Britain belonged by hereditary right. Hoel sends him fifteen thousand men from Armorica, and he makes the Saxons his tributaries; and with his own hand kills four hundred and seventy in one battle. He not only conquers the Saxons, but subdues Gaul, among other countries, and holds his court in Paris. His coronation at the City of the Legions (Caer-Leon) is gorgeous beyond all recorded magnificence; and the general state of the country, in these days of Arthur, before the middle of the sixth century, is thus described: "At that time, Britain had arrived at such a pitch of grandeur that in abundance of riches, luxury of ornaments, and politeness of inhabitants, it far surpassed all other kingdoms." Mordred, the wicked traitor, at length disturbs all this tranquillity and grandeur, and brings over barbarous people from different countries. Arthur falls in battle. The Saxons prevail, and the Britons retire into Cornwall and Wales.

Amid the bewildering mass of the obscure and the fabulous which our history presents of the first century and a half of the Saxon colonization, there are some well-established facts which are borne out by subsequent investigations. Such is Bede's account of the country of the invaders, and the parts in which they settled. This account, compared with other authorities, gives us the following results. They consisted of "the three most powerful nations of Germany--Saxons, Angles, and Jutes." The Saxons came from the parts which, in Bede's time, were called the country of the Old Saxons. That country is now known as the duchy of Holstein. These, under Ella, founded the kingdom of the South Saxons--our present Sussex. Later in the fifth century, the same people, under Cerdic, established themselves in the district extending from Sussex to Devonshire and Cornwall, which was the kingdom of the West Saxons.

Other Saxons settled in Essex and Middlesex. The Angles, says Bede, came from "the country called Angelland, and it is said from that time to remain desert to this day." There is a part of the duchy of Schleswig, to the north of Holstein, which still bears the name of Anglen. These people gave their name to the whole country, Engla-land, or Angla-land, from the greater extent of territory which they permanently occupied. As the Saxons possessed themselves of the southern coasts, the Angles established themselves on the northeastern. Their kingdom of East Anglia comprised Norfolk and Suffolk, as well as part of Cambridgeshire; and they extended themselves to the north of the Humber, forming the powerful state of Northumbria, and carrying their dominion even to the Forth and the Clyde.

The Jutes came from the country north of the Angles, which is in the upper part of the present Schleswig; and they occupied Kent and the Isle of Wight, with that part of Hampshire which is opposite the island. Sir Francis Palgrave is of opinion that "the tribes by whom Britain was invaded appear principally to have proceeded from the country now called Friesland; for of all the continental dialects the ancient Frisick is the one which approaches most nearly to the Anglo-Saxon of our ancestors." Mr. Craik has pointed out that "the modern kingdom of Denmark comprehends all the districts from which issued, according to the old accounts, the several tribes who invaded Britain upon the fall of the Roman Empire. And the Danes proper (who may be considered to represent the Jutes); the Angles, who live between the Bight of Flensborg and the river Schley on the Baltic; the Frisons, who inhabit the islands along the west coast of Jutland, with a part of the bailiwick of Husum in Schleswig; and the Germans of Holstein (Bede's Old Saxons) are still all recognized by geographers and ethnographers as distinct races."

ATTILA INVADES WESTERN ROME

BATTLE OF CHÂLONS

A.D. 451

CREASY GIBBON

After Attila had conquered and laid waste the provinces of the Eastern Empire south of the Danube and exacted heavy tribute from Theodosius II, he turned his attention to the subjugation of the Slavic and Germanic tribes who still remained independent. These, with one exception, he overcame and placed under the sovereignty of his son. He laid claim to one-half of the Western Empire, as the betrothed husband of Valentinian's sister Honoria, from whom he had years before received the offer of her hand in marriage.

In 451, with Genseric, King of the Vandals, for his ally, he invaded Gaul. Before his advance the cities hastened to capitulate, and so complete was his devastation of the country that it came to be a saying that the grass never grew where his horses had trod. But in Aetius, their commander-in-chief under Valentinian III, the Romans had an able general, who was aided by the West Gothic king Theodoric. The West Goths and the Franks, the former from the South, the latter from the North of Gaul, joined him in large numbers, and the allied forces drove the Huns from the walls of Orleans, which he had besieged. From there he retreated to Châlons, where his westward movement was to receive its final check. This decisive event was, in the words of Herbert, "the discomfiture of the mighty attempt of Attila to found a new anti-Christian dynasty upon the wreck of the temporal power of Rome, at the end of the term of twelve hundred years, to which its duration had been limited by the forebodings of the heathen."

SIR EDWARD SHEPHERD CREASY

A broad expanse of plains, the Campi Catalaunici of the ancients, spreads far and wide around the city of Châlons, in the northeast of France. The long rows of poplars, through which the river Marne winds its way, and a few thinly scattered villages, are almost the only objects that vary the monotonous aspect of the greater part of this region. But about five miles from Châlons, near the little hamlets of Chape and Cuperly, the ground is indented and heaped up in ranges of grassy mounds and trenches, which attest the work of man's hands in ages past, and which, to the practised eye, demonstrate that this quiet spot has once been the fortified position of a huge military host.

Local tradition gives to these ancient earthworks the name of Attila's Camp. Nor is there any reason to question the correctness of the title, or to doubt that behind these very ramparts it was that fourteen hundred years ago the most powerful heathen king that ever ruled in Europe mustered the remnants of his vast army, which had striven on these plains against the Christian soldiery of Toulouse and Rome. Here it was that Attila prepared to resist to the death his victors in the field; and here he heaped up the treasures of his camp in one vast pile, which was to be his funeral pyre should his camp be stormed. It was here that the Gothic and Italian forces watched, but dared not assail their enemy in his despair, after that great and terrible day of battle when

"The sound Of conflict was o'erpast, the shout of all Whom earth could send from her remotest bounds, Heathen or faithful; from thy hundred mouths, That feed the Caspian with Riphean snows. Huge Volga! from famed Hypanis, which once Cradled the Hun; from all the countless realms Between Imaus and that utmost strand Where columns of Herculean rock confront The blown Altantic; Roman, Goth, and Hun, And Scythian strength of chivalry, that tread The cold Codanian shore or what far lands Inhospitable drink Cimmerian floods, Franks, Saxons, Suevic, and Sarmatian chiefs, And who from green Armorica or Spain Flocked to the work of death."

The victory which the Roman general Aetius, with his Gothic allies, had then gained over the Huns, was the last victory of imperial Rome. But among the long fasti of her triumphs, few can be found that, for their importance and ultimate benefit to mankind, are comparable with this expiring effort of her arms. It did not, indeed, open to her any new career of conquest--it did not consolidate the relics of her power--it did not turn the rapid ebb of her fortunes. The mission of imperial Rome was, in truth, already accomplished. She had received and transmitted through her once ample dominion the civilization of Greece. She had broken up the barriers of narrow nationalities among the various states and tribes that dwelt around the coasts of the Mediterranean. She had fused these and many other races into one organized empire, bound together by a community of laws, of government and institutions. Under the shelter of her full power the true faith had arisen in the earth, and during the years of her decline it had been nourished to maturity, it had overspread all the provinces that ever obeyed her sway. For no beneficial purpose to mankind could the dominion of the seven-hilled city have been restored or prolonged. But it was all-important to mankind what nations should divide among them Rome's rich inheritance of empire. Whether the Germanic and Gothic warriors should form states and kingdoms out of the fragments of her dominions, and become the free members of the Commonwealth of Christian Europe, or whether pagan savages, from the wilds of central Asia, should crush the relics of classic civilization and the early institutions of the Christianized Germans in one hopeless chaos of barbaric conquest. The Christian Visigoths of King Theodoric fought and triumphed at Châlons side by side with the legions of Aetius. Their joint victory over the Hunnish host not only rescued for a time from destruction the old age of Rome, but preserved for centuries of power and glory the Germanic element in the civilization of modern Europe.

In order to estimate the full importance to mankind of the battle of Châlons we must keep steadily in mind who and what the Germans were, and the important distinctions between them and the numerous other races that assailed the Roman Empire; and it is to be understood that the Gothic and Scandinavian nations are included in the German race. Now, "in two remarkable traits the Germans differed from the Sarmatic as well as from the Slavic nations, and, indeed, from all those other races to whom the Greeks and Romans gave the designation of barbarians. I allude to their personal freedom and regard for the rights of men; secondly, to the respect paid by them to the female sex, and the chastity for which the latter were celebrated among the people of the North. These were the foundations of that probity of character, self-respect, and purity of manners which may be traced among the Germans and Goths even during pagan times, and which, when their sentiments were enlightened by Christianity, brought out those splendid traits of character which distinguish the age of chivalry and romance."

What the intermixture of the German stock with the classic, at the fall of the Western Empire, has done for mankind may be best felt by watching, with Arnold, over how large a portion of the earth the influence of the German element is now extended.

"It affects, more or less, the whole west of Europe, from the head of the Gulf of Bothnia to the most southern promontory of Sicily, from the Oder and the Adriatic to the Hebrides and to Lisbon. It is true that the language spoken over a large portion of this place is not predominantly German; but even in France and Italy, and Spain, the influence of the Franks, Burgundians, Visigoths, Ostrogoths, and Lombards while it has colored even the language, has in blood and institutions left its mark legibly and indelibly. Germany, the Low Countries, Switzerland, for the most part Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, and our own islands are all in language, in blood, and in institutions German most decidedly. But all South America is peopled with Spaniards and Portuguese; all North America and all Australia with Englishmen. I say nothing of the prospects and influence of the German race in Africa and in India; it is enough to say that half of Europe and all America and Australia are German, more or less completely, in race, in language, or in institutions, or in all."

By the middle of the fifth century Germanic nations had settled themselves in many of the fairest regions of the Roman Empire, had imposed their yoke on the provincials, and had undergone, to a considerable extent, that moral conquest which the arts and refinements of the vanquished in arms have so often achieved over the rough victor. The Visigoths held the North of Spain, and Gaul south of the Loire. Franks, Alemanni, Alans, and Burgundians had established themselves in other Gallic provinces, and the Suevi were masters of a large southern portion of the Spanish peninsula. A king of the Vandals reigned in North Africa; and the Ostrogoths had firmly planted themselves in the provinces north of Italy. Of these powers and principalities, that of the Visigoths, under their king Theodoric, son of Alaric, was by far the first in power and in civilization.

The pressure of the Huns upon Europe had first been felt in the fourth century of our era. They had long been formidable to the Chinese empire, but the ascendency in arms which another nomadic tribe of Central Asia, the Sienpi, gained over them, drove the Huns from their Chinese conquest westward; and this movement once being communicated to the whole chain of barbaric nations that dwelt northward of the Black Sea and the Roman Empire, tribe after tribe of savage warriors broke in upon the barriers of civilized Europe. The Huns crossed the Tanais into Europe in 375, and rapidly reduced to subjection the Alans, the Ostrogoths, and other tribes that were then dwelling along the course of the Danube. The armies of the Roman Emperor that tried to check their progress were cut to pieces by them, and Pannonia and other provinces south of the Danube were speedily occupied by the victorious cavalry of these new invaders. Not merely the degenerate Romans, but the bold and hardy warriors of Germany and Scandinavia, were appalled at the number, the ferocity, the ghastly appearance, and the lightning-like rapidity of the Huns. Strange and loathsome legends were coined and credited, which attributed their origin to the union of

"Secret, black, and midnight hags"

with the evil spirits of the wilderness.

Tribe after tribe and city after city fell before them. Then came a pause in their career of conquest in Southwestern Europe, caused probably by dissensions among their chiefs, and also by their arms being employed in attacks upon the Scandinavian nations. But when Attila--or Atzel, as he is called in the Hungarian language--became their ruler, the torrent of their arms was directed with augmented terrors upon the West and the South, and their myriads marched beneath the guidance of one master-mind to the overthrow both of the new and the old powers of the earth.

Recent events have thrown such a strong interest over everything connected with the Hungarian name that even the terrible renown of Attila now impresses us the more vividly through our sympathizing admiration of the exploits of those who claim to be descended from his warriors, and "ambitiously insert the name of Attila among their native kings." The authenticity of this martial genealogy is denied by some writers and questioned by more. But it is at least certain that the Magyars of Arpad, who are the immediate ancestors of the bulk of the modern Hungarians, and who conquered the country which bears the name of Hungary in A.D. 889, were of the same stock of mankind as were the Huns of Attila, even if they did not belong to the same subdivision of that stock. Nor is there any improbability in the tradition that after Attila's death many of his warriors remained in Hungary, and that their descendants afterward joined the Huns of Arpad in their career of conquest. It is certain that Attila made Hungary the seat of his empire. It seems also susceptible of clear proof that the territory was then called Hungvar, and Attila's soldiers Hungvari. Both the Huns of Attila and those of Arpad came from the family of nomadic nations whose primitive regions were those vast wildernesses of High Asia which are included between the Altaic and the Himalayan mountain chains.

The inroads of these tribes upon the lower regions of Asia and into Europe have caused many of the most remarkable revolutions in the history of the world. There is every reason to believe that swarms of these nations made their way into distant parts of the earth at periods long before the date of the Scythian invasion of Asia, which is the earliest inroad of the nomadic race that history records. The first, as far as we can conjecture, in respect to the time of their descent, were the Finnish and Ugrian tribes, who appear to have come down from the Altaic border of High Asia toward the northwest, in which direction they advanced to the Uralian Mountains. There they established themselves; and that mountain chain, with its valleys and pasture lands, became to them a new country, whence they sent out colonies on every side; but the Ugrian colony which under Arpad occupied Hungary and became the ancestors of the bulk of the present Hungarian nation did not quit their settlements on the Uralian Mountains till a very late period, and not until four centuries after the time when Attila led from the primary seats of the nomadic races in High Asia the host with which he advanced into the heart of France. That host was Turkish, but closely allied in origin, language, and habits with the Finno-Ugrian settlers on the Ural.

Attila's fame has not come down to us through the partial and suspicious medium of chroniclers and poets of his own race. It is not from Hunnish authorities that we learn the extent of his might: it is from his enemies, from the literature and the legends of the nations whom he afflicted with his arms, that we draw the unquestionable evidence of his greatness. Besides the express narratives of Byzantine, Latin, and Gothic writers, we have the strongest proof of the stern reality of Attila's conquests in the extent to which he and his Huns have been the themes of the earliest German and Scandinavian lays. Wild as many of those legends are, they bear concurrent and certain testimony to the awe with which the memory of Attila was regarded by the bold warriors who composed and delighted in them.

Attila's exploits, and the wonders of his unearthly steed and magic sword, repeatedly occur in the sagas of Norway and Iceland; and the celebrated _Nibelungenlied_, the most ancient of Germanic poetry, is full of them. There Etsel, or Attila, is described as the wearer of twelve mighty crowns, and as promising to his bride the lands of thirty kings whom his irresistible sword had subdued. He is, in fact, the hero of the latter part of this remarkable poem; and it is at his capital city, Etselenburg, which evidently corresponds to the modern Buda, that much of its action takes place.

When we turn from the legendary to the historic Attila, we see clearly that he was not one of the vulgar herd of barbaric conquerors. Consummate military skill may be traced in his campaigns; and he relied far less on the brute force of armies for the aggrandizement of his empire than on the unbounded influence over the affections of friends and the fears of foes which his genius enabled him to acquire. Austerely sober in his private life--severely just on the judgment seat--conspicuous among a nation of warriors for hardihood, strength, and skill in every martial exercise--grave and deliberate in counsel, but rapid and remorseless in execution, he gave safety and security to all who were under his dominion, while he waged a warfare of extermination against all who opposed or sought to escape from it. He watched the national passions, the prejudices, the creeds, and the superstitions of the varied nations over which he ruled and of those which he sought to reduce beneath his sway: all these feelings he had the skill to turn to his own account. His own warriors believed him to be the inspired favorite of their deities, and followed him with fanatic zeal; his enemies looked on him as the preappointed minister of heaven's wrath against themselves; and though they believed not in his creed, their own made them tremble before him.

In one of his early campaigns he appeared before his troops with an ancient iron sword in his grasp, which he told them was the god of war whom their ancestors had worshipped. It is certain that the nomadic tribes of Northern Asia, whom Herodotus described under the name of Scythians, from the earliest times worshipped as their god a bare sword. That sword-god was supposed, in Attila's time, to have disappeared from earth; but the Hunnish King now claimed to have received it by special revelation. It was said that a herdsman, who was tracking in the desert a wounded heifer by the drops of blood, found the mysterious sword standing fixed in the ground, as if it had darted down from heaven. The herdsman bore it to Attila, who thenceforth was believed by the Huns to wield the Spirit of Death in battle, and their seers prophesied that that sword was to destroy the world. A Roman, who was on an embassy to the Hunnish camp, recorded in his memoirs Attila's acquisition of this supernatural weapon, and the immense influence over the minds of the barbaric tribes which its possession gave him. In the title which he assumed we shall see the skill with which he availed himself of the legends and creeds of other nations as well as of his own. He designated himself "ATTILA, Descendant of the Great Nimrod. Nurtured in Engaddi. By the grace of God, King of the Huns, the Goths, the Danes, and the Medes. The Dread of the World."

Herbert states that Attila is represented on an old medallion with a teraph, or a head, on his breast; and the same writer adds: "We know, from the _Hamartigenea_ of Prudentius, that Nimrod, with a snaky-haired head, was the object of adoration of the heretical followers of Marcion; and the same head was the palladium set up by Antiochus Epiphanes over the gates of Antioch, though it has been called the visage of Charon. The memory of Nimrod was certainly regarded with mystic veneration by many; and by asserting himself to be the heir of that mighty hunter before the Lord, he vindicated to himself at least the whole Babylonian kingdom.

"The singular assertion in his style, that he was nurtured in Engaddi, where he certainly had never been, will be more easily understood on reference to the twelfth chapter of the Book of Revelation, concerning the woman clothed with the sun, who was to bring forth in the wilderness--'where she hath a place prepared of God'--a man-child, who was to contend with the dragon having seven heads and ten horns, and rule all nations with a rod of iron. This prophecy was at that time understood universally by the sincere Christians to refer to the birth of Constantine, who was to overwhelm the paganism of the city on the seven hills, and it is still so explained; but it is evident that the heathens must have looked on it in a different light, and have regarded it as a foretelling of the birth of that Great one who should master the temporal power of Rome. The assertion, therefore, that he was nurtured in Engaddi, is a claim to be looked upon as that man-child who was to be brought forth in a place prepared of God in the wilderness. Engaddi means a place of palms and vines in the desert; it was hard by Zoar, the city of refuge, which was saved in the Vale of Siddim, or Demons, when the rest were destroyed by fire and brimstone from the Lord in heaven, and might, therefore, be especially called a place prepared of God in the wilderness."

It is obvious enough why he styled himself "By the Grace of God, King of the Huns and Goths," and it seems far from difficult to see why he added the names of the Medes and the Danes. His armies had been engaged in warfare against the Persian kingdom of the Sassanidæ, and it is certain that he meditated the invasion and overthrow of the Medo-Persian power. Probably some of the northern provinces of that kingdom had been compelled to pay him tribute; and this would account for his styling himself king of the Medes, they being his remotest subjects to the south. From a similar cause he may have called himself king of the Danes, as his power may well have extended northward as far as the nearest of the Scandinavian nations, and this mention of Medes and Danes as his subjects would serve at once to indicate the vast extent of his dominion.[24]

The immense territory north of the Danube and Black Sea and eastward of Caucasus, over which Attila ruled, first in conjunction with his brother Bleda, and afterward alone, cannot be very accurately defined, but it must have comprised within it, besides the Huns, many nations of Slavic, Gothic, Teutonic, and Finnish origin. South also of the Danube, the country, from the river Sau as far as Novi in Thrace, was a Hunnish province. Such was the empire of the Huns in A.D. 445; a memorable year, in which Attila founded Buda on the Danube as his capital city, and rid himself of his brother by a crime which seems to have been prompted not only by selfish ambition, but also by a desire of turning to his purpose the legends and forebodings which then were universally spread throughout the Roman Empire, and must have been well known to the watchful and ruthless Hun.

The year 445 of our era completed the twelfth century from the foundation of Rome, according to the best chronologers. It had always been believed among the Romans that the twelve vultures, which were said to have appeared to Romulus when he founded the city, signified the time during which the Roman power should endure. The twelve vultures denoted twelve centuries. This interpretation of the vision of the birds of destiny was current among learned Romans, even when there were yet many of the twelve centuries to run, and while the imperial city was at the zenith of its power. But as the allotted time drew nearer and nearer to its conclusion, and as Rome grew weaker and weaker beneath the blows of barbaric invaders, the terrible omen was more and more talked and thought of; and in Attila's time, men watched for the momentary extinction of the Roman State with the last beat of the last vulture's wing. Moreover, among the numerous legends connected with the foundation of the city, and the fratricidal death of Remus, there was one most terrible one, which told that Romulus did not put his brother to death in accident or in hasty quarrel, but that

"He slew his gallant twin With inexpiable sin,"

deliberately and in compliance with the warnings of supernatural powers. The shedding of a brother's blood was believed to have been the price at which the founder of Rome had purchased from destiny her twelve centuries of existence.

We may imagine, therefore, with what terror in this the twelve hundredth year after the foundation of Rome the inhabitants of the Roman Empire must have heard the tidings that the royal brethren Attila and Bleda had founded a new capital on the Danube, which was designed to rule over the ancient capital on the Tiber; and that Attila, like Romulus, had consecrated the foundations of his new city by murdering his brother; so that for the new cycle of centuries then about to commence, dominion had been bought from the gloomy spirits of destiny in favor of the Hun by a sacrifice of equal awe and value with that which had formerly obtained it for the Roman.

It is to be remembered that not only the pagans but also the Christians of that age knew and believed in these legends and omens, however they might differ as to the nature of the superhuman agency by which such mysteries had been made known to mankind. And we may observe with Herbert, a modern learned dignitary of our Church, how remarkably this augury was fulfilled; for "if to the twelve centuries denoted by the twelve vultures that appeared to Romulus we add, for the six birds that appeared to Remus, six _lustra_ or periods of five years each, by which the Romans were wont to number their time, it brings us precisely to the year 476, in which the Roman Empire was finally extinguished by Odoacer."

An attempt to assassinate Attila, made, or supposed to have been made, at the instigation of Theodoric the Younger, the emperor of Constantinople, drew the Hunnish armies, in 445, upon the Eastern Empire, and delayed for a time the destined blow against Rome. Probably a more important cause of delay was the revolt of some of the Hunnish tribes to the north of the Black Sea against Attila, which broke out about this period, and is cursorily mentioned by the Byzantine writers. Attila quelled this revolt, and having thus consolidated his power, and having punished the presumption of the Eastern Roman Emperor by fearful ravages of his fairest provinces, Attila, in 450 A.D., prepared to set his vast forces in motion for the conquest of Western Europe. He sought unsuccessfully by diplomatic intrigues to detach the king of the Visigoths from his alliance with Rome, and he resolved first to crush the power of Theodoric, and then to advance with overwhelming power to trample out the last sparks of the doomed Roman Empire.

A strange invitation from a Roman princess gave him a pretext for the war, and threw an air of chivalric enterprise over his invasion. Honoria, sister of Valentinian III, the emperor of the West, had sent to Attila to offer him her hand and her supposed right to share in the imperial power. This had been discovered by the Romans, and Honoria had been forthwith closely imprisoned. Attila now pretended to take up arms in behalf of his self-promised bride, and proclaimed that he was about to march to Rome to redress Honoria's wrongs. Ambition and spite against her brother must have been the sole motives that led the lady to woo the royal Hun; for Attila's face and person had all the natural ugliness of his race, and the description given of him by a Byzantine ambassador must have been well known in the imperial courts. Herbert has well versified the portrait drawn by Priscus of the great enemy of both Byzantium and Rome:

"Terrific was his semblance, in no mould Of beautiful proportion cast; his limbs Nothing exalted, but with sinews braced Of Chalybean temper, agile, lithe, And swifter than the roe; his ample chest Was overbrow'd by a gigantic head, With eyes keen, deeply sunk, and small, that gleam'd Strangely in wrath as though some spirit unclean Within that corporal tenement install'd Look'd from its windows, but with temper'd fire Beam'd mildly on the unresisting. Thin His beard and hoary; his flat nostrils crown'd A cicatrized, swart visage; but, withal, That questionable shape such glory wore That mortals quail'd beneath him."

Two chiefs of the Franks, who were then settled on the Lower Rhine, were at this period engaged in a feud with each other, and while one of them appealed to the Romans for aid, the other invoked the assistance and protection of the Huns. Attila thus obtained an ally whose coöperation secured for him the passage of the Rhine, and it was this circumstance which caused him to take a northward route from Hungary for his attack upon Gaul. The muster of the Hunnish hosts was swollen by warriors of every tribe that they had subjugated; nor is there any reason to suspect the old chroniclers of wilful exaggeration in estimating Attila's army as seven hundred thousand strong. Having crossed the Rhine probably a little below Coblentz, he defeated the king of the Burgundians, who endeavored to bar his progress. He then divided his vast forces into two armies, one of which marched northwest upon Tongres and Arras and the other cities of that part of France, while the main body, under Attila himself, advanced up the Moselle, and destroyed Besançon and other towns in the country of the Burgundians.

One of the latest and best biographers of Attila well observes that, "having thus conquered the eastern part of France, Attila prepared for an invasion of the West-Gothic territories beyond the Loire. He marched upon Orleans, where he intended to force the passage of that river, and only a little attention is requisite to enable us to perceive that he proceeded on a systematic plan: he had his right wing on the north for the protection of his Frank allies; his left wing on the south for the purpose of preventing the Burgundians from rallying and of menacing the passes of the Alps from Italy; and he led his centre toward the chief object of the campaign--the conquest of Orleans, and an easy passage into the West-Gothic dominion. The whole plan is very like that of the allied powers in 1814, with this difference, that their left wing entered France through the defiles of the Jura, in the direction of Lyons, and that the military object of the campaign was the capture of Paris."

It was not until the year 451 that the Huns commenced the siege of Orleans; and during their campaign in Eastern Gaul, the Roman general Aetius had strenuously exerted himself in collecting and organizing such an army as might, when united to the soldiery of the Visigoths, be fit to face the Huns in the field. He enlisted every subject of the Roman Empire whom patriotism, courage, or compulsion could collect beneath the standards; and round these troops, which assumed the once proud title of the legions of Rome he arrayed the large forces of barbaric auxiliaries, whom pay, persuasion, or the general hate and dread of the Huns brought to the camp of the last of the Roman generals. King Theodoric exerted himself with equal energy. Orleans resisted her besiegers bravely as in after-times. The passage of the Loire was skilfully defended against the Huns; and Aetius and Theodoric, after much manoeuvring and difficulty, effected a junction of their armies to the south of that important river.

On the advance of the allies upon Orleans, Attila instantly broke up the siege of that city and retreated toward the Marne. He did not choose to risk a decisive battle with only the central corps of his army against the combined power of his enemies, and he therefore fell back upon his base of operations, calling in his wings from Arras and Besançon, and concentrating the whole of the Hunnish forces on the vast plains of Châlons-sur-Marne. A glance at the map will show how scientifically this place was chosen by the Hunnish general as the point for his scattered forces to converge upon; and the nature of the ground was eminently favorable for the operations of cavalry, the arm in which Attila's strength peculiarly lay.

It was during the retreat from Orleans that a Christian hermit is reported to have approached the Hunnish King and said to him, "Thou art the Scourge of God for the chastisement of the Christians." Attila instantly assumed this new title of terror, which thenceforth became the appellation by which he was most widely and most fearfully known.

The confederate armies of Romans and Visigoths at last met their great adversary face to face on the ample battleground of the Châlons plains. Aetius commanded on the right of the allies; King Theodoric on the left; and Sangipan, King of the Alans, whose fidelity was suspected, was placed purposely in the centre, and in the very front of the battle. Attila commanded his centre in person, at the head of his own countrymen, while the Ostrogoths, the Gepidæ, and the other subject allies of the Huns were drawn up on the wings.

Some manoeuvring appears to have occurred before the engagement, in which Aetius had the advantage, inasmuch as he succeeded in occupying a sloping hill which commanded the left flank of the Huns. Attila saw the importance of the position taken by Aetius on the high ground, and commenced the battle by a furious attack on this part of the Roman line, in which he seems to have detached some of his best troops from his centre to aid his left. The Romans, having the advantage of the ground, repulsed the Huns, and while the allies gained this advantage on their right, their left, under King Theodoric, assailed the Ostrogoths, who formed the right of Attila's army. The gallant King was himself struck down by a javelin as he rode onward at the head of his men; and his own cavalry, charging over him, trampled him to death in the confusion. But the Visigoths, infuriated, not dispirited, by their monarch's fall, routed the enemies opposed to them, and then wheeled upon the flank of the Hunnish centre, which had been engaged in a sanguinary and indecisive contest with the Alans.

In this peril Attila made his centre fall back upon his camp; and when the shelter of its intrenchments and wagons had once been gained, the Hunnish archers repulsed, without difficulty, the charges of the vengeful Gothic cavalry. Aetius had not pressed the advantage which he gained on his side of the field, and when night fell over the wild scene of havoc Attila's left was still undefeated, but his right had been routed and his centre forced back upon his camp.

Expecting an assault on the morrow, Attila stationed his best archers in front of the cars and wagons, which were drawn up as a fortification along his lines, and made every preparation for a desperate resistance. But the "Scourge of God" resolved that no man should boast of the honor of having either captured or slain him, and he caused to be raised in the centre of his encampment a huge pyramid of the wooden saddles of his cavalry; round it he heaped the spoils and the wealth that he had won; on it he stationed his wives who had accompanied him in the campaign; and on the summit Attila placed himself, ready to perish in the flames and balk the victorious foe of their choicest booty should they succeed in storming his defences.

But when the morning broke and revealed the extent of the carnage with which the plains were heaped for miles, the successful allies saw also and respected the resolute attitude of their antagonist. Neither were any measures taken to blockade him in his camp, and so to extort by famine that submission which it was too plainly perilous to enforce with the sword. Attila was allowed to march back the remnants of his army without molestation, and even with the semblance of success.

It is probable that the crafty Aetius was unwilling to be too victorious. He dreaded the glory which his allies the Visigoths had acquired, and feared that Rome might find a second Alaric in Prince Torismund, who had signalized himself in the battle, and had been chosen on the field to succeed his father Theodoric. He persuaded the young King to return at once to his capital, and thus relieved himself at the same time of the presence of a dangerous friend as well as of a formidable though beaten foe.

Attila's attacks on the Western Empire were soon renewed, but never with such peril to the civilized world as had menaced it before his defeat at Châlons; and on his death, two years after that battle, the vast empire which his genius had founded was soon dissevered by the successful revolts of the subject nations. The name of the Huns ceased for some centuries to inspire terror in Western Europe, and their ascendency passed away with the life of the great King by whom it had been so fearfully augmented.[25]

EDWARD GIBBON

The facility with which Attila had penetrated into the heart of Gaul may be ascribed to his insidious policy as well as to the terror of his arms. His public declarations were skilfully mitigated by his private assurances; he alternately soothed and threatened the Romans and the Goths; and the courts of Ravenna and Toulouse, mutually suspicious of each other's intentions, beheld with supine indifference the approach of their common enemy. Aetius was the sole guardian of the public safety; but his wisest measures were embarrassed by a faction which, since the death of Placidia, infested the imperial palace; the youth of Italy trembled at the sound of the trumpet; and the barbarians, who, from fear or affection, were inclined to the cause of Attila, awaited with doubtful and venal faith the event of the war. The patrician passed the Alps at the head of some troops, whose strength and numbers scarcely deserved the name of an army. But on his arrival at Aries, or Lyons, he was confounded by the intelligence that the Visigoths, refusing to embrace the defence of Gaul, had determined to expect, within their own territories, the formidable invader, whom they professed to despise.

The senator Avitus, who, after the honorable exercise of the prætorian prefecture, had retired to his estate in Auvergne, was persuaded to accept the important embassy, which he executed with ability and success. He represented to Theodoric that an ambitious conqueror, who aspired to the dominion of the earth, could be resisted only by the firm and unanimous alliance of the powers whom he labored to oppress. The lively eloquence of Avitus inflamed the Gothic warriors by the description of the injuries which their ancestors had suffered from the Huns, whose implacable fury still pursued them from the Danube to the foot of the Pyrenees. He strenuously urged that it was the duty of every Christian to save from sacrilegious violation the churches of God and the relics of the saints; that it was the interest of every barbarian who had acquired a settlement in Gaul, to defend the fields and vineyards, which were cultivated for his use, against the desolation of the Scythian shepherds. Theodoric yielded to the evidence of truth, adopted the measure at once the most prudent and the most honorable, and declared that, as the faithful ally of Aetius and the Romans, he was ready to expose his life and kingdom for the common safety of Gaul. The Visigoths, who at that time were in the mature vigor of their fame and power, obeyed with alacrity the signal of war, prepared their arms and horses, and assembled under the standard of their aged King, who was resolved, with his two eldest sons, Torismond and Theodoric, to command in person his numerous and valiant people.

The example of the Goths determined several tribes or nations that seemed to fluctuate between the Huns and the Romans. The indefatigable diligence of the patrician gradually collected the troops of Gaul and Germany, who had formerly acknowledged themselves the subjects or soldiers of the republic, but who now claimed the rewards of voluntary service and the rank of independent allies; the Læti, the Armoricans, the Breones, the Saxons, the Burgundians, the Sarmatians or Alani, the Ripuarians, and the Franks who followed Meroveus as their lawful prince. Such was the various army which, under the conduct of Aetius and Theodoric, advanced, by rapid marches, to relieve Orleans and to give battle to the innumerable host of Attila.

On their approach, the king of the Huns immediately raised the siege, and sounded a retreat to recall the foremost of his troops from the pillage of a city which they had already entered. The valor of Attila was always guided by his prudence; and as he foresaw the fatal consequences of a defeat in the heart of Gaul, he repassed the Seine, and expected the enemy in the plains of Châlons, whose smooth and level surface was adapted to the operations of his Scythian cavalry. But in this tumultuary retreat, the vanguard of the Romans and their allies continually pressed, and sometimes engaged, the troops whom Attila had posted in the rear; the hostile columns, in the darkness of the night and the perplexity of the roads, might encounter each other without design; and the bloody conflict of the Franks and Gepidæ, in which fifteen thousand barbarians were slain, was a prelude to a more general and decisive action.

The Catalaunian fields spread themselves round Châlons, and extend, according to the vague measurement of Jornandes, to the length of one hundred and fifty and the breadth of one hundred miles, over the whole province, which is entitled to the appellation of a _champaign_ country. This spacious plain was distinguished, however, by some inequalities of ground; and the importance of a height which commanded the camp of Attila was understood and disputed by the two generals. The young and valiant Torismond first occupied the summit; the Goths rushed with irresistible weight on the Huns, who labored to ascend from the opposite side; and the possession of this advantageous post inspired both the troops and their leaders with a fair assurance of victory. The anxiety of Attila prompted him to consult his priests and haruspices. It was reported that, after scrutinizing the entrails of victims and scraping their bones, they revealed, in mysterious language, his own defeat, with the death of his principal adversary; and that the barbarian, by accepting the equivalent, expressed his involuntary esteem for the superior merit of Aetius.

But the unusual despondency, which seemed to prevail among the Huns, engaged Attila to use the expedient, so familiar to the generals of antiquity, of animating his troops by a military oration; and his language was that of a king who had often fought and conquered at their head. He pressed them to consider their past glory, their actual danger, and their future hopes. The same fortune which opened the deserts and morasses of Scythia to their unarmed valor, which had laid so many warlike nations prostrate at their feet, had reserved the _joys_ of this memorable field for the consummation of their victories. The cautious steps of their enemies, their strict alliance, and their advantageous posts he artfully represented as the effects, not of prudence, but of fear. The Visigoths alone were the strength and nerves of the opposite army; and the Huns might securely trample on the degenerate Romans, whose close and compact order betrayed their apprehensions, and who were equally incapable of supporting the dangers or the fatigues of a day of battle. The doctrine of predestination, so favorable to martial virtue, was carefully inculcated by the king of the Huns, who assured his subjects that the warriors, protected by heaven, were safe and invulnerable amid the darts of the enemy, but that the unerring Fates would strike their victims in the bosom of inglorious peace. "I myself," continued Attila, "will throw the first javelin, and the wretch who refuses to imitate the example of his sovereign is devoted to inevitable death."

The spirit of the barbarians was rekindled by the presence, the voice, and the example of their intrepid leader; and Attila, yielding to their impatience, immediately formed his order of battle. At the head of his brave and faithful Huns, he occupied in person the centre of the line. The nations subject to his empire, the Rugians, the Heruli, the Thuringians, the Franks, the Burgundians, were extended on either hand, over the ample space of the Catalaunian fields; the right wing was commanded by Ardaric, king of the Gepidæ; and the three valiant brothers who reigned over the Ostrogoths were posted on the left to oppose the kindred tribes of the Visigoths. The disposition of the allies was regulated by a different principle. Sangiban, the faithless King of the Alani, was placed in the centre, where his motions might be strictly watched, and his treachery might be instantly punished. Aetius assumed the command of the left, and Theodoric of the right wing; while Torismond still continued to occupy the heights which appear to have stretched on the flank, and perhaps the rear, of the Scythian army. The nations from the Volga to the Atlantic were assembled on the plain of Châlons; but many of these nations had been divided by faction or conquest or emigration; and the appearance of similar arms and ensigns, which threatened each other, presented the image of a civil war.

The discipline and tactics of the Greeks and Romans form an interesting part of their national manners. The attentive study of the military operations of Xenophon or Cæsar or Frederic, when they are described by the same genius which conceived and executed them, may tend to improve--if such improvement can be wished--the art of destroying the human species. But the battle of Châlons can only excite our curiosity by the magnitude of the object; since it was decided by the blind impetuosity of barbarians, and has been related by partial writers, whose civil or ecclesiastical profession secluded them from the knowledge of military affairs. Cassiodorus, however, had familiarly conversed with many Gothic warriors who served in that memorable engagement; "a conflict," as they informed him, "fierce, various, obstinate, and bloody; such as could not be paralleled either in the present or in past ages." The number of the slain amounted to one hundred and sixty-two thousand, or, according to another account, three hundred thousand persons; and these incredible exaggerations suppose a real and effective loss sufficient to justify the historian's remark that whole generations may be swept away, by the madness of kings, in the space of a single hour.

After the mutual and repeated discharge of missile weapons, in which the archers of Scythia might signalize their superior dexterity, the cavalry and infantry of the two armies were furiously mingled in closer combat. The Huns, who fought under the eyes of their King, pierced through the feeble and doubtful centre of the allies, separated their wings from each other, and wheeling, with a rapid effort, to the left, directed their whole force against the Visigoths. As Theodoric rode along the ranks to animate his troops, he received a mortal stroke from the javelin of Andages, a noble Ostrogoth, and immediately fell from his horse. The wounded King was oppressed in the general disorder and trampled under the feet of his own cavalry; and this important death served to explain the ambiguous prophecy of the haruspices.

Attila already exulted in the confidence of victory, when the valiant Torismund descended from the hills and verified the remainder of the prediction. The Visigoths, who had been thrown into confusion by the flight or defection of the Alani, gradually restored their order of battle; and the Huns were undoubtedly vanquished, since Attila was compelled to retreat. He had exposed his person with the rashness of a private soldier; but the intrepid troops of the centre had pushed forward beyond the rest of the line; their attack was faintly supported; their flanks were unguarded; and the conquerors of Scythia and Germany were saved by the approach of the night from a total defeat. They retired within the circle of wagons that fortified their camp; and the dismounted squadrons prepared, themselves for a defence, to which neither their arms nor their temper was adapted. The event was doubtful: but Attila had secured a last and honorable resource. The saddles and rich furniture of the cavalry were collected, by his order, into a funeral pile; and the magnanimous barbarian had resolved, if his intrenchments should be forced, to rush headlong into the flames, and to deprive his enemies of the glory which they might have acquired by the death or captivity of Attila.

But his enemies had passed the night in equal disorder and anxiety. The inconsiderate courage of Torismund was tempted to urge the pursuit, till he unexpectedly found himself, with a few followers, in the midst of the Scythian wagons. In the confusion of a nocturnal combat he was thrown from his horse; and the Gothic prince must have perished like his father, if his youthful strength, and the intrepid zeal of his companions, had not rescued him from this dangerous situation. In the same manner, but on the left of the line, Aetius himself, separated from his allies, ignorant of their victory and anxious for their fate, encountered and escaped the hostile troops that were scattered over the plains of Châlons, and at length reached the camp of the Goths, which he could only fortify with a slight rampart of shields till the dawn of day. The imperial general was soon satisfied of the defeat of Attila, who still remained inactive within his intrenchments; and when he contemplated the bloody scene, he observed, with secret satisfaction, that the loss had principally fallen on the barbarians. The body of Theodoric, pierced with honorable wounds, was discovered under a heap of the slain; his subjects bewailed the death of their king and father; but their tears were mingled with songs and acclamations, and his funeral rites were performed in the face of a vanquished enemy.

The Goths, clashing their arms, elevated on a buckler his eldest son Torismund, to whom they justly ascribed the glory of their success; and the new King accepted the obligation of revenge as a sacred portion of his paternal inheritance. Yet the Goths themselves were astonished by the fierce and undaunted aspect of their formidable antagonist; and their historian has compared Attila to a lion encompassed in his den and threatening his hunters with redoubled fury. The kings and nations who might have deserted his standard in the hour of distress were made sensible that the displeasure of their monarch was the most imminent and inevitable danger. All his instruments of martial music incessantly sounded a loud and animating 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 Aetius 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 ascendants 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 Toulouse. 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 wagons, 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 perhaps 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 wagons, 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!

FOOTNOTES:

[24] In the _Nibelungenlied_, the old poet who describes the reception of the heroine Chrimhild by Attila [Etsel], says that Attila's dominions were so vast that among his subject warriors there were Russian, Greek, Wallachian, Polish, _and even Danish knights_.

[25] If I seem to have given fewer of the details of the battle itself than its importance would warrant, my excuse must be that Gibbon has enriched our language with a description of it too long for quotation and too splendidly for rivalry. I have not, however, taken altogether the same view of it that he has.

FOUNDATION OF VENICE

A.D. 452

THOMAS HODGKIN JOHN RUSKIN

The foundation of Venice (Venetia) is an incident in the history of Attila's incursions, at the head of his Huns, into Italy after his defeat at the battle of Châlons-sur-Marne. Venetia was then a large and fertile province of Northern Italy, and fifty Venetian cities flourished in peace and safety under the protection of the Empire. After Attila's remorseless hordes had taken and destroyed Aquileia, near the head of the Adriatic, they swept, with resistless fury, through Venetia, whose cities were so utterly destroyed that their very sites could henceforth scarcely be identified. The inhabitants fled in large numbers to the shores of the Adriatic, where, at the extremity of the gulf, a group of a hundred islets is separated by shallows from the mainland of Italy. Here the Venetians built their city on what had hitherto been uncultivated and almost uninhabited sand-banks. Under such unfavorable circumstances was started the career of that wonderful city which afterward became "Queen of the Adriatic" and mother of art, science, and learning.

The two greatest authorities on Venice are Thomas Hodgkin, who made a life study of Italy and her invaders, and the immortal Ruskin, whose grandly descriptive articles were written in the atmosphere of Venice and the Adriatic Sea.

THOMAS HODGKIN

The terrible invaders, made wrathful and terrible by the resistance of Aquileia, streamed through the trembling cities of Venetia. Each earlier stage in the itinerary shows a town blotted out by their truly Tartar genius for destruction. At the distance of thirty-one miles from Aquileia stood the flourishing colony of Tulia Concordia, so named, probably, in commemoration of the universal peace which, four hundred and eighty years before, Augustus had established in the world. Concordia was destroyed, and only an insignificant little village now remains to show where it once stood. At another interval of thirty-one miles stood Altinum, with its white villas clustering round the curves of its lagoons, and rivalling Baiæ in its luxurious charms. Altinum was effaced as Concordia and as Aquileia. Yet another march of thirty-two miles brought the squalid invaders to Patavium, proud of its imagined Trojan origin, and, with better reason, proud of having given birth to Livy. Patavium, too, was levelled with the ground. True, it has not like its sister towns remained in the nothingness to which Attila reduced it. It is now

"Many-domed Padua proud,"

but all its great buildings date from the Middle Ages. Only a few broken friezes and a few inscriptions in its museum exist as memorials of the classical Patavium.

As the Huns marched on Vicenza, Verona, Brescia, Bergamo, all opened their gates at their approach, for the terror which they inspired was on every heart. In these towns, and in Milan and Pavia (Ticinum), which followed their example, the Huns enjoyed doubtless to the full their wild revel of lust and spoliation, but they left the buildings unharmed, and they carried captive the inhabitants instead of murdering them.

The valley of the Po was now wasted to the heart's content of the invaders. Should they cross the Apennines and blot out Rome as they had blotted out Aquileia from among the cities of the world? This was the great question that was being debated in the Hunnish camp, and, strange to say, the voices were not all for war. Already Italy began to strike that strange awe into the hearts of her northern conquerors which so often in later ages has been her best defence. The remembrance of Alaric, cut off by a mysterious death immediately after his capture of Rome, was present in the mind of Attila, and was frequently insisted upon by his counsellors, who seem to have had a foreboding that only while he lived would they be great and prosperous.

While this discussion was going forward in the barbarian camp, all voices were hushed, and the attention of all was aroused by the news of the arrival of an embassy from Rome. What had been going on in that city it is not easy to ascertain. The Emperor seems to have been dwelling there, not at Ravenna. Aetius shows a strange lack of courage or of resource, and we find it difficult to recognize in him the victor of the Mauriac plains. He appears to have been even meditating flight from Italy, and to have thought of persuading Valentinian to share his exile. But counsels a shade less timorous prevailed. Some one suggested that possibly even the Hun might be satiated with havoc, and that an embassy might assist to mitigate the remainder of his resentment. Accordingly ambassadors were sent in the once mighty name of "the Emperor and the Senate and People of Rome" to crave for peace, and these were the men who were now ushered into the camp of Attila.

The envoys had been well chosen to satisfy that punctilious pride which insisted that only men of the highest dignity among the Romans should be sent to treat with the lord of Scythia and Germany. Avienus, who had, two years before, worn the robes of consul, was one of the ambassadors. Trigetius, who had wielded the powers of a prefect, and who, seventeen years before, had been despatched upon a similar mission to Genseric the Vandal, was another. But it was not upon these men, but upon their greater colleague, that the eyes of all the barbarian warriors and statesmen were fixed. Leo, bishop of Rome, had come, on behalf of his flock, to sue for peace from the idolater.

The two men who had thus at last met by the banks of the Mincio are certainly the grandest figures whom the fifth century can show to us, at any rate since Alaric vanished from the scene.

Attila we by this time know well enough; adequately to describe Pope Leo I, we should have to travel too far into the region of ecclesiastical history. Chosen pope in the year 440, he was now about half way through his long pontificate, one of the few which have nearly rivalled the twenty-five years traditionally assigned to St. Peter. A firm disciplinarian, not to say a persecutor, he had caused the Priscillianists of Spain and the Manichees of Rome to feel his heavy hand. A powerful rather than subtle theologian, he had asserted the claims of Christian common-sense as against the endless refinements of oriental speculation concerning the nature of the Son of God. Like an able Roman general he had traced, in his letters on the Eutychian controversy, the lines of the fortress in which the defenders of the Catholic verity were thenceforward to intrench themselves and from which they were to repel the assaults of Monophysites on the one hand and of Nestorians on the other. These lines had been enthusiastically accepted by the great council of Chalcedon--held in the year of Attila's Gaulish campaign--and remain from that day to this the authoritative utterance of the Church concerning the mysterious union of the Godhead and the manhood in the person of Jesus Christ.

And all these gifts of will, of intellect, and of soul were employed by Leo with undeviating constancy, with untired energy, in furthering his great aim, the exaltation of the dignity of the popedom, the conversion of the admitted primacy of the bishops of Rome into an absolute and world-wide spiritual monarchy. Whatever our opinions may be as to the influence of this spiritual monarchy on the happiness of the world, or its congruity with the character of the Teacher in whose words it professed to root itself, we cannot withhold a tribute of admiration for the high temper of this Roman bishop, who in the ever-deepening degradation of his country still despaired not, but had the courage and endurance to work for a far-distant future, who, when the Roman was becoming the common drudge and footstool of all nations, still remembered the proud words "_Tu regere imperio populos, Romane, memento!_" and under the very shadow of Attila and Genseric prepared for the city of Romulus a new and spiritual dominion, vaster and more enduring than any which had been won for her by Julius or by Hadrian.

Such were the two men who stood face to face in the summer of 452 upon the plains of Lombardy. The barbarian King had all the material power in his hand, and he was working but for a twelvemonth. The pontiff had no power but in the world of intellect, and his fabric was to last fourteen centuries. They met, as has been said, by the banks of the Mincio. Jordanes tells us that it was "where the river is crossed by many wayfarers coming and going." Some writers think that these words point to the ground now occupied by the celebrated fortress of Peschiera, close to the point where the Mincio issues from the Lake of Garda. Others place the interview at Governolo, a little village hard by the junction of the Mincio and the Po. If the latter theory be true, and it seems to fit well with the route which would probably be taken by Attila, the meeting took place in Vergil's country, and almost in sight of the very farm where Tityrus and Meliboeus chatted at evening under the beech-tree.

Leo's success as an ambassador was complete. Attila laid aside all the fierceness of his anger and promised to return across the Danube, and to live thenceforward at peace with the Romans. But in his usual style, in the midst of reconciliation he left a loophole for a future wrath, for "he insisted still on this point above all, that Honoria, the sister of the Emperor, and the daughter of the Augusta Placidia, should be sent to him with the portion of the royal wealth which was her due; and he threatened that unless this was done he would lay upon Italy a far heavier punishment than any which it had yet borne."

But for the present, at any rate, the tide of devastation was turned, and few events more powerfully impressed the imagination of that new and blended world which was now standing at the threshold of the dying empire than this retreat of Attila, the dreaded king of kings, before the unarmed successor of St. Peter.

Attila was already predisposed to moderation by the counsels of his ministers. The awe of Rome was upon him and upon them, and he was forced incessantly to ponder the question, "What if I conquer like Alaric, to die like him?" Upon these doubts and ponderings of his supervened the stately presence of Leo, a man of holy life, firm will, dauntless courage--that, be sure, Attila perceived in the first moments of their interview--and, besides this, holding an office honored and venerated through all the civilized world. The barbarian yielded to his spell as he had yielded to that of Lupus of Troyes, and, according to a tradition, which, it must be admitted, is not very well authenticated, he jocularly excused his unaccustomed gentleness by saying that "he knew how to conquer men, but the lion and the wolf (Leo and Lupus) had learned how to conquer him."

The tradition which asserts that the republic of Venice and its neighbor cities in the lagoons were peopled by fugitives from the Hunnish invasion of 452, is so constant and in itself so probable that we seem bound to accept it as substantially true, though contemporary or nearly contemporary evidence to the fact is utterly wanting.

The thought of "the glorious city in the sea" so dazzles our imaginations when we turn our thoughts toward Venice that we must take a little pains to free ourselves from the spell and reproduce the aspect of the desolate islands and far-stretching wastes of sand and sea to which the fear of Attila drove the delicately nurtured Roman provincials for a habitation.

If we examine on the map the well-known and deep recess of the Adriatic Sea, we shall at once be struck by one marked difference between its eastern and its northern shores. For three hundred miles down the Dalmatian coast not one large river, scarcely a considerable stream, descends from the too closely towering Dinaric mountains to the sea. If we turn now to the northwestern angle which formed the shore of the Roman province of Venetia, we find the coast line broken by at least seven streams, two of which are great rivers.

These seven streams, whose mouths are crowded into less than eighty miles of coast, drain an area which, reckoning from Monte Viso to the Terglon Alps--the source of the Ysonzo--must be four hundred and fifty miles in length, and may average two hundred miles in breadth, and this area is bordered on one side by the highest mountains in Europe, snow-covered, glacier-strewn, wrinkled and twisted into a thousand valleys and narrow defiles, each of which sends down its river or its rivulet to swell the great outpour.

For our present purpose, and as a worker out of Venetian history, Po, notwithstanding the far greater volume of his waters, is of less importance than the six other small streams which bear him company. He, carrying down the fine alluvial soil of Lombardy, goes on lazily adding, foot by foot, to the depth of his delta, and mile by mile to its extent. They, swiftly hurrying over their shorter course from mountain to sea, scatter indeed many fragments, detached from their native rocks, over the first meadows which they meet with in the plain, but carry some also far out to sea, and then, behind the bulwark which they thus have made, deposit the finer alluvial particles with which they, too, are laden. Thus we get the two characteristic features of the ever-changing coast line, the Lido and the Laguna. The Lido, founded upon the masses of rock, is a long, thin slip of the _terra firma_, which form a sort of advance guard of the land.

The Laguna, occupying the interval between the Lido and the true shore, is a wide expanse of waters, generally very few feet in depth, with a bottom of fine sand, and with a few channels of deeper water, the representatives of the forming rivers winding intricately among them. In such a configuration of land and water the state of the tide makes a striking difference in the scene. And unlike the rest of the Mediterranean, the Adriatic does possess a tide, small, it is true, in comparison with the great tides of ocean--for the whole difference between high and low water at the flood is not more than six feet, and the average flow is said not to amount to more than two feet six inches--but even this flux is sufficient to produce large tracts of sea which the reflux converts into square miles of oozy sand.

Here, between sea and land, upon this detritus of the rivers, settled the detritus of humanity. The Gothic and the Lombard invasions contributed probably their share of fugitives, but fear of the Hunnish world-waster--whose very name, according to some, was derived from one of the mighty rivers of Russia--was the great "degrading" influence that carried down the fragments of Roman civilization and strewed them over the desolate lagoons. The inhabitants of Aquileia, or at least the feeble remnants that escaped the sword of Attila, took refuge at Grado. Concordia migrated to Caprularia (now Caorle). The inhabitants of Altinum, abandoning their ruined villas, founded their new habitations upon seven islands at the mouth of the Piave, which, according to tradition, they named from the seven gates of their old city--Torcellus, Maiurbius, Boreana, Ammiana, Constantiacum, and Anianum. The representatives of some of these names, Torcello, Mazzorbo, Burano, are familiar sounds to the Venetian at the present day.

From Padua came the largest stream of emigrants. They left the tomb of their mythical ancestor, Antenor, and built their humble dwellings upon the islands of the rivers Altus and Methamaucus, better known to us as Rialto and Malamocco. This Paduan settlement was one day to be known to the world by the name of Venice. But let us not suppose that the future "Queen of the Adriatic" sprang into existence at a single bound like Constantinople or Alexandria. For two hundred and fifty years, that is to say for eight generations, the refugees on the islands of the Adriatic prolonged an obscure and squalid existence--fishing, salt manufacturing, damming out the waves with wattled vine-branches, driving piles into the sand-banks, and thus gradually extending the area of their villages. Still these were but fishing villages, loosely confederated together, loosely governed, poor and insignificant, so that the anonymous geographer of Ravenna, writing in the seventh century, can only say of them, "In the country of Venetia there are some few islands which are inhabited by men." This seems to have been their condition, though perhaps gradually growing in commercial importance, until at the beginning of the eighth century the concentration of political authority in the hands of the first doge, and the recognition of the Rialto cluster of islands as the capital of the confederacy, started the republic on a career of success and victory, in which for seven centuries she met no lasting check.

But this lies far beyond the limit of our present subject. It must be again said that we have not to think of "the pleasant place of all festivity," but of a few huts among the sand-banks, inhabited by Roman provincials, who mournfully recall their charred and ruined habitations by the Brenta and the Piave. The sea alone does not constitute their safety. If that were all, the pirate ships of the Vandal Genseric might repeat upon their poor dwellings all the terror of Attila. But it is in their amphibious life, in that strange blending of land and sea which is exhibited by the lagunes, that their safety lies. Only experienced pilots can guide a vessel of any considerable draught through the mazy channels of deep water which intersect these lagoons; and should they seem to be in imminent peril from the approach of an enemy, they will defend themselves not like the Dutch by cutting the dikes which barricade them from the ocean, but by pulling up the poles which even those pilots need to indicate their pathway through the waters. There, then, engaged in their humble, beaver-like labors, we leave for the present the Venetian refugees from the rage of Attila.

But even while protesting, it is impossible not to let into our minds some thought of what those desolate fishing villages will one day become. The dim religious light, half revealing the slowly gathered glories of St. Mark's; the Ducal Palace, that history in stone; the Rialto, with the babble of many languages; the Piazza, with its flock of fearless pigeons; the Brazen Horses, the Winged Lion, the Bucentaur, all that the artists of Venice did to make her beautiful, her ambassadors to make her wise, her secret tribunals to make her terrible; memories of these things must come thronging upon the mind at the mere mention of her spell-like name. Now, with these pictures glowing vividly before you, wrench the mind away with sudden effort to the dreary plains of Pannonia. Think of the moody Tartar, sitting in his log-hut, surrounded by his barbarous guests; of Zercon, gabbling his uncouth mixture of Hunnish and Latin; of the bath-man of Onégesh, and the wool-work of Kreka, and the reed candles in the village of Bleda's widow; and say if cause and effect were ever more strangely meted in history than the rude and brutal might of Attila with the stately and gorgeous and subtle republic of Venice.

One more consideration is suggested to us by that which was the noblest part of the work of Venice, the struggle which she maintained for centuries, really in behalf of all Europe, against the Turk. Attila's power was soon to pass away, but, in the ages that were to come, another Turanian race was to arise, as brutal as the Huns, but with their fierceness sharp-pointed and hardened into a far more fearful weapon of offence by the fanaticism of Islam. These descendants of the kinsfolk of Attila were the Ottomans, and but for the barrier which, like their own _murazzi_ against the waves, the Venetians interposed against the Ottomans, it is scarcely too much to say that half Europe would have undergone the misery of subjection to the organized anarchy of the Turkish pachas. The Tartar Attila, when he gave up Aquileia and her neighbor cities to the tender mercies of his myrmidons, little thought that he was but the instrument in an unseen Hand for hammering out the shield which should one day defend Europe from Tartar robbers such as he was. The Turanian poison secreted the future antidote to itself, and the name of that antidote was Venice.

JOHN RUSKIN

In the olden days of travelling, now to return no more, in which distance could not be vanquished without toil, but in which that toil was rewarded, partly by the power of deliberate survey of the countries through which the journey lay, and partly by the happiness of the evening hours, when, from the top of the last hill he had surmounted, the traveller beheld the quiet village where he was to rest, scattered among the meadows beside its valley stream; or, from the long-hoped-for turn in the dusty perspective of the causeway, saw, for the first time, the towers of some famed city, faint in the rays of sunset--hours of peaceful and thoughtful pleasure, for which the rush of the arrival in the railway station is perhaps not always, or to all men, an equivalent--in those days, I say, when there was something more to be anticipated and remembered in the first aspect of each successive halting-place, than a new arrangement of glass roofing and iron girder, there were few moments of which the recollection was more fondly cherished by the traveller than that which brought him within sight of Venice, as his gondola shot into the open Lagoon from the canal of Mestre.

Not but that the aspect of the city itself was generally the source of some slight disappointment, for, seen in this direction, its buildings are far less characteristic than those of the other great towns of Italy; but this inferiority was partly disguised by distance, and more than atoned for by the strange rising of its walls and towers, out of the midst, as it seemed, of the deep sea, for it was impossible that the mind or the eye could at once comprehend the shallowness of the vast sheet of water which stretched away in leagues of rippling lustre to the north and south, or trace the narrow line of islets bounding it to the east. The salt breeze, the white moaning sea-birds, the masses of black weed separating and disappearing gradually, in knots of heaving shoal, under the advance of the steady tide, all proclaimed it to be indeed the ocean on whose bosom the great city rested so calmly; not such blue, soft, lake-like ocean as bathes the Neapolitan promontories or sleeps beneath the marble rocks of Genoa, but a sea with the bleak power of our own northern waves, yet subdued into a strange spacious rest, and changed from its angry pallor into a field of burnished gold, as the sun declined behind the belfry tower of the lonely island church, fitly named "St. George of the Sea-weed."

As the boat drew nearer to the city, the coast which the traveller had just left sank behind him into one long, low, sad-colored line, tufted irregularly with brushwood and willows: but, at what seemed its northern extremity, the hills of Arqua rose in a dark cluster of purple pyramids, balanced on the bright mirage of the Lagoon; two or three smooth surges of inferior hill extended themselves about their roots, and beyond these, beginning with the craggy peaks above Vicenza, the chain of the Alps girded the whole horizon to the north--a wall of jagged blue, here and there showing through its clefts a wilderness of misty precipices, fading far back into the recesses of Cadore, and itself rising and breaking away eastward, where the sun struck opposite upon its snow, into mighty fragments of peaked light, standing up behind the barred clouds of evening, one after another, countless, the crown of the Adrian Sea, until the eye turned back from pursuing them, to rest upon the nearer burning of the campaniles of Murano, and on the great city, where it magnified itself along the waves, as the quick silent pacing of the gondola drew nearer and nearer. And at last, when its walls were reached, and the outmost of its untrodden streets was entered, not through towered gate or guarded rampart, but as a deep inlet between two rocks of coral in the Indian sea; when first upon the traveller's sight opened the long ranges of columned palaces--each with its black boat moored at the portal--each with its image cast down, beneath its feet, upon that green pavement which every breeze broke into new fantasies of rich tessellation; when first, at the extremity of the bright vista, the shadowy Rialto threw its colossal curve slowly forth from behind the palace of the Camerlenghi; that strange curve, so delicate, so adamantine, strong as a mountain cavern, graceful as a bow just bent; when first, before its moonlike circumference was all risen, the gondolier's cry, "Ah! Stali," struck sharp upon the ear, and the prow turned aside under the mighty cornices that half met over the narrow canal, where the plash of the water followed close and loud, ringing along the marble by the boat's side; and when at last that boat darted forth upon the breadth of silver sea, across which the front of the Ducal Palace, flushed with its sanguine veins, looks to the snowy dome of Our Lady of Salvation, it was no marvel that the mind should be so deeply entranced by the visionary charm of a scene so beautiful and so strange as to forget the darker truths of its history and its being.

Well might it seem that such a city had owed her existence rather to the rod of the enchanter than the fear of the fugitive; that the waters which encircled her had been chosen for the mirror of her state rather than the shelter of her nakedness; and that all which in nature was wild or merciless--Time and Decay, as well as the waves and tempests--had been won to adorn her instead of to destroy, and might still spare, for ages to come, that beauty which seemed to have fixed for its throne the sands of the hour-glass as well as of the sea.

And although the last few eventful years, fraught with change to the face of the whole earth, have been more fatal in their influence on Venice than the five hundred that preceded them; though the noble landscape of approach to her can now be seen no more, or seen only by a glance, as the engine slackens its rushing on the iron line; and though many of her palaces are forever defaced and many in desecrated ruins, there is still so much of magic in her aspect that the hurried traveller, who must leave her before the wonder of that first aspect has been worn away, may still be led to forget the humility of her origin and to shut his eyes to the depth of her desolation. They, at least, are little to be envied in whose hearts the great charities of the imagination lie dead, and for whom the fancy has no power to repress the importunity of painful impressions or to raise what is ignoble and disguise what is discordant in a scene so rich in its remembrances, so surpassing in its beauty. But for this work of the imagination there must be no permission during the task which is before us.

The impotent feelings of romance, so singularly characteristic of this century, may indeed gild, but never save, the remains of those mightier ages to which they are attached like climbing flowers; and they must be torn away from the magnificent fragments, if we would see them as they stood in their own strength. Those feelings, always as fruitless as they are fond, are in Venice not only incapable of protecting, but even of discerning, the objects to which they ought to have been attached. The Venice of modern fiction and drama is a thing of yesterday, a mere efflorescence of decay, a stage dream which the first ray of daylight must dissipate into dust. No prisoner, whose name is worth remembering, or whose sorrow deserved sympathy, ever crossed that "Bridge of Sighs," which is the centre of the Byronic ideal of Venice; no great merchant of Venice ever saw that Rialto under which the traveller now passes with breathless interest: the statue which Byron makes Faliero address as of one of his great ancestors was erected to a soldier of fortune a hundred and fifty years after Faliero's death; and the most conspicuous parts of the city have been so entirely altered in the course of the last three centuries that if Henry Dandolo or Francis Foscari could be summoned from his tomb, and stood each on the deck of his galley at the entrance of the Grand Canal, that renowned entrance, the painter's favorite subject, the novelist's favorite scene, where the water first narrows by the steps of the Church of La Salute--the mighty doges would not know in what spot of the world they stood, would literally not recognize one stone of the great city, for whose sake, and by whose ingratitude, their gray hairs had been brought down with bitterness to the grave.

The remains of _their_ Venice lie hidden behind the cumbrous masses which were the delight of the nation in its dotage; hidden in many a grass-grown court and silent pathway and lightless canal, where the slow waves have sapped their foundations for five hundred years, and must soon prevail over them forever. It must be our task to glean and gather them forth, and restore out of them some faint image of the lost city, more gorgeous a thousandfold than that which now exists, yet not created in the day-dream of the prince nor by the ostentation of the noble, but built by iron hands and patient hearts, contending against the adversity of nature and the fury of man, so that its wonderfulness cannot be grasped by the indolence of imagination, but only after frank inquiry into the true nature of that wild and solitary scene whose restless tides and trembling sands did indeed shelter the birth of the city, but long denied her dominion.

When the eye falls casually on a map of Europe, there is no feature by which it is more likely to be arrested than the strange sweeping loop formed by the junction of the Alps and Apennines, and enclosing the great basin of Lombardy. This return of the mountain chain upon itself causes a vast difference in the character of the distribution of its _débris_ on its opposite sides. The rock fragments and sediment which the torrents on the north side of the Alps bear into the plains are distributed over a vast extent of country, and, though here and there lodged in beds of enormous thickness, soon permit the firm substrata to appear from underneath them; but all the torrents which descend from the southern side of the High Alps and from the northern slope of the Apennines meet concentrically in the recess or mountain-bay which the two ridges enclose; every fragment which thunder breaks out of their battlements, and every grain of dust which the summer rain washes from their pastures, is at last laid at rest in the blue sweep of the Lombardic plain; and that plain must have risen within its rocky barriers as a cup fills with wine, but for two contrary influences which continually depress, or disperse from its surface, the accumulation of the ruins of ages.

I will not tax the reader's faith in modern science by insisting on this singular depression of the surface of Lombardy, which appears for many centuries to have taken place steadily and continually; the main fact with which we have to do is the gradual transport, by the Po and its great collateral rivers, of vast masses of the finer sediment to the sea. The character of the Lombardic plains is most strikingly expressed by the ancient walls of its cities, composed for the most part of large rounded Alpine pebbles alternating with narrow courses of brick, and was curiously illustrated in 1848 by the ramparts of these same pebbles thrown up four or five feet high round every field, to check the Austrian cavalry in the battle under the walls of Verona.

The finer dust among which these pebbles are dispersed is taken up by the rivers, fed into continual strength by the Alpine snow, so that, however pure their waters may be when they issue from the lakes at the foot of the great chain, they become of the color and opacity of clay before they reach the Adriatic; the sediment which they bear is at once thrown down as they enter the sea, forming a vast belt of low land along the eastern coast of Italy. The powerful stream of the Po of course builds forward the fastest; on each side of it, north and south, there is a tract of marsh, fed by more feeble streams, and less liable to rapid change than the delta of the central river. In one of these tracts is built Ravenna, and in the other Venice.

What circumstances directed the peculiar arrangement of this great belt of sediment in the earliest times, it is not here the place to inquire. It is enough for us to know that from the mouths of the Adige to those of the Piave there stretches, at a variable distance of from three to five miles from the actual shore, a bank of sand, divided into long islands by narrow channels of sea. The space between this bank and the true shore consists of the sedimentary deposits from these and other rivers, a great plain of calcareous mud, covered, in the neighborhood of Venice, by the sea at high water, to the depth in most places of a foot or a foot and a half, and nearly everywhere exposed at low tide, but divided by an intricate network of narrow and winding channels, from which the sea never retires.

In some places, according to the run of the currents, the land has risen into marshy islets, consolidated, some by art, and some by time, into ground firm enough to be built upon or fruitful enough to be cultivated: in others, on the contrary, it has not reached the sea-level; so that, at the average low water, shallow lakelets glitter among its irregularly exposed fields of seaweed. In the midst of the largest of these, increased in importance by the confluence of several large river channels toward one of the openings in the sea-bank, the city of Venice itself is built, on a crowded cluster of islands; the various plots of higher ground which appear to the north and south of this central cluster have at different periods been also thickly inhabited, and now bear, according to their size, the remains of cities, villages, or isolated convents and churches, scattered among spaces of open ground, partly waste and encumbered by ruins, partly under cultivation for the supply of the metropolis.

The average rise and fall of the tide are about three feet--varying considerably with the seasons--but this fall, on so flat a shore, is enough to cause continual movement in the waters, and in the main canals to produce a reflux which frequently runs like a mill-stream. At high water no land is visible for many miles to the north or south of Venice, except in the form of small islands crowned with towers or gleaming with villages; there is a channel, some three miles wide, between the city and the mainland, and some mile and a half wide between it and the sandy breakwater called the Lido, which divides the Lagoon from the Adriatic, but which is so low as hardly to disturb the impression of the city's having been built in the midst of the ocean, although the secret of its true position is partly, yet not painfully, betrayed by the clusters of piles set to mark the deep-water channels, which undulate far away in spotty chains like the studded backs of huge sea-snakes, and by the quick glittering of the crisped and crowded waves that flicker and dance before the strong winds upon the unlifted level of the shallow sea.

But the scene is widely different at low tide. A fall of eighteen or twenty inches is enough to show ground over the greater part of the Lagoon; and at the complete ebb the city is seen standing in the midst of a dark plain of sea-weed, of gloomy green, except only where the larger branches of the Brenta and its associated streams converge toward the port of the Lido. Through this salt and sombre plain the gondola and the fishing-boat advance by tortuous channels, seldom more than four or five feet deep, and often so choked with slime that the heavier keels furrow the bottom till their crossing tracks are seen through the clear sea-water like the ruts upon a wintry road, and the oar leaves blue gashes upon the ground at every stroke, or is entangled among the thick weed that fringes the banks with the weight of its sullen waves, leaning to and fro upon the uncertain sway of the exhausted tide.

The scene is often profoundly oppressive, even at this day, when every plot of higher ground bears some fragment of fair building: but, in order to know what it was once, let the traveller follow in his boat at evening the windings of some unfrequented channel far into the midst of the melancholy plain; let him remove, in his imagination, the brightness of the great city that still extends itself in the distance, and the walls and towers from the islands that are near; and so wait, until the bright investiture and sweet warmth of the sunset are withdrawn from the waters, and the black desert of their shore lies in its nakedness beneath the night, pathless, comfortless, infirm, lost in dark languor and fearful silence, except where the salt runlets plash into the tideless pools, or the sea-birds flit from their margins with a questioning cry; and he will be enabled to enter in some sort into the horror of heart with which this solitude was anciently chosen by man for his habitation.

They little thought, who first drove the stakes into the sand, and strewed the ocean reeds for their rest, that their children were to be the princes of that ocean, and their palaces its pride; and yet, in the great natural laws that rule that sorrowful wilderness, let it be remembered what strange preparation had been made for the things which no human imagination could have foretold, and how the whole existence and fortune of the Venetian nation were anticipated or compelled, by the setting of those bars and doors to the rivers and the sea. Had deeper currents divided their islands, hostile navies would again and again have reduced the rising city into servitude; had stronger surges beaten their shores, all the richness and refinement of the Venetian architecture must have been exchanged for the walls and bulwarks of an ordinary seaport. Had there been no tide, as in other parts of the Mediterranean, the narrow canals of the city would have become noisome, and the marsh in which it was built pestiferous. Had the tide been only a foot or eighteen inches higher in its rise, the water access to the doors of the palaces would have been impossible; even as it is, there is sometimes a little difficulty, at the ebb, in landing without setting foot upon the lower and slippery steps: and the highest tides sometimes enter the court-yards, and overflow the entrance halls.

Eighteen inches more of difference between the level of the flood and ebb would have rendered the doorsteps of every palace, at low water, a treacherous mass of weeds and limpets, and the entire system of water-carriage for the higher classes, in their easy and daily intercourse, must have been done away with. The streets of the city would have been widened, its network of canals filled up, and all the peculiar character of the place and the people destroyed.

The reader may perhaps have felt some pain in the contrast between this faithful view of the site of the Venetian throne, and the romantic conception of it which we ordinarily form; but this pain, if he have felt it, ought to be more than counterbalanced by the value of the instance thus afforded to us at once of the inscrutableness and the wisdom of the ways of God. If, two thousand years ago, we had been permitted to watch the slow settling of the slime of those turbid rivers into the polluted sea, and the gaining upon its deep and fresh waters of the lifeless, impassable, unvoyageable plain, how little could we have understood the purpose with which those islands were shaped out of the void, and the torpid waters enclosed with their desolate walls of sand! How little could we have known, any more than of what now seems to us most distressful, dark, and objectless, the glorious aim which was then in the mind of Him in whose hand are all the corners of the earth! How little imagined that in the laws which were stretching forth the gloomy margins of those fruitless banks, and feeding the bitter grass among their shallows, there was indeed a preparation, and _the only preparation possible_, for the founding of a city which was to be set like a golden clasp on the girdle of the earth, to write her history on the white scrolls of the sea-surges, and to word it in their thunder, and to gather and give forth, in world-wide pulsation, the glory of the West and of the East, from the burning heart of her Fortitude and Splendor.

CLOVIS FOUNDS THE KINGDOM OF THE FRANKS: IT BECOMES CHRISTIAN

A.D. 486-511

FRANÇOIS P.G. GUIZOT

Clovis, the sturdy Frank, wrought marvellous changes in Gaul. His marriage to the Christian princess Clotilde was followed by the conversion of himself and, gradually, that of his people. With a well-disciplined army he pulled down and swept away the last pillars of Roman power out of Gaul. Guizot gives a graphic account of the transition of the Franks, during two hundred and fifty years, from being isolated wandering tribes, each constantly warring against the other, to a well-ordered Christian kingdom, which led to the establishment of the French monarchy. The climax of this period of transition came in the reign of Clovis, with whom commences the real history of France. Under his strong hand the various tribes were gradually brought under his sole rule.

When Clovis, at the age of fifteen, succeeded his father, Childeric, as king of the Salian tribe, his people were mainly pagans; the Salian domain was very limited, the treasury empty, and there was no store of either grain or wine. But these difficulties were overcome by him; he subjugated the neighboring tribes, and made Christianity the state religion. The new faith was accorded great privileges and means of influence, in many cases favorable to humanity and showing respect to the rights of individuals. So great an advance in civilization is an early milestone on the path of progress.

About A.D. 241 or 242 the Sixth Roman legion, commanded by Aurelian, at that time military tribune, and thirty years later emperor, had just finished a campaign on the Rhine, undertaken for the purpose of driving the Germans from Gaul, and was preparing for eastern service, to make war on the Persians. The soldiers sang:

"We have slain a thousand Franks and a thousand Sarmatians; we want a thousand, thousand, Thousand Persians."

That was, apparently, a popular burthen at the time, for on the days of military festivals, at Rome and in Gaul, the children sang, as they danced:

"We have cut off the heads of a thousand, thousand, thousand Thousand; One man hath cut off the heads of a thousand, thousand, thousand, Thousand thousand; May he live a thousand thousand years, he who Hath slain a thousand thousand! Nobody hath so much of wine as he Hath of blood poured out."

Aurelian, the hero of these ditties, was indeed much given to the pouring out of blood, for at the approach of a fresh war he wrote to the senate:

"I marvel, conscript fathers, that ye have so much misgiving about opening the Sibylline books, as if ye were deliberating in an assembly of Christians, and not in the temple of all the gods. Let inquiry be made of the sacred books, and let celebration take place of the ceremonies that ought to be fulfilled. Far from refusing, I offer, with zeal, to satisfy all expenditure required with _captives of every nationality_, victims of royal rank. It is no shame to conquer with the aid of the gods; it is thus that our ancestors began and ended many a war."

Human sacrifices, then, were not yet foreign to pagan festivals, and probably the blood of more than one Frankish captive on that occasion flowed in the temple of all the gods.

It is the first time the name of _Franks_ appears in history; and it indicated no particular, single people, but a confederation of Germanic peoplets, settled or roving on the right bank of the Rhine, from the Main to the ocean. The number and the names of the tribes united in this confederation are uncertain. A chart of the Roman Empire, prepared apparently at the end of the fourth century, in the reign of the emperor Honorius--which chart, called _tabula Peutingeri_, was found among the ancient MSS. collected by Conrad Peutinger, a learned German philosopher, in the fifteenth century--bears, over a large territory on the right bank of the Rhine, the word _Francia_, and the following enumeration: "The Chaucians, the Ampsuarians, the Cheruscans, and the Chamavians, who are also called Franks;" and to these tribes divers chroniclers added several others, "the Attuarians, the Bructerians, the Cattians, and the Sicambrians."

Whatever may have been the specific names of these peoplets, they were all of German race, called themselves Franks, that is "freemen," and made, sometimes separately, sometimes collectively, continued incursions into Gaul--especially Belgica and the northern portions of Lyonness--at one time plundering and ravaging, at another occupying forcibly, or demanding of the Roman emperors lands whereon to settle. From the middle of the third to the beginning of the fifth century the history of the Western Empire presents an almost uninterrupted series of these invasions on the part of the Franks, together with the different relationships established between them and the imperial government. At one time whole tribes settled on Roman soil, submitted to the emperors, entered their service, and fought for them even against their own German compatriots. At another, isolated individuals, such and such warriors of German race, put themselves at the command of the emperors, and became of importance. At the middle of the third century the emperor Valerian, on committing a command to Aurelian, wrote, "Thou wilt have with thee Hartmund, Haldegast, Hildmund, and Carioviscus."

Some Frankish tribes allied themselves more or less fleetingly with the imperial government, at the same time that they preserved their independence; others pursued, throughout the empire, their life of incursion and adventure. From A.D. 260 to 268, under the reign of Gallienus, a band of Franks threw itself upon Gaul, scoured it from northeast to southeast, plundering and devastating on its way; then it passed from Aquitania into Spain, took and burned Tarragona, gained possession of certain vessels, sailed away, and disappeared in Africa, after having wandered about for twelve years at its own will and pleasure. There was no lack of valiant emperors, precarious and ephemeral as their power may have been, to defend the empire, and especially Gaul, against those enemies, themselves ephemeral, but forever recurring; Decius, Valerian, Gallienus, Claudius Gothicus, Aurelian, and Probus gallantly withstood those repeated attacks of German hordes. Sometimes they flattered themselves they had gained a definitive victory, and then the old Roman pride exhibited itself in their patriotic confidence. About A.D. 278, the emperor Probus, after gaining several victories in Gaul over the Franks, wrote to the senate:

"I render thanks to the immortal gods, conscript fathers, for that they have confirmed your judgment as regards me. Germany is subdued throughout its whole extent; nine kings of different nations have come and cast themselves at my feet, or rather at yours, as suppliants with their foreheads in the dust. Already all those barbarians are tilling for you, sowing for you, and fighting for you against the most distant nations. Order ye, therefore, according to your custom, prayers of thanksgiving, for we have slain four thousand of the enemy; we have had offered to us sixteen thousand men ready armed; and we have wrested from the enemy the seventy most important towns. The Gauls, in fact, are completely delivered. The crowns offered to me by all the cities of Gaul I have submitted, conscript fathers, to your grace; dedicate ye them with your own hands to Jupiter, all-bountiful, all-powerful, and to the other immortal gods and goddesses. All the booty is retaken, and, further, we have made fresh captures, more considerable than our first losses; the fields of Gaul are tilled by the oxen of the barbarians, and German teams bend their necks in slavery to our husbandmen; divers nations raise cattle for our consumption, and horses to remount our cavalry; our stores are full of the corn of the barbarians--in one word, we have left to the vanquished naught but the soil; all their other possessions are ours. We had at first thought it necessary, conscript fathers, to appoint a new governor of Germany; but we have put off this measure to the time when our ambition shall be more completely satisfied, which will be, as it seems to us, when it shall have pleased divine Providence to increase and multiply the forces of our armies."

Probus had good reason to wish that "divine Providence might be pleased to increase the forces of the Roman armies," for even after his victories, exaggerated as they probably were, they did not suffice for their task, and it was not long before the vanquished recommenced war. He had dispersed over the territory of the empire the majority of the prisoners he had taken. A band of Franks, who had been transported and established as a military colony on the European shore of the Black Sea, could not make up their minds to remain there. They obtained possession of some vessels, traversed the Propontis, the Hellespont, and the Archipelago, ravaged the coasts of Greece, Asia Minor, and Africa, plundered Syracuse, scoured the whole of the Mediterranean, entered the ocean by the Straits of Gibraltar, and, making their way up again along the coasts of Gaul, arrived at last at the mouths of the Rhine, where they once more found themselves at home among the vines which Probus, in his victorious progress, had been the first to have planted, and with probably their old taste for adventure and plunder.

After the commencement of the fifth century, from A.D. 406 to 409, it was no longer by incursions limited to certain points, and sometimes repelled with success, that the Germans harassed the Roman provinces; a veritable deluge of divers nations forced, one upon another, from Asia, into Europe, by wars and migration in mass, inundated the empire and gave the decisive signal for its fall. St. Jerome did not exaggerate when he wrote to Ageruchia: "Nations, countless in number and exceeding fierce, have occupied all the Gauls; Quadians, Vandals, Sarmatians, Alans, Gepidians, Herulians, Saxons, Burgundians, Allemannians, Pannonians, and even Assyrians have laid waste all that there is between the Alps and the Pyrenees, the ocean and the Rhine. Sad destiny of the Commonwealth! Mayence, once a noble city, hath been taken and destroyed; thousands of men were slaughtered in the church. Worms hath fallen after a long siege. The inhabitants of Rheims, a powerful city, and those of Amiens, Arras, Térouanne, at the extremity of Gaul, Tournay, Spires, and Strasburg have been carried away to Germany. All hath been ravaged in Aquitania (Novempopulania), Lyonness, and Narbonensis; the towns, save a few, are dispeopled; the sword pursueth them abroad and famine at home. I cannot speak without tears of Toulouse; if she be not reduced to equal ruin, it is to the merits of her holy bishop Exuperus that she oweth it."

Then took place throughout the Roman Empire, in the East as well as in the West, in Asia and Africa as well as in Europe, the last grand struggle between the Roman armies and barbaric nations. _Armies_ is the proper term; for, to tell the truth, there was no longer a Roman nation, and very seldom a Roman emperor with some little capacity for government or war. The long continuance of despotism and slavery had enervated equally the ruling power and the people; everything depended on the soldiers and their generals. It was in Gaul that the struggle was most obstinate and most promptly brought to a decisive issue, and the confusion there was as great as the obstinacy. Barbaric peoplets served in the ranks and barbaric leaders held the command of the Roman armies; Stilicho was a Goth; Arbogastes and Mellobaudes were Franks; Ricimer was a Suevian. The Roman generals, Bonifacius, Aetius, Ægidius, Syagrius, at one time fought the barbarians, at another negotiated with such and such of them, either to entice them to take service against other barbarians, or to promote the objects of personal ambition; for the Roman generals also, under the titles of patrician, consul, or proconsul, aspired to and attained a sort of political independence, and contributed to the dismemberment of the empire in the very act of defending it.

No later than A.D. 412 two German nations, the Visigoths and the Burgundians, took their stand definitively in Gaul, and founded there two new kingdoms: the Visigoths, under their kings Ataulph and Wallia, in Aquitania and Narbonensis; the Burgundians, under their kings Gundichaire and Gundioch, in Lyonnais, from the southern point of Alsatia right into Provence, along the two banks of the Saône and the left bank of the Rhone, and also in Switzerland. In 451 the arrival in Gaul of the Huns and their king Attila--already famous, both king and nation, for their wild habits, their fierce valor, and their successes against the Eastern Empire--gravely complicated the situation. The common interest of resistance against the most barbarous of barbarians, and the renown and energy of Aetius, united, for the moment, the old and new masters of Gaul; Romans, Gauls, Visigoths, Burgundians, Franks, Alans, Saxons, and Britons formed the army led by Aetius against that of Attila, who also had in his ranks Goths, Burgundians, Gepidians, Alans, and beyond-Rhine Franks, gathered together and enlisted on his road. It was a chaos and a conflict of barbarians, of every name and race, disputing one with another, pell-mell, the remnants of the Roman Empire torn asunder and in dissolution.

Attila had already arrived before Orleans, and was laying siege to it. The bishop, St. Anianus, sustained awhile the courage of the besieged by promising them aid from Aetius and his allies. The aid was slow to come; and the bishop sent to Aetius a message: "If thou be not here this very day, my son, it will be too late." Still Aetius came not. The people of Orleans determined to surrender; the gates flew open; the Huns entered; the plundering began without much disorder; "wagons were stationed to receive the booty as it was taken from the houses, and the captives, arranged in groups, were divided by lot between the victorious chieftains." Suddenly a shout reëchoed through the streets: it was Aetius, Theodoric, and Torismund, his son, who were coming with the eagles of the Roman legions and with the banners of the Visigoths. A fight took place between them and the Huns, at first on the banks of the Loire, and then in the streets of the city. The people of Orleans joined their liberators; the danger was great for the Huns, and Attila ordered a retreat.

It was the 14th of June, 451, and that day was for a long while celebrated in the church of Orleans as the date of a signal deliverance. The Huns retired toward Champagne, which they had already crossed at their coming into Gaul; and when they were before Troyes, the bishop, St. Lupus, repaired to Attila's camp, and besought him to spare a defenceless city, which had neither walls nor garrison. "So be it," answered Attila; "but thou shalt come with me and see the Rhine; I promise then to send thee back again." With mingled prudence and superstition the barbarian meant to keep the holy man as a hostage. The Huns arrived at the plains hard by Châlons-sur-Marne; Aetius and all his allies had followed them; and Attila, perceiving that a battle was inevitable, halted in a position for delivering it. The Gothic historian Jornandès says that he consulted his priests, who answered that the Huns would be beaten, but that _the general of the enemy_ would fall in the fight. In this prophecy Attila saw predicted the death of Aetius, his most formidable enemy; and the struggle commenced. There is no precise information about the date; but "it was," says Jornandès, "a battle which for atrocity, multitude, horror, and stubbornness has not the like in the records of antiquity."

Historians vary in their exaggerations of the numbers engaged and killed: according to some, three hundred thousand, according to others one hundred and sixty-two thousand, were left on the field of battle. Theodoric, king of the Visigoths, was killed. Some chroniclers name Meroveus as king of the Franks, settled in Belgica, near Tongres, who formed part of the army of Aetius. They even attribute to him a brilliant attack made on the eve of the battle upon the Gepidians, allies of the Huns, when ninety thousand men fell according to some, and only fifteen thousand according to others. The numbers are purely imaginary, and even the fact is doubtful. However, the battle of Châlons drove the Huns out of Gaul, and was the last victory in Gaul, gained still in the name of the Roman Empire, but in reality for the advantage of the German nations which had already conquered it. Twenty-four years afterward the very name of Roman Empire disappeared with Augustulus, the last of the emperors of the West.

Thirty years after the battle of Châlons the Franks settled in Gaul were not yet united as one nation; several tribes with this name, independent one of another, were planted between the Rhine and the Somme; there were some in the environs of Cologne, Calais, Cambrai, even beyond the Seine and as far as Le Mans, on the confines of the Britons. This is one of the reasons of the confusion that prevails in the ancient chronicles about the chieftains or kings of these tribes, their names and dates, and the extent and site of their possessions. Pharamond, Clodion, Meroveus, and Childeric cannot be considered as kings of France and placed at the beginning of her history. If they are met with in connection with historical facts, fabulous legends or fanciful traditions are mingled with them; Priam appears as a predecessor of Pharamond; Clodion, who passes for having been the first to bear and transmit to the Frankish kings the title of "long-haired," is represented as the son, at one time of Pharamond, at another of another chieftain named Théodemer; romantic adventures, spoilt by geographical mistakes, adorn the life of Childeric.

All that can be distinctly affirmed is that, from A.D. 450 to 480, the two principal Frankish tribes were those of the Salian Franks and the Ripuarian Franks, settled, the latter in the east of Belgica, on the banks of the Moselle and the Rhine; the former toward the west, between the Meuse, the ocean, and the Somme. Meroveus, whose name was perpetuated in his line, was one of the principal chieftains of the Salian Franks; and his son Childeric, who resided at Tournai, where his tomb was discovered in 1655, was the father of Clovis, who succeeded him in 481, and with whom really commenced the kingdom and history of France.

Clovis was fifteen or sixteen years old when he became king of the Salian Franks of Tournai. Five years afterward his ruling passion, ambition, exhibited itself, together with that mixture of boldness and craft which was to characterize his whole life. He had two neighbors: one, hostile to the Franks, the Roman patrician Syagrius, who was left master at Soissons after the death of his father Ægidius, and whom Gregory of Tours calls "king of the Romans"; the other, a Salian-Frankish chieftain, just as Clovis was, and related to him, Ragnacaire, who was settled at Cambrai. Clovis induced Ragnacaire to join him in a campaign against Syagrius. They fought, and Syagrius was driven to take refuge in Southern Gaul, with Alaric, king of the Visigoths.

Clovis, not content with taking possession of Soissons, and anxious to prevent any troublesome return, demanded of Alaric to send Syagrius back to him, threatening war if the request were refused. The Goth, less bellicose than the Frank, delivered up Syagrius to the envoys of Clovis, who immediately had him secretly put to death, settled himself at Soissons, and from thence set on foot, in the country between the Aisne and the Loire, plundering and subjugating expeditions which speedily increased his domains and his wealth, and extended far and wide his fame as well as his ambition. The Franks who accompanied him were not long before they also felt the growth of his power; like him they were pagans, and the treasures of the Christian churches counted for a great deal in the booty they had to divide. On one of their expeditions they had taken in the church of Rheims, among other things, a vase "of marvellous size and beauty."

The bishop of Rheims, St. Remi, was not quite a stranger to Clovis. Some years before, when he had heard that the son of Childeric had become king of the Franks of Tournai, he had written to congratulate him. "We are informed," said he, "that thou hast undertaken the conduct of affairs; it is no marvel that thou beginnest to be what thy fathers ever were;" and, while taking care to put himself on good terms with the young pagan chieftain, the bishop added to his felicitations some pious Christian counsel, without letting any attempt at conversion be mixed up with his moral exhortations. The bishop, informed of the removal of the vase, sent to Clovis a messenger begging the return, if not of all his church's ornaments, at any rate of that. "Follow us as far as Soissons," said Clovis to the messenger; "it is there the partition is to take place of what we have captured; when the lots shall have given me the vase, I will do what the bishop demands."

When Soissons was reached, and all the booty had been placed in the midst of the host, the king said: "Valiant warriors, I pray you not to refuse me, over and above my share, this vase here." At these words of the king, those who were of sound mind among the assembly answered: "Glorious king, everything we see here is thine, and we ourselves are submissive to thy commands. Do thou as seemeth good to thee, for there is none that can resist thy power." When they had thus spoken, a certain Frank, light-minded, jealous, and vain, cried out aloud as he struck the vase with his battle-axe, "Thou shalt have naught of all this save what the lots shall truly give thee." At these words all were astounded; but the king bore the insult with sweet patience, and, accepting the vase, he gave it to the messenger, hiding his wound in the recesses of his heart. At the end of a year he ordered all his host to assemble fully equipped at the March parade, to have their arms inspected. After having passed in review all the other warriors, he came to him who had struck the vase. "None," said he, "hath brought hither arms so ill-kept as thine; nor lance, nor sword, nor battle-axe are in condition for service." And wresting from him his axe he flung it on the ground. The man stooped down a little to pick it up, and forthwith the King, raising with both hands his own battle-axe, drove it into his skull, saying, "Thus didst thou to the vase of Soissons!" On the death of this fellow he bade the rest begone, and by this act made himself greatly feared.

A bold and unexpected deed has always a great effect on men: with his Frankish warriors, as well as with his Roman and Gothic foes, Clovis had at command the instincts of patience and brutality in turn; he could bear a mortification and take vengeance in due season. While prosecuting his course of plunder and war in Eastern Belgica, on the banks of the Meuse, Clovis was inspired with a wish to get married. He had heard tell of a young girl, like himself of the Germanic royal line, Clotilde, niece of Gondebaud, at that time king of the Burgundians. She was dubbed beautiful, wise, and well-informed; but her situation was melancholy and perilous. Ambition and fraternal hatred had devastated her family. Her father, Chilperic, and her two brothers, had been put to death by her uncle Gondebaud, who had caused her mother, Agrippina, to be thrown into the Rhone, with a stone round her neck, and drowned. Two sisters alone had survived this slaughter: the elder, Chrona, had taken religious vows; the other, Clotilde, was living almost in exile at Geneva, absorbed in works of piety and charity.

The principal historian of this epoch, Gregory of Tours, an almost contemporary authority, for he was elected bishop sixty-two years after the death of Clovis, says simply: "Clovis at once sent a deputation to Gondebaud to ask Clotilde in marriage. Gondebaud, not daring to refuse, put her into the hands of the envoys, who took her promptly to the King. Clovis at sight of her was transported with joy, and married her." But to this short account other chroniclers, among them Frédégaire, who wrote a commentary upon and a continuation of Gregory of Tours' work, added details which deserve reproduction, first as a picture of manners, next for the better understanding of history. "As he was not allowed to see Clotilde," says Frédégaire, "Clovis charged a certain Roman, named Aurelian, to use all his wit to come nigh her. Aurelian repaired alone to the spot, clothed in rags and with his wallet upon his back, like a mendicant. To insure confidence in himself he took with him the ring of Clovis. On his arrival at Geneva, Clotilde received him as a pilgrim charitably, and while she was washing his feet Aurelian, bending toward her, said, under his breath, 'Lady, I have great matters to announce to thee if thou deign to permit me secret revelation.' She, consenting, replied, 'Say on.' 'Clovis, king of the Franks,' said he, 'hath sent me to thee: if it be the will of God, he would fain raise thee to his high rank by marriage; and that thou mayest be certified thereof, he sendeth thee this ring.' She accepted the ring with great joy, and said to Aurelian, 'Take for recompense of thy pains these hundred sous in gold and this ring of mine. Return promptly to thy lord; if he would fain unite me to him by marriage, let him send without delay messengers to demand me of my uncle Gondebaud, and let the messengers who shall come take me away in haste, so soon as they shall have obtained permission; if they haste not I fear lest a certain sage, one Aridius, may return from Constantinople, and, if he arrive beforehand, all this matter will by his counsel come to naught.'

"Aurelian returned in the same disguise under which he had come. On approaching the territory of Orleans, and at no great distance from his house, he had taken as travelling companion a certain poor mendicant, by whom he, having fallen asleep from sheer fatigue, and thinking himself safe, was robbed of his wallet and the hundred sous in gold that it contained. On awakening, Aurelian was sorely vexed, ran swiftly home, and sent his servants in all directions in search of the mendicant who had stolen his wallet. He was found and brought to Aurelian, who, after drubbing him soundly for three days, let him go his way. He afterward told Clovis all that had passed and what Clotilde suggested. Clovis, pleased with his success and with Clotilde's notion, at once sent a deputation to Gondebaud to demand his niece in marriage. Gondebaud, not daring to refuse, and flattered at the idea of making a friend of Clovis, promised to give her to him. Then the deputation, having offered the denier and the sou, according to the custom of the Franks, espoused Clotilde in the name of Clovis, and demanded that she be given up to them to be married.

"Without any delay the council was assembled at Châlons, and preparations made for the nuptials. The Franks, having arrived with all speed, received her from the hands of Gondebaud, put her into a covered carriage, and escorted her to Clovis, together with much treasure. She, however, having already learned that Aridius was on his way back, said to the Frankish lords, 'If ye would take me into the presence of your lord, let me descend from this carriage, mount me on horseback, and get you hence as fast as ye may; for never in this carriage shall I reach the presence of your lord.'

"Aridius, in fact, returned very speedily from Marseilles, and Gondebaud, on seeing him, said to him, 'Thou knowest that we have made friends with the Franks, and that I have given my niece to Clovis to wife.' 'This,' answered Aridius, 'is no bond of friendship, but the beginning of perpetual strife. Thou shouldst have remembered, my lord, that thou didst slay Clotilde's father, thy brother Chilperic, that thou didst drown her mother, and that thou didst cut off her brothers' heads and cast their bodies into a well. If Clotilde become powerful she will avenge the wrongs of her relatives. Send thou forthwith a troop in chase, and have her brought back to thee. It will be easier for thee to bear the wrath of one person than to be perpetually at strife, thyself and thine, with all the Franks.' And Gondebaud did send forthwith a troop in chase to fetch back Clotilde with the carriage and all the treasure; but she, on approaching Villers, where Clovis was waiting for her, in the territory of the Troyes, and before passing the Burgundian frontier, urged them who escorted her to disperse right and left over a space of twelve leagues in the country whence she was departing, to plunder and burn; and that having been done with the permission of Clovis, she cried aloud, 'I thank thee, God omnipotent, for that I see the commencement of vengeance for my parents and my brethren!'"

The majority of the learned have regarded this account of Frédégaire as a romantic fable, and have declined to give it a place in history. M. Fauriel, one of the most learned associates of the Academy of Inscriptions, has given much the same opinion, but he nevertheless adds: "Whatever may be their authorship, the fables in question are historic in the sense that they relate to real facts of which they are a poetical expression, a romantic development, conceived with the idea of popularizing the Frankish kings among the Gallo-Roman subjects." It cannot, however, be admitted that a desire to popularize the Frankish kings is a sufficient and truth-like explanation of these tales of the Gallo-Roman chroniclers, or that they are no more than "a poetical expression, a romantic development" of the real facts briefly noted by Gregory of Tours; the tales have a graver origin and contain more truth than would be presumed from some of the anecdotes and sayings mixed up with them. In the condition of minds and parties in Gaul at the end of the fifth century the marriage of Clovis and Clotilde was, for the public of the period, for the barbarians and for the Gallo-Romans, a great matter. Clovis and the Franks were still pagans; Gondebaud and the Burgundians were Christians, but Arians; Clotilde was a Catholic Christian. To which of the two, Catholics or Arians, would Clovis ally himself? To whom, Arian, pagan, or Catholic, would Clotilde be married?

Assuredly the bishops, priests, and all the Gallo-Roman clergy, for the most part Catholics, desired to see Clovis, that young and audacious Frankish chieftain, take to wife a Catholic rather than an Arian or a pagan, and hoped to convert the pagan Clovis to Christianity much more easily than an Arian to orthodoxy. The question between Catholic orthodoxy and Arianism was, at that time, a vital question for Christianity in its entirety, and St. Athanasius was not wrong in attributing to it supreme importance. It may be presumed that the Catholic clergy, the bishop of Rheims, or the bishop of Langres was no stranger to the repeated praises which turned the thoughts of the Frankish King toward the Burgundian princess, and the idea of their marriage once set afloat, the Catholics, priesthood or laity, labored undoubtedly to push it forward, while the Burgundian Arians exerted themselves to prevent it.

Thus there took place between opposing influences, religious and national, a most animated struggle. No astonishment can be felt, then, at the obstacles the marriage encountered, at the complications mingled with it, and at the indirect means employed on both sides to cause its success or failure. The account of Frédégaire is but a picture of this struggle and its incidents, a little amplified or altered by imagination or the credulity of the period; but the essential features of the picture, the disguise of Aurelian, the hurry of Clotilde, the prudent recollection of Aridius, Gondebaud's alternations of fear and violence, and Clotilde's vindictive passion when she is once out of danger--there is nothing in all this out of keeping with the manners of the time or the position of the actors. Let it be added that Aurelian and Aridius are real personages who are met with elsewhere in history, and whose parts as played on the occasion of Clotilde's marriage are in harmony with the other traces that remain of their lives.

The consequences of the marriage justified before long the importance which had on all sides been attached to it. Clotilde had a son; she was anxious to have him baptized, and urged her husband to consent. "The gods you worship," said she, "are naught, and can do naught for themselves or others; they are of wood or stone or metal." Clovis resisted, saying: "It is by the command of our gods that all things are created and brought forth. It is plain that your God hath no power; there is no proof even that he is of the race of the gods." But Clotilde prevailed; and she had her son baptized solemnly, hoping that the striking nature of the ceremony might win to the faith the father whom her words and prayers had been powerless to touch. The child soon died, and Clovis bitterly reproached the Queen, saying: "Had the child been dedicated to my gods he would be alive; he was baptized in the name of your God, and he could not live." Clotilde defended her God and prayed. She had a second son who was also baptized, and fell sick. "It cannot be otherwise with him than with his brother," said Clovis; "baptized in the name of your Christ, he is going to die." But the child was cured, and lived; and Clovis was pacified and less incredulous of Christ.

An event then came to pass which affected him still more than the sickness or cure of his children.

In 496 the Alemannians, a Germanic confederation like the Franks, who also had been, for some time past, assailing the Roman Empire on the banks of the Rhine or the frontiers of Switzerland, crossed the river and invaded the settlements of the Franks on the left bank. Clovis went to the aid of his confederation and attacked the Alemannians at Tolbiac, near Cologne. He had with him Aurelian, who had been his messenger to Clotilde, whom he had made duke of Melun, and who commanded the forces of Sens. The battle was going ill; the Franks were wavering and Clovis was anxious. Before setting out he had, according to Frédégaire, promised his wife that if he were victorious he would turn Christian.

Other chroniclers say that Aurelian, seeing the battle in danger of being lost, said to Clovis, "My lord King, believe only on the Lord of heaven whom the Queen, my mistress, preacheth." Clovis cried out with emotion: "Christ Jesus, thou whom my queen Clotilde calleth the Son of the living God, I have invoked my own gods, and they have withdrawn from me; I believe that they have no power, since they aid not those who call upon them. Thee, very God and Lord, I invoke; if thou give me victory over these foes, if I find in thee the power that the people proclaim of thee, I will believe on thee, and will be baptized in thy name." The tide of battle turned; the Franks recovered confidence and courage; and the Allemannians, beaten and seeing their King slain, surrendered themselves to Clovis, saying: "Cease, of thy grace, to cause any more of our people to perish; for we are thine."

On the return of Clovis, Clotilde, fearing he should forget his victory and his promise, "secretly sent," says Gregory of Tours, "to St. Remi, bishop of Rheims, and prayed him to penetrate the King's heart with the words of salvation." St. Remi was a fervent Christian and able bishop; and "I will listen to thee, most holy father," said Clovis, "willingly; but there is a difficulty. The people that follow me will not give up their gods. But I am about to assemble them, and will speak to them according to thy word." The King found the people more docile or better prepared than he had represented to the bishop. Even before he opened his mouth the greater part of those present cried out: "We abjure the mortal gods; we are ready to follow the immortal God whom Remi preacheth."

About three thousand Frankish warriors, however, persisted in their intention of remaining pagans, and deserting Clovis betook themselves to Ragnacaire, the Frankish king of Cambrai, who was destined ere long to pay dearly for this acquisition. So soon as St. Remi was informed of this good disposition on the part of king and people, he fixed Christmas Day of this year, 496, for the ceremony of the baptism of these grand neophytes. The description of it is borrowed from the historian of the church of Rheims, Frodoard by name, born at the close of the ninth century. He gathered together the essential points of it from the _Life of Saint Remi_, written, shortly before that period, by the saint's celebrated successor at Rheims, Archbishop Hincmar. "The bishop," says he, "went in search of the King at early morn in his bed-chamber, in order that, taking him at the moment of freedom from secular cares, he might more freely communicate to him the mysteries of the holy word. The King's chamber-people receive him with great respect, and the King himself runs forward to meet him. Thereupon they pass together into an oratory dedicated to St. Peter, chief of the apostles, and adjoining the King's apartment.

"When the bishop, the King, and the Queen had taken their places on the seats prepared for them, and admission had been given to some clerics and also some friends and household servants of the King, the venerable bishop began his instructions on the subject of salvation.

"Meanwhile preparations are being made along the road from the palace to the baptistery; curtains and valuable stuffs are hung up; the houses on either side of the street are dressed out; the baptistery is sprinkled with balm and all manner of perfume. The procession moves from the palace; the clergy lead the way with the holy gospels, the cross, and standards, singing hymns and spiritual songs; then comes the bishop, leading the King by the hand; after him the Queen, lastly the people. On the road, it is said that the King asked the bishop if that were the kingdom promised him. 'No,' answered the prelate, 'but it is the entrance to the road that leads to it.'

"At the moment when the King bent his head over the fountain of life, 'Lower thy head with humility, Sicambrian,' cried the eloquent bishop; 'adore what thou hast burned; burn what thou hast adored.' The King's two sisters, Alboflède and Lantéchilde, likewise received baptism; and so at the same time did three thousand of the Frankish army, besides a large number of women and children."

When it was known that Clovis had been baptized by St. Remi, and with what striking circumstance, great was the satisfaction among the Catholics. The chief Burgundian prelate, Avitus, bishop of Vienne, wrote to the Frankish King: "Your faith is our victory; in choosing for you and yours, you have pronounced for all; divine Providence hath given you as arbiter to our age. Greece can boast of having a sovereign of our persuasion; but she is no longer alone in possession of this precious gift; the rest of the world doth share her light." Pope Anastasius hastened to express his joy to Clovis. "The Church, our common mother," he wrote, "rejoiceth to have born unto God so great a king. Continue, glorious and illustrious son, to cheer the heart of this tender mother; be a column of iron to support her, and she in her turn will give thee victory over all thine enemies."

Clovis was not a man to omit turning his Catholic popularity to the account of his ambition. At the very time when he was receiving these testimonies of good-will from the heads of the Church he learned that Gondebaud, disquieted, no doubt, at the conversion of his powerful neighbor, had just made a vain attempt, at a conference held at Lyons, to reconcile in his kingdom the Catholics and the Arians. Clovis considered the moment favorable to his projects of aggrandizement at the expense of the Burgundian King; he fomented the dissensions which already prevailed between Gondebaud and his brother Godegisile, assured to himself the latter's complicity, and suddenly entered Burgundy with his army. Gondebaud, betrayed and beaten at the first encounter at Dijon, fled to the south of his kingdom, and went and shut himself up in Avignon. Clovis pursued, and besieged him there. Gondebaud in great alarm asked counsel of his Roman confidant Aridius, who had but lately foretold to him what the marriage of his niece Clotilde would bring upon him. "On every side," said the King, "I am encompassed by perils, and I know not what to do. Lo! here be these barbarians come upon us to slay us and destroy the land." "To escape death," answered Aridius, "thou must appease the ferocity of this man. Now, if it please thee, I will feign to fly from thee and go over to him. So soon as I shall be with him, I will so do that he ruin neither thee nor the land. Only have thou care to perform whatsoever I shall ask of thee, until the Lord in his goodness deign to make thy cause triumph." "All that thou shalt bid will I do," said Gondebaud. So Aridius left Gondebaud and went his way to Clovis, and said: "Most pious King, I am thy humble servant; I give up this wretched Gondebaud and come unto thy mightiness. If thy goodness deign to cast a glance upon me, thou and thy descendants will find in me a servant of integrity and fidelity."

Clovis received him very kindly and kept him by him, for Aridius was agreeable in conversation, wise in counsel, just in judgment, and faithful in whatever was committed to his care. As the siege continued Aridius said to Clovis: "O King, if the glory of thy greatness would suffer thee to listen to the words of my feebleness, though thou needest not counsel, I would submit them to thee in all fidelity, and they might be of use to thee, whether for thyself or for the towns by the which thou dost propose to pass. Wherefore keepest thou here thine army whilst thine enemy doth hide himself in a well-fortified place? Thou ravagest the fields, thou pillagest the corn, thou cuttest down the vines, thou fellest the olive-trees, thou destroyest all the produce of the land, and yet thou succeedest not in destroying thine adversary. Rather send thou unto him deputies, and lay on him a tribute to be paid to thee every year. Thus the land will be preserved, and thou wilt be lord forever over him who owes thee tribute. If he refuse, thou shalt then do what pleaseth thee." Clovis found the counsel good, ordered his army to return home, sent deputies to Gondebaud, and called upon him to undertake the payment every year of a fixed tribute. Gondebaud paid for the time, and promised to pay punctually for the future. And peace appeared made between the two barbarians.

Pleased with his campaign against the Burgundians, Clovis kept on good terms with Gondebaud, who was to be henceforth a simple tributary, and transferred to the Visigoths of Aquitania and their King, Alaric II, his views of conquest. He had there the same pretexts for attack and the same means of success. Alaric and his Visigoths were Arians, and between them and the bishops of Southern Gaul, nearly all orthodox Catholics, there were permanent ill-will and distrust. Alaric attempted to conciliate their good-will: in 506 a council met at Agde; the thirty-four bishops of Aquitania attended in person or by delegate; the King protested that he had no design of persecuting the Catholics; the bishops, at the opening of the council, offered prayers for the King; but Alaric did not forget that immediately after the conversion of Clovis, Volusian, bishop of Tours, had conspired in favor of the Frankish King, and the bishops of Aquitania regarded Volusian as a martyr, for he had been deposed, without trial, from his see, and taken as a prisoner first to Toulouse, and afterward into Spain, where in a short time he had been put to death. In vain did the glorious chief of the race of Goths, Theodoric the Great, king of Italy, father-in-law of Alaric, and brother-in-law of Clovis, exert himself to prevent any outbreak between the two kings. In 498 Alaric, no doubt at his father-in-law's solicitation, wrote to Clovis, "If my brother consent thereto, I would, following my desires and by the grace of God, have an interview with him."

The interview took place at a small island in the Loire, called the Ile d'Or or de St. Jean, near Amboise. "The two kings," says Gregory of Tours, "conversed, ate, and drank together, and separated with mutual promises of friendship." The positions and passions of each soon made the promises of no effect. In 505 Clovis was seriously ill; the bishops of Aquitania testified warm interest in him; and one of them, Quintian, bishop of Rodez, being on this account persecuted by the Visigoths, had to seek refuge at Clermont, in Auvergne. Clovis no longer concealed his designs. In 507 he assembled his principal chieftains; and "It displeaseth me greatly," said he, "that these Arians should possess a portion of the Gauls; march we forth with the help of God, drive we them from that land, for it is very goodly, and bring we it under our own power."

The Franks applauded their King; and the army set out on the march in the direction of Poitiers, where Alaric happened at that time to be. "As a portion of the troops was crossing the territory of Tours," says Gregory, who was shortly afterward its bishop, "Clovis forbade, out of respect for St. Martin, anything to be taken, save grass and water. One of the army, however, having found some hay belonging to a poor man, said, 'This is grass; we do not break the King's commands by taking it'; and, in spite of the poor man's resistance, he robbed him of his hay. Clovis, informed of the fact, slew the soldier on the spot with one sweep of his sword, saying, 'What will become of our hopes of victory, if we offend St. Martin?'" Alaric had prepared for the struggle; and the two armies met in the plain of Vouillé, on the banks of the little river Clain, a few leagues from Poitiers. The battle was very severe. "The Goths," says Gregory of Tours, "fought with missiles; the Franks sword in hand. Clovis met and with his own hand slew Alaric in the fray; at the moment of striking his blow two Goths fell suddenly upon Clovis, and attacked him with their pikes on either side, but he escaped death, thanks to his cuirass and the agility of his horse."

Beaten and kingless, the Goths retreated in great disorder; and Clovis, pursuing his march, arrived without opposition at Bordeaux, where he settled down with his Franks for the winter. When the war season returned he marched on Toulouse, the capital of the Visigoths, which he likewise occupied without resistance, and where he seized a portion of the treasure of the Visigothic kings. He quitted it to lay siege to Carcassonne, which had been made by the Romans into the stronghold of Septimania.

There his course of conquest was destined to end. After the battle of Vouillé he had sent his eldest son, Theodoric, in command of a division, with orders to cross Central Gaul from west to east, to go and join the Burgundians of Gondebaud, who had promised his assistance, and in conjunction with them to attack the Visigoths on the banks of the Rhone and in Narbonensis. The young Frank boldly executed his father's orders, but the intervention of Theodoric the Great, king of Italy, prevented the success of the operation. He sent an army into Gaul to the aid of his son-in-law Alaric; and the united Franks and Burgundians failed in their attacks upon the Visigoths of the eastern provinces. Clovis had no idea of compromising by his obstinacy the conquests already accomplished; he therefore raised the siege of Carcassonne, returned first to Toulouse, and then to Bordeaux, took Angoulême, the only town of importance he did not possess in Aquitania; and feeling reasonably sure that the Visigoths, who, even with the aid that had come from Italy, had great difficulty in defending what remained to them of Southern Gaul, would not come and dispute with him what he had already conquered, he halted at Tours, and stayed there some time, to enjoy on the very spot the fruits of his victory and to establish his power in his new possessions.

It appears that even the Britons of Armorica tendered to him at that time, through the interposition of Melanius, bishop of Rennes, if not their actual submission, at any rate their subordination and homage.

Clovis at the same time had his self-respect flattered in a manner to which barbaric conquerors always attach great importance. Anastasius, emperor of the East, with whom he had already had some communication, sent to him at Tours a solemn embassy, bringing him the titles and insignia of patrician and consul. "Clovis," says Gregory of Tours, "put on the tunic of purple and the chlamys and the diadem; then mounting his horse, he scattered with his own hand and with much bounty gold and silver among the people, on the road which lies between the gate of the court belonging to the basilica of St. Martin and the church of the city. From that day he was called consul and augustus. On leaving the city of Tours he repaired to Paris, where he fixed the seat of his government."

Paris was certainly the political centre of his dominions, the intermediate point between the early settlements of his race and himself in Gaul and his new Gallic conquests; but he lacked some of the possessions nearest to him and most naturally, in his own opinion, his. To the east, north, and south-west of Paris were settled some independent Frankish tribes, governed by chieftains with the name of kings. So soon as he had settled at Paris, it was the one fixed idea of Clovis to reduce them all to subjection. He had conquered the Burgundians and the Visigoths; it remained for him to conquer and unite together all the Franks. The barbarian showed himself in his true colors, during this new enterprise, with his violence, his craft, his cruelty, and his perfidy. He began with the most powerful of the tribes, the Ripuarian Franks. He sent secretly to Cloderic, son of Sigebert, their King, saying: "Thy father hath become old, and his wound maketh him to limp o' one foot; if he should die, his kingdom will come to thee of right, together with our friendship." Cloderic had his father assassinated while asleep in his tent, and sent messengers to Clovis, saying: "My father is dead, and I have in my power his kingdom and his treasures. Send thou unto me certain of thy people, and I will gladly give into their hands whatsoever among these treasures shall seem like to please thee." The envoys of Clovis came, and, as they were examining in detail the treasures of Sigebert, Cloderic said to them, "This is the coffer wherein my father was wont to pile up his gold pieces." "Plunge," said they, "thy hand right to the bottom, that none escape thee." Cloderic bent forward, and one of the envoys lifted his battle-axe and cleft his skull.

Clovis went to Cologne and convoked the Franks of the canton. "Learn," said he, "that which hath happened. As I was sailing on the river Scheldt, Cloderic, son of my relative, did vex his father, saying I was minded to slay him; and as Sigebert was flying across the forest of Buchaw, his son himself sent bandits, who fell upon him and slew him. Cloderic also is dead, smitten I know not by whom as he was opening his father's treasures. I am altogether unconcerned in it all, and I could not shed the blood of my relatives, for it is a crime. But since it hath so happened, I give unto you counsel, which ye shall follow if it seem to you good; turn ye toward me, and live under my protection." And they who were present hoisted him on a huge buckler and hailed him king.

After Sigebert and the Ripuarian Franks came the Franks of Térouanne, and Chararic, their King. He had refused, twenty years before, to march with Clovis against the Roman Syagrius. Clovis, who had not forgotten it, attacked him, took him and his son prisoners, and had them both shorn, ordering that Chararic should be ordained priest and his son deacon. Chararic was much grieved. Then said his son to him: "Here be branches which were cut from a green tree, and are not yet wholly dried up: soon they will sprout forth again. May it please God that he who hath wrought all this shall die as quickly!" Clovis considered these words as a menace, had both father and son beheaded, and took possession of their dominions. Ragnacaire, king of the Franks of Cambrai, was the third to be attacked. He had served Clovis against Syagrius, but Clovis took no account of that. Ragnacaire, being beaten, was preparing for flight, when he was seized by his own soldiers, who tied his hands behind his back, and took him to Clovis along with his brother Riquier. "Wherefore hast thou dishonored our race," said Clovis, "by letting thyself wear bonds? 'Twere better to have died," and cleft his skull with one stroke of his battle-axe; then turning to Riquier, "Hadst thou succored thy brother," said he, "he had assuredly not been bound," and felled him likewise at his feet. Rignomer, king of the Franks of Le Mans, met the same fate, but not at the hands, only by the order, of Clovis. So Clovis remained sole king of the Franks, for all the independent chieftains had disappeared.

It is said that one day, after all these murders, Clovis, surrounded by his trusted servants, cried: "Woe is me! who am left as a traveller among strangers, and who have no longer relatives to lend me support in the day of adversity!" Thus do the most shameless take pleasure in exhibiting sham sorrow after crimes they cannot disavow.

It cannot be known whether Clovis ever felt in his soul any scruple or regret for his many acts of ferocity and perfidy, or if he looked as sufficient expiation upon the favor he had bestowed on the churches and their bishops, upon the gifts he lavished on them, and upon the absolutions he demanded of them. In times of mingled barbarism and faith there are strange cases of credulity in the way of bargains made with divine justice. We read in the life of St. Eleutherus, bishop of Tournai, the native land of Clovis, that at one of those periods when the conscience of the Frankish King must have been most heavily laden, he presented himself one day at the church. "My lord King," said the bishop, "I know wherefore thou art come to me." "I have nothing special to say unto thee," rejoined Clovis, "Say not so, O King," replied the bishop; "thou hast sinned, and darest not avow it." The King was moved, and ended by confessing that he had deeply sinned and had need of large pardon. St. Eleutherus betook himself to prayer; the King came back the next day, and the bishop gave him a paper on which was written by a divine hand, he said, "the pardon granted to royal offences which might not be revealed."

Clovis accepted this absolution, and loaded the church of Tournai with his gifts. In 511, the very year of his death, his last act in life was the convocation at Orleans of a council, which was attended by thirty bishops from the different parts of his kingdom, and at which were adopted thirty-one canons that, while granting to the Church great privileges and means of influence, in many cases favorable to humanity and respect for the rights of individuals, bound the Church closely to the state, and gave to royalty, even in ecclesiastical matters, great power. The bishops, on breaking up, sent these canons to Clovis, praying him to give them the sanction of his adhesion, which he did. A few months afterward, on the 27th of November, 511, Clovis died at Paris, and was buried in the church of St. Peter and St. Paul, nowadays St. Geneviève, built by his wife, Queen Clotilde, who survived him.

It was but right to make the reader intimately acquainted with that great barbarian who, with all his vices and all his crimes, brought about, or rather began, two great matters which have already endured through fourteen centuries and still endure; for he founded the French monarchy and Christian France. Such men and such facts have a right to be closely studied and set in a clear light by history. Nothing similar will be seen for two centuries, under the descendants of Clovis, the Merovingians; among them will be encountered none but those personages whom death reduces to insignificance, whatever may have been their rank in the world, and of whom Vergil thus speaks to Dante:

"Waste we no words on them: one glance and pass thou on."

PUBLICATION OF THE JUSTINIAN CODE

A.D. 529-534

EDWARD GIBBON

The richest legacy ever left by one civilization to another was the Justinian Code. This compilation of the entire body of the Roman civil law (_Corpus Juris Civilis_), as evolved during the thousand years after the Decemvirate legislation of the Twelve Tables, comprises perhaps the most valuable historical data preserved from ancient times. It presents a vivid and authentic picture of the domestic life of the Romans and the rules which governed their relations to each other. This phase of history is considered by modern historians as of far greater importance than the chronicles of battles and court intrigues.

The importance of the Justinian Code, however, is not that of mere history. Its influence as a living force is what compels the admiration and gratitude of mankind. It forms the basis of the systems of law in all the civilized nations of the world, with the exception of those of the English-speaking peoples, and even in these the principles of the civil law--as the Roman law is called in contradistinction to the common and statute law of these nations--form the most important part of the regulations concerning personal property.

For this monumental work the world is indebted to Justinian I (Flavius Anicius Justinianus), the most famous of the emperors of the Eastern Empire since Constantine. He was born a Slavonian peasant. Uprawda, his original name, was Latinized into Justinian when he became an officer in the Imperial Guard. He was adopted, educated, and trained by Justin I, whom he succeeded as emperor. His long reign (527-565) was disturbed by the sanguinary factions of the Circus--the Greens and the Blues, so named from the colors of the competing charioteers in the games--the suppression of the schools of philosophy at Athens, and by various wars. Nevertheless it was marked by magnificent works, the administrative organization of the empire, and the great buildings at Constantinople. The Church of Santa-Sophia, the first great Christian church, although used as a Mahometan mosque since 1459, still stands at Constantinople, with its plain exterior but impressive interior, a monument of Justinian's reign.

His two great masters of war, foreigners in origin like himself, were Belisarius the Thracian and Narses the Armenian. Africa was wrested from the Vandals; Italy from the successors of Theodoric; and much of Spain from the Western Goths. Under Justinian the Byzantine or Eastern Empire resumed much of the majesty and power of ancient Rome. But the crowning glory of his career was the Code. One of the greatest historians says of his reign: "Its most instructive lesson has been drawn from the influence which its legislation has exercised on foreign nations. The unerring instinct of mankind has fixed on this period as one of the greatest eras in man's annals."

The Code was a digest of the whole mass of Roman law literature, compiled and annotated at the command of Justinian, under the supervision of the great lawyer Tribonian, who, with his helpers, reduced the chaotic mass to a logical system containing the essence of Roman law. The first part of the _Codex Constitutionem_, prepared in less than a year, was published in April, 529. The second part, the _Digest_ or _Pandects,_ appeared in December, 533. To insure conformity, both were revised and issued in November, 534, the Institutiones, an _elementary_ text-book, founded on the _Institutiones_ of Gaius, who lived A.D. 110-180, being added, and the whole, as a complete body of law, given to the law schools at Constantinople, Rome, Alexandria, Berytus, and Cæsarea, for use in their graduate course. Later the _Novellæ Constitutione_, or _Novels,_ most of them in Greek, comprising statutes of Justinian arranged chronologically, completed the Code.

Forgotten or ignored during the lawless days of the Dark Ages, an entire copy of this famous code was discovered when Amalphi was taken by the Pisans in 1137. Its publication immediately attracted the attention of the learned world. Gratian, a monk of Bologna, compiled a digest of the canon law on the model of that work, and soon afterward, incorporating with his writings the collections of prior authors, gave his "decretum" to the public in 1151. From that time the two codes, the civil and canon laws, were deemed the principal repositories of legal knowledge, and the study of each was considered necessary to throw light on the other.

Justinian's example in the codification of laws was followed by almost every European nation after the eighteenth century; the Code Napoleon (1803-04), regulating all that pertains "to the civil rights of citizens and of property," being the most brilliant parallel to the Justinian Code. The reader familiar with the life of Napoleon will recall that all of his historians quote his frequent allusion to the Code Napoleon as the one great work which would be a living monument of his career, when the glory of all his other achievements would be dimmed by time or forgotten.

Gibbon's examination of the Justinian Code is justly regarded as one of the most important features of the historian's great work, and in several of the leading universities of Europe has long been used as a text-work on civil law.

When Justinian ascended the throne, the reformation of the Roman jurisprudence was an arduous but indispensable task. In the space of ten centuries, the infinite variety of laws and legal opinions had filled many thousand volumes, which no fortune could purchase and no capacity could digest. Books could not easily be found; and the judges, poor in the midst of riches, were reduced to the exercise of their illiterate discretion. The subjects of the Greek provinces were ignorant of the language that disposed of their lives and properties; and the _barbarous_ dialect of the Latins was imperfectly studied in the academies of Berytus and Constantinople. As an Illyrian soldier, that idiom was familiar to the infancy of Justinian; his youth had been instructed by the lessons of jurisprudence, and his imperial choice selected the most learned civilians of the East, to labor with their sovereign in the work of reformation. The theory of professors was assisted by the practice of advocates and the experience of magistrates, and the whole undertaking was animated by the spirit of Tribonian.

This extraordinary man, the object of so much praise and censure, was a native of Side in Pamphylia; and his genius, like that of Bacon, embraced as his own all the business and knowledge of the age. Tribonian composed, both in prose and verse, on a strange diversity of curious and abstruse subjects; a double panegyric of Justinian and the life of the philosopher Theodotus; the nature of happiness and the duties of government; Homer's catalogue and the four-and-twenty sorts of metre; the astronomical canon of Ptolemy; the changes of the months; the houses of the planets; and the harmonic system of the world. To the literature of Greece he added the use of the Latin tongue; the Roman civilians were deposited in his library and in his mind; and he most assiduously cultivated those arts which opened the road of wealth and preferment. From the bar of the prætorian prefects he raised himself to the honors of quæstor, of consul, and of master of the offices: the council of Justinian listened to his eloquence and wisdom, and envy was mitigated by the gentleness and affability of his manners.

The reproaches of impiety and avarice have stained the virtues or the reputation of Tribonian. In a bigoted and persecuting court the principal minister was accused of a secret aversion to the Christian faith, and was supposed to entertain the sentiments of an atheist and a pagan, which have been imputed, inconsistently enough, to the last philosophers of Greece. His avarice was more clearly proved and more sensibly felt. If he were swayed by gifts in the administration of justice, the example of Bacon will again occur: nor can the merit of Tribonian atone for his baseness, if he degraded the sanctity of his profession; and if laws were every day enacted, modified, or repealed, for the base consideration of his private emolument. In the sedition of Constantinople his removal was granted to the clamors, perhaps to the just indignation, of the people; but the quæstor was speedily restored, and, till the hour of his death, he possessed above twenty years the favor and confidence of the Emperor. His passive and dutiful submission has been honored with the praise of Justinian himself, whose vanity was incapable of discerning how often that submission degenerated into the grossest adulation. Tribonian adored the virtues of his gracious master: the earth was unworthy of such a prince; and he affected a pious fear, that Justinian, like Elijah or Romulus, would be snatched into the air and translated alive to the mansions of celestial glory.

If Cæsar had achieved the reformation of the Roman law, his creative genius, enlightened by reflection and study, would have given to the world a pure and original system of jurisprudence. Whatever flattery might suggest, the Emperor of the East was afraid to establish his private judgment as the standard of equity; in the possession of legislative power, he borrowed the aid of time and opinion; and his laborious compilations are guarded by the sages and legislators of past times. Instead of a statue cast in a simple mould by the hand of an artist, the works of Justinian represent a tessellated pavement of antique and costly, but too often of incoherent, fragments. In the first year of his reign he directed the faithful Tribonian and nine learned associates to revise the ordinances of his predecessors, as they were contained, since the time of Adrian, in the Gregorian, Hermogenian, and Theodosian codes; to purge the errors and contradictions, to retrench whatever was obsolete or superfluous, and to select the wise and salutary laws best adapted to the practice of the tribunals and the use of his subjects. The work was accomplished in fourteen months; and the _Twelve_ books or _Tables_, which the new decemvirs produced, might be designed to imitate the labors of their Roman predecessors.

The new _Code_ of Justinian was honored with his name and confirmed by his royal signature: authentic transcripts were multiplied by the pens of notaries and scribes; they were transmitted to the magistrates of the European, the Asiatic, and afterward the African provinces; and the law of the empire was proclaimed on solemn festivals at the doors of churches. A more arduous operation was still behind--to extract the spirit of jurisprudence from the decisions and conjectures, the questions and disputes of the Roman civilians. Seventeen lawyers, with Tribonian at their head, were appointed by the Emperor to exercise an absolute jurisdiction over the works of their predecessors. If they had obeyed his commands in ten years, Justinian would have been satisfied with their diligence; and the rapid composition of the _Digest_ or _Pandects_ in three years will deserve praise or censure, according to the merit of the execution.

From the library of Tribonian they chose forty, the most eminent civilians of former times: two thousand treatises were comprised in an abridgment of fifty books; and it has been carefully re-reduced in this abstract to the moderate number of one hundred and fifty thousand. The edition of this great work was delayed a month after that of the _Institutes_, and it seemed reasonable that the elements should precede the digest of the Roman law. As soon as the Emperor had approved their labors, he ratified by his legislative power the speculations of these private citizens: their commentaries on the _Twelve Tables_, the perpetual edict, the laws of the people, and the decrees of the senate succeeded to the authority of the text; and the text was abandoned as a useless, though venerable, relic of antiquity. The _Code_, the _Pandects_, and the _Institutes_ were declared to be the legitimate system of civil jurisprudence; they alone were admitted in the tribunals, and they alone were taught in the academies of Rome, Constantinople, and Berytus. Justinian addressed to the senate and provinces his _eternal oracles_; and his pride, under the mask of piety, ascribed the consummation of this great design to the support and inspiration of the Deity.

Since the Emperor declined the fame and envy of original composition, we can only require at his hands method, choice, and fidelity, the humble, though indispensable, virtues of a compiler. Among the various combinations of ideas it is difficult to assign any reasonable preference; but as the order of Justinian is different in his three works, it is possible that all may be wrong; and it is certain that two cannot be right. In the selection of ancient laws he seems to have viewed his predecessors without jealousy and with equal regard: the series could not ascend above the reign of Adrian; and the narrow distinction of paganism and Christianity, introduced by the superstition of Theodosius, had been abolished by the consent of mankind. But the jurisprudence of the _Pandects_ is circumscribed within a period of a hundred years, from the perpetual edict to the death of Severus Alexander: the civilians who lived under the first Cæsars are seldom permitted to speak, and only three names can be attributed to the age of the republic. The favorite of Justinian (it has been fiercely urged) was fearful of encountering the light of freedom and the gravity of Roman sages. Tribonian condemned to oblivion the genuine and native wisdom of Cato, the Scævolas, and Sulpicius; while he invoked spirits more congenial to his own, the Syrians, Greeks, and Africans, who flocked to the imperial court to study Latin as a foreign tongue and jurisprudence as a lucrative profession. But the ministers of Justinian were instructed to labor, not for the curiosity of antiquarians, but for the immediate benefit of his subjects. It was their duty to select the useful and practical parts of the Roman law; and the writings of the old republicans, however curious or excellent, were no longer suited to the new system of manners, religion, and government.

Perhaps, if the preceptors and friends of Cicero were still alive, our candor would acknowledge that, except in purity of language, their intrinsic merit was excelled by the school of Papinian and Ulpian. The science of the laws is the slow growth of time and experience, and the advantage both of method and materials is naturally assumed by the most recent authors. The civilians of the reign of the Antonines had studied the works of their predecessors: their philosophic spirit had mitigated the rigor of antiquity, simplified the forms of proceeding, and emerged from the jealousy and prejudice of the rival sects. The choice of the authorities that compose the _Pandects_ depended on the judgment of Tribonian; but the power of his sovereign could not absolve him from the sacred obligations of truth and fidelity. As the legislator of the empire, Justinian might repeal the acts of the Antonines, or condemn as seditious the free principles which were maintained by the last of the _Roman_ lawyers. But the existence of past facts is placed beyond the reach of despotism; and the Emperor was guilty of fraud and forgery when he corrupted the integrity of their text, inscribed with their venerable names the words and ideas of his servile reign, and suppressed by the hand of power the pure and authentic copies of their sentiments. The changes and interpolations of Tribonian and his colleagues are excused by the pretence of uniformity: but their cares have been insufficient, and the antinomies, or contradictions, of the _Code_ and _Pandects_ still exercise the patience and subtlety of modern civilians.

A rumor devoid of evidence has been propagated by the enemies of Justinian, that the jurisprudence of ancient Rome was reduced to ashes by the author of the _Pandects_, from the vain persuasion that it was now either false or superfluous. Without usurping an office so invidious, the Emperor might safely commit to ignorance and time the accomplishment of this destructive wish. Before the invention of printing and paper, the labor and the materials of writing could be purchased only by the rich; and it may reasonably be computed that the price of books was a hundredfold their present value. Copies were slowly multiplied and cautiously renewed: the hopes of profit tempted the sacrilegious scribes to erase the characters of antiquity,[26] and Sophocles or Tacitus were obliged to resign the parchment to missals, homilies, and the _Golden Legend_. If such was the fate of the most beautiful compositions of genius, what stability could be expected for the dull and barren works of an obsolete science? The books of jurisprudence were interesting to few and entertaining to none: their value was connected with present use, and they sunk forever as soon as that use was superseded by the innovations of fashion, superior merit, or public authority. In the age of peace and learning, between Cicero and the last of the Antonines, many losses had been already sustained, and some luminaries of the school or Forum were known only to the curious by tradition and report. Three hundred and sixty years of disorder and decay accelerated the progress of oblivion; and it may fairly be presumed that of the writings which Justinian is accused of neglecting many were no longer to be found in the libraries of the East. The copies of Papinian or Ulpian, which the reformer had proscribed, were deemed unworthy of future notice; the _Twelve Tables_ and prætorian edicts insensibly vanished, and the monuments of ancient Rome were neglected or destroyed by the envy and ignorance of the Greeks.

Even the _Pandects_ themselves have escaped with difficulty and danger from the common shipwreck, and criticism has pronounced that _all_ the editions and manuscripts of the West are derived from _one_ original. It was transcribed at Constantinople in the beginning of the seventh century, was successfully transported by the accidents of war and commerce to Amalphi, Pisa, and Florence,[27] and is now deposited as a sacred relic in the ancient palace of the republic.[28]

It is the first care of a reformer to prevent any future reformation. To maintain the text of the _Pandects_, the _Institutes,_ and the _Code_, the use of ciphers and abbreviations was rigorously proscribed; and as Justinian recollected, that the perpetual edict had been buried under the weight of commentators, he denounced the punishment of forgery against the rash civilians who should presume to interpret or pervert the will of their sovereign. The scholars of Accursius, of Bartolus, of Cujacius, should blush for their accumulated guilt, unless they dare to dispute his right of binding the authority of his successors and the native freedom of the mind. But the Emperor was unable to fix his own inconstancy; and while he boasted of renewing the exchange of Diomede, of transmuting brass into gold, discovered the necessity of purifying his gold from the mixture of baser alloy. Six years had not elapsed from the publication of the _Code_ before he condemned the imperfect attempt by a new and more accurate edition of the same work, which he enriched with two hundred of his own laws and fifty decisions of the darkest and most intricate points of jurisprudence. Every year or, according to Procopius, each day of his long reign was marked by some legal innovation. Many of his acts were rescinded by himself; many were rejected by his successors; many have been obliterated by time; but the number of sixteen _Edicts_ and one hundred and sixty-eight _Novels_ has been admitted into the authentic body of the civil jurisprudence. In the opinion of a philosopher superior to the prejudices of his profession, these incessant and, for the most part, trifling alterations, can be only explained by the venal spirit of a prince who sold without shame his judgments and his laws.

Monarchs seldom condescend to become the preceptors of their subjects; and some praise is due to Justinian, by whose command an ample system was reduced to a short and elementary treatise. Among the various institutes of the Roman law those of Caius were the most popular in the East and West; and their use may be considered as an evidence of their merit. They were selected by the imperial delegates, Tribonian, Theophilus, and Dorotheus, and the freedom and purity of the Antonines were incrusted with the coarser materials of a degenerate age. The same volume which introduced the youth of Rome, Constantinople, and Berytus to the gradual study of the _Code_ and _Pandects_ is still precious to the historian, the philosopher, and the magistrate. The _Institutes_ of Justinian are divided into four books: they proceed, with no contemptible method, from (1), _Persons_, to (2) _Things_, and from things to (3) _Actions_; and the Article IV of _Private Wrongs_ is terminated by the principles of _Criminal Law_.[29]

I. The distinction of ranks and _persons_ is the firmest basis of a mixed and limited government. The perfect equality of men is the point in which the extremes of democracy and despotism are confounded; since the majesty of the prince or people would be offended, if any heads were exalted above the level of their fellow-slaves or fellow-citizens. In the decline of the Roman Empire, the proud distinctions of the republic were gradually abolished, and the reason or instinct of Justinian completed the simple form of an absolute monarchy. The Emperor could not eradicate the popular reverence which always waits on the possession of hereditary wealth or the memory of famous ancestors. He delighted to honor with titles and emoluments his generals, magistrates, and senators; and his precarious indulgence communicated some rays of their glory to the persons of their wives and children. But in the eye of the law all Roman citizens were equal, and all subjects of the empire were citizens of Rome. That inestimable character was degraded to an obsolete and empty name. The voice of a Roman could no longer enact his laws or create the annual ministers of his power: his constitutional rights might have checked the arbitrary will of a master, and the bold adventurer from Germany or Arabia was admitted, with equal favor, to the civil and military command which the citizen alone had been once entitled to assume over the conquests of his fathers. The first Cæsars had scrupulously guarded the distinction of _ingenuous_ and _servile_ birth, which was decided by the condition of the mother; and the candor of the laws was satisfied if _her_ freedom could be ascertained during a single moment between the conception and the delivery. The slaves who were liberated by a generous master immediately entered into the middle class of _libertines_ or freedmen; but they could never be enfranchised from the duties of obedience and gratitude: whatever were the fruits of their industry, their patron and his family inherited the third part, or even the whole of their fortune if they died without children and without a testament.

Justinian respected the rights of patrons, but his indulgence removed the badge of disgrace from the two inferior orders of freedmen: whoever ceased to be a slave obtained without reserve or delay the station of a citizen; and at length the dignity of an ingenuous birth, which nature had refused, was created or supposed by the omnipotence of the Emperor. Whatever restraints of age, or forms, or numbers had been formerly introduced to check the abuse of manumissions and the too rapid increase of vile and indigent Romans, he finally abolished; and the spirit of his laws promoted the extinction of domestic servitude. Yet the eastern provinces were filled in the time of Justinian with multitudes of slaves, either born or purchased for the use of their masters; and the price, from ten to seventy pieces of gold, was determined by their age, their strength, and their education. But the hardships of this dependent state were continually diminished by the influence of government and religion, and the pride of a subject was no longer elated by his absolute dominion over the life and happiness of his bondsman.

The law of nature instructs most animals to cherish and educate their infant progeny. The law of reason inculcates to the human species the return of filial piety. But the exclusive, absolute, and perpetual dominion of the father over his children is peculiar to the Roman jurisprudence and seems to be coeval with the foundation of the city. The paternal power was instituted or confirmed by Romulus himself; and after the practice of three centuries it was inscribed on the fourth table of the decemvirs. In the Forum, the senate, or the camp the adult son of a Roman citizen enjoyed the public and private rights of a _person_: in his father's house he was a mere _thing_;[30] confounded by the laws with the movables, the cattle, and the slaves, whom the capricious master might alienate or destroy without being responsible to any earthly tribunal. The hand which bestowed the daily sustenance might resume the voluntary gift, and whatever was acquired, by the labor or fortune of the son was immediately lost in the property of the father. His stolen goods (his oxen or his children) might be recovered by the same action of theft; and if either had been guilty of a trespass, it was in his own option to compensate the damage or resign to the injured party the obnoxious animal.

At the call of indigence or avarice the master of a family could dispose of his children or his slaves. But the condition of the slave was far more advantageous, since he regained by the first manumission his alienated freedom: the son was again restored to his unnatural father; he might be condemned to servitude a second and a third time, and it was not till after the third sale and deliverance that he was enfranchised from the domestic power which had been so repeatedly abused. According to his discretion, a father might chastise the real or imaginary faults of his children by stripes, by imprisonment, by exile, by sending them to the country to work in chains among the meanest of his servants. The majesty of a parent was armed with the power of life and death; and the examples of such bloody executions, which were sometimes praised and never punished, may be traced in the annals of Rome beyond the times of Pompey and Augustus. Neither age nor rank, nor the consular office, nor the honors of a triumph could exempt the most illustrious citizen from the bonds of filial subjection: his own descendants were included in the family of their common ancestor; and the claims of adoption were not less sacred or less rigorous than those of nature. Without fear, though not without danger of abuse, the Roman legislators had reposed an unbounded confidence in the sentiments of paternal love, and the oppression was tempered by the assurance that each generation must succeed in its turn to the awful dignity of parent and master.

The first limitation of paternal power is ascribed to the justice and humanity of Numa, and the maid who, with _his_ father's consent, had espoused a freeman, was protected from the disgrace of becoming the wife of a slave. In the first ages, when the city was pressed and often famished by her Latin and Tuscan neighbors, the sale of children might be a frequent practice; but as a Roman could not legally purchase the liberty of his fellow-citizen, the market must gradually fail, and the trade would be destroyed by the conquests of the republic. An imperfect right of property was at length communicated to sons; and the threefold distinction of _profectitious_, _adventitious_, and _professional_ was ascertained by the jurisprudence of the _Code_ and _Pandects_. Of all that proceeded from the father, he imparted only the use, and reserved the absolute dominion; yet if his goods were sold, the filial portion was excepted by a favorable interpretation from the demands of the creditors. In whatever accrued by marriage, gift, or collateral succession, the property was secured to the son; but the father, unless he had been specially excluded, enjoyed the usufruct during his life.

As a just and prudent reward of military virtue, the spoils of the enemy were acquired, possessed, and bequeathed by the soldier alone; and the fair analogy was extended to the emoluments of any liberal profession, the salary of public service, and the sacred liberality of the emperor or empress. The life of a citizen was less exposed than his fortune to the abuse of paternal power. Yet his life might be adverse to the interest or passions of an unworthy father: the same crimes that flowed from the corruption were more sensibly felt by the humanity of the Augustan age; and the cruel Erixo, who whipped his son till he expired, was saved by the Emperor from the just fury of the multitude. The Roman father, from the license of servile dominion, was reduced to the gravity and moderation of a judge. The presence and opinion of Augustus confirmed the sentence of exile pronounced against an intentional parricide by the domestic tribunal of Arius. Adrian transported to an island the jealous parent who, like a robber, had seized the opportunity of hunting to assassinate a youth, the incestuous lover of his step-mother. A private jurisdiction is repugnant to the spirit of monarchy; the parent was again reduced from a judge to an accuser, and the magistrates were enjoined by Severus Alexander to hear his complaints and execute his sentence. He could no longer take the life of a son without incurring the guilt and punishment of murder; and the pains of parricide, from which he had been excepted by the Pompeian law, were finally inflicted by the justice of Constantine.

The same protection was due to every period of existence; and reason must applaud the humanity of Paulus for imputing the crime of murder to the father who strangles, or starves, or abandons his new-born infant; or exposes him in a public place to find the mercy which he himself had denied. But the exposition of children was the prevailing and stubborn vice of antiquity: it was sometimes prescribed, often permitted, almost always practised with impunity by the nations who never entertained the Roman ideas of paternal power; and the dramatic poets who appeal to the human heart represent with indifference a popular custom which was palliated by the motives of economy and compassion. If the father could subdue his own feelings, he might escape, though not the censure, at least the chastisement of the laws; and the Roman Empire was stained with the blood of infants, till such murders were included by Valentinian and his colleagues in the letter and spirit of the Cornelian law. The lessons of jurisprudence and Christianity had been insufficient to eradicate this inhuman practice, till their gentle influence was fortified by the terrors of capital punishment.

Experience has proved that savage are the tyrants of the female sex, and that the condition of women is usually softened by the refinements of social life. In the hope of a robust progeny, Lycurgus had delayed the season of marriage: it was fixed by Numa at the tender age of twelve years, that the Roman husband might educate to his will a pure and obedient virgin. According to the custom of antiquity, he bought his bride of her parents, and she fulfilled the _coemption_ by purchasing, with three pieces of copper, a just introduction to his house and household deities. A sacrifice of fruits was offered by the pontiffs in the presence of ten witnesses; the contracting parties were seated on the same sheepskin; they tasted a salt-cake of _far_ or rice; and this confarreation, which denoted the ancient food of Italy, served as an emblem of their mystic union of mind and body.

But this union on the side of the woman was rigorous and unequal; and she renounced the name and worship of her father's house to embrace a new servitude, decorated only by the title of adoption: a fiction of the law, neither rational nor elegant, bestowed on the mother of a family (her proper appellation) the strange characters of sister to her own children, and of daughter to her husband or master, who was invested with the plenitude of paternal power. By his judgment or caprice her behavior was approved or censured or chastised; he exercised the jurisdiction of life and death, and it was allowed that in the cases of adultery or drunkenness the sentence might be properly inflicted. She acquired and inherited for the sole profit of her lord; and so clearly was woman defined, not as a _person_, but as a _thing_, that if the original title were deficient, she might be claimed, like other movables, by the _use_ and possession of an entire year. The inclination of the Roman husband discharged or withheld the conjugal debt, so scrupulously exacted by the Athenian and Jewish laws; but as polygamy was unknown, he could never admit to his bed a fairer or more favored partner.

After the Punic triumphs the matrons of Rome aspired to the common benefits of a free and opulent republic; their wishes were gratified by the indulgence of fathers and lovers, and their ambition was unsuccessfully resisted by the gravity of Cato the Censor. They declined the solemnities of the old nuptials; defeated the annual prescription by an absence of three days; and, without losing their name or independence, subscribed the liberal and definite terms of a marriage contract. Of their private fortunes they communicated the use and secured the property; the estates of a wife could neither be alienated nor mortgaged by a prodigal husband; their mutual gifts were prohibited by the jealousy of the laws; and the misconduct of either party might afford under another name a future subject for an action of theft. To this loose and voluntary compact religious and civil rights were no longer essential; and between persons of similar rank, the apparent community of life was allowed as sufficient evidence of their nuptials.

The dignity of marriage was restored by the Christians, who derived all spiritual grace from the prayers of the faithful and the benediction of the priest or bishop. The origin, validity, and duties of the holy institution were regulated by the tradition of the synagogue, the precepts of the gospel, and the canons of general or provincial synods; and the conscience of the Christians was awed by the decrees and censures of their ecclesiastical rulers. Yet the magistrates of Justinian were not subject to the authority of the Church; the Emperor consulted the unbelieving civilians of antiquity, and the choice of matrimonial laws in the _Code_ and _Pandects_ is directed by the earthly motives of justice, policy, and the natural freedom of both sexes.

Besides the agreement of the parties, the essence of every rational contract, the Roman marriage required the previous approbation of the parents. A father might be forced by some recent laws to supply the wants of a mature daughter; but even his insanity was not generally allowed to supersede the necessity of his consent. The causes of the dissolution of matrimony have varied among the Romans; but the most solemn sacrament, the confarreation itself, might always be done away by rites of a contrary tendency. In the first ages the father of a family might sell his children, and his wife was reckoned in the number of his children; the domestic judge might pronounce the death of the offender, or his mercy might expel her from his bed and house; but the slavery of the wretched female was hopeless and perpetual, unless he asserted for his own convenience the manly prerogative of divorce. The warmest applause has been lavished on the virtue of the Romans, who abstained from the exercise of this tempting privilege above five hundred years; but the same fact evinces the unequal terms of a connection in which the slave was unable to renounce her tyrant, and the tyrant was unwilling to relinquish his slave.

When the Roman matrons became the equal and voluntary companions of their lords, a new jurisprudence was introduced, that marriage, like other partnerships, might be dissolved by the abdication of one of the associates. In three centuries of prosperity and corruption this principle was enlarged to frequent practice and pernicious abuse. Passion, interest, or caprice suggested daily motives for the dissolution of marriage; a word, a sign, a message, a letter, the mandate of a freedman declared the separation; the most tender of human connections was degraded to a transient society of profit or pleasure. According to the various conditions of life, both sexes alternately felt the disgrace and injury; an inconstant spouse transferred her wealth to a new family, abandoning a numerous, perhaps a spurious progeny to the paternal authority and care of her late husband; a beautiful virgin might be dismissed to the world, old, indigent, and friendless; but the reluctance of the Romans, when they were pressed to marriage by Augustus, sufficiently marks that the prevailing institutions were least favorable to the males. A specious theory is confuted by this free and perfect experiment, which demonstrates that the liberty of divorce does not contribute to happiness and virtue. The facility of separation would destroy all mutual confidence, and inflame every trifling dispute; the minute difference between a husband and a stranger, which might so easily be removed, might still more easily be forgotten; and the matron, who in five years can submit to the embraces of eight husbands, must cease to reverence the chastity of her own person.

Insufficient remedies followed with distant and tardy steps the rapid progress of the evil. The ancient worship of the Romans afforded a peculiar goddess to hear and reconcile the complaints of a married life; but her epithet of _viriplaca_, the appeaser of husbands, too clearly indicates on which side submission and repentance were always expected. Every act of a citizen was subject to the judgment of the censors; the first who used the privilege of divorce assigned at their command the motives of his conduct; and a senator was expelled for dismissing his virgin spouse without the knowledge or advice of his friends. Whenever an action was instituted for the recovery of a marriage portion, the prætor, as the guardian of equity, examined the cause and the characters, and gently inclined the scale in favor of the guiltless and injured party. Augustus, who united the powers of both magistrates, adopted their different modes of repressing or chastising the license of divorce.

The presence of seven Roman witnesses was required for the validity of this solemn and deliberate act: if any adequate provocation had been given by the husband, instead of the delay of two years, he was compelled to refund immediately, or in the space of six months; but if he could arraign the manners of his wife, her guilt or levity was expiated by the loss of the sixth or eighth part of her marriage portion. The Christian princes were the first who specified the just causes of a private divorce; their institutions, from Constantine to Justinian, appear to fluctuate between the custom of the empire and the wishes of the Church, and the author of the _Novels_ too frequently reforms the jurisprudence of the _Code_ and _Pandects_. In the most rigorous laws, a wife was condemned to support a gamester, a drunkard, or a libertine, unless he were guilty of homicide, poison, or sacrilege, in which cases the marriage, as it should seem, might have been dissolved by the hand of the executioner.

But the sacred right of the husband was invariably maintained, to deliver his name and family from the disgrace of adultery: the list of _mortal_ sins, either male or female, was curtailed and enlarged by successive regulations, and the obstacles of incurable impotence, long absence, and monastic profession were allowed to rescind the matrimonial obligation. Whoever transgressed the permission of the law was subject to various and heavy penalties. The woman was stripped of her wealth and ornaments, without excepting the bodkin of her hair: if the man introduced a new bride into his bed, _her_ fortune might be lawfully seized by the vengeance of his exiled wife. Forfeiture was sometimes commuted to a fine; the fine was sometimes aggravated by transportation to an island or imprisonment in a monastery; the injured party was released from the bonds of marriage; but the offender during life or a term of years was disabled from the repetition of nuptials. The successor of Justinian yielded to the prayers of his unhappy subjects, and restored the liberty of divorce by mutual consent: the civilians were unanimous, the theologians were divided, and the ambiguous word, which contains the precept of Christ, is flexible to any interpretation that the wisdom of a legislator can demand.

The freedom of love and marriage was restrained among the Romans by natural and civil impediments. An instinct, almost innate and universal, appears to prohibit the incestuous commerce of parents and children in the infinite series of ascending and descending generations. Concerning the oblique and collateral branches nature is indifferent, reason mute, and custom various and arbitrary. In Egypt the marriage of brothers and sisters was admitted without scruple or exception: a Spartan might espouse the daughter of his father, an Athenian that of his mother; and the nuptials of an uncle with his niece were applauded at Athens as a happy union of the dearest relations.

The profane law-givers of Rome were never tempted by interest or superstition to multiply the forbidden degrees: but they inflexibly condemned the marriage of sisters and brothers, hesitated whether first cousins should be touched by the same interdict; revered the parental character of aunts and uncles, and treated affinity and adoption as a just imitation of the ties of blood. According to the proud maxims of the republic, a legal marriage could only be contracted by free citizens; an honorable, at least an ingenuous birth, was required for the spouse of a senator: but the blood of kings could never mingle in legitimate nuptials with the blood of a Roman; and the name of Stranger degraded Cleopatra and Berenice to live the _concubines_ of Mark Antony and Titus. This appellation, indeed, so injurious to the majesty, cannot without indulgence be applied to the manners of these oriental queens. A concubine, in the strict sense of the civilian, was a woman of servile or plebeian extraction, the sole and faithful companion of a Roman citizen, who continued in a state of celibacy. Her modest station, below the honors of a wife, above the infamy of a prostitute, was acknowledged and approved by the laws: from the age of Augustus to the tenth century, the use of this secondary marriage prevailed both in the West and East; and the humble virtues of a concubine were often preferred to the pomp and insolence of a noble matron. In this connection the two Antonines, the best of princes and of men, enjoyed the comforts of domestic love; the example was imitated by many citizens impatient of celibacy, but regardful of their families. If at any time they desired to legitimate their natural children, the conversion was instantly performed by the celebration of their nuptials with a partner whose fruitfulness and fidelity they had already tried.[31] By this epithet of _natural_, the offspring of the concubine were distinguished from the spurious brood of adultery, prostitution, and incest, to whom Justinian reluctantly grants the necessary aliments of life; and these natural children alone were capable of succeeding to a sixth part of the inheritance of their reputed father. According to the rigor of law, bastards were entitled to the name and condition of their mother, from whom they might derive the character of a slave, a stranger, or a citizen. The outcasts of every family were adopted without reproach as the children of the State.

The relation of guardian and ward, or in Roman words of _tutor_ and _pupil_, which covers so many titles of the _Institutes_ and _Pandects_, is of a very simple and uniform nature. The person and property of an orphan must always be trusted to the custody of some discreet friend. If the deceased father had not signified his choice, the _agnats_, or paternal kindred of the nearest degree, were compelled to act as the natural guardians: the Athenians were apprehensive of exposing the infant to the power of those most interested in his death; but an axiom of Roman jurisprudence has pronounced that the charge of tutelage should constantly attend the emolument of succession. If the choice of the father and the line of consanguinity afforded no efficient guardian, the failure was supplied by the nomination of the prætor of the city or the president of the province. But the person whom they named to this _public_ office might be legally excused by insanity or blindness, by ignorance or inability, by previous enmity or adverse interest, by the number of children or guardianships with which he was already burdened and by the immunities which were granted to the useful labors of magistrates, lawyers, physicians, and professors.

Till the infant could speak and think he was represented by the tutor, whose authority was finally determined by the age of puberty. Without his consent no act of the pupil could bind himself to his own prejudice, though it might oblige others for his personal benefit. It is needless to observe that the tutor often gave security, and always rendered an account, and that the want of diligence or integrity exposed him to a civil and almost criminal action for the violation of his sacred trust. The age of puberty had been rashly fixed by the civilians at fourteen; but as the faculties of the mind ripen more slowly than those of the body, a _curator_ was interposed to guard the fortunes of a Roman youth from his own inexperience and headstrong passions. Such a trustee had been first instituted by the prætor, to save a family from the blind havoc of a prodigal or madman; and the minor was compelled by the laws to solicit the same protection, to give validity to his acts till he accomplished the full period of twenty-five years. Women were condemned to the perpetual tutelage of parents, husbands, or guardians; a sex created to please and obey was never supposed to have attained the age of reason and experience. Such, at least, was the stern and haughty spirit of the law, which had been insensibly mollified before the time of Justinian.

II. The original right of property can only be justified by the accident or merit of prior occupancy; and on this foundation it is wisely established by the philosophy of the civilians. The savage who hollows a tree, inserts a sharp stone into a wooden handle, or applies a string to an elastic branch becomes in a state of nature the just proprietor of the canoe, the bow, or the hatchet. The materials were common to all, the new form, the produce of his time and simple industry, belong solely to himself. His hungry brethren cannot, without a sense of their own injustice, extort from the hunter the game of the forest overtaken or slain by his personal strength and dexterity. If his provident care preserves and multiplies the tame animals, whose nature is tractable to the arts of education, he acquires a perpetual title to the use and service of their numerous progeny, which derives its existence from him alone. If he encloses and cultivates a field for their sustenance and his own, a barren waste is converted into a fertile soil; the seed, the manure, the labor, create a new value, and the rewards of harvest are painfully earned by the fatigues of the revolving year.

In the successive states of society the hunter, the shepherd, the husbandman, may defend their possessions by two reasons which forcibly appeal to the feelings of the human mind: that whatever they enjoy is the fruit of their own industry; and that every man who envies their felicity may purchase similar acquisitions by the exercise of similar diligence. Such, in truth, may be the freedom and plenty of a small colony cast on a fruitful island. But the colony multiplies, while the space still continues the same; the common rights, the equal inheritance of mankind, are engrossed by the bold and crafty; each field and forest is circumscribed by the landmarks of a jealous master; and it is the peculiar praise of the Roman jurisprudence that it asserts the claim of the first occupant to the wild animals of the earth, the air, and the waters. In the progress from primitive equity to final injustice, the steps are silent, the shades are almost imperceptible, and the absolute monopoly is guarded by positive laws and artificial reason. The active, insatiable principle of self-love can alone supply the arts of life and the wages of industry; and as soon as civil government and exclusive property have been introduced, they become necessary to the existence of the human race.

Except in the singular institutions of Sparta, the wisest legislators have disapproved an agrarian law as a false and dangerous innovation. Among the Romans the enormous disproportion of wealth surmounted the ideal restraints of a doubtful tradition and an obsolete statute; a tradition that the poorest follower of Romulus had been endowed with the perpetual inheritance of two jugera; a statute which confined the richest citizen to the measure of five hundred jugera, or three hundred and twelve acres of land. The original territory of Rome consisted only of some miles of wood and meadow along the banks of the Tiber, and domestic exchange could add nothing to the national stock. But the goods of an alien or enemy were lawfully exposed to the first hostile occupier; the city was enriched by the profitable trade of war, and the blood of her sons was the only price that was paid for the Volscian sheep, the slaves of Britain, to the gems and gold of Asiatic kingdoms. In the language of ancient jurisprudence, which was corrupted and forgotten before the age of Justinian, these spoils were distinguished by the name of manceps or mancipium, taken with the hand; and whenever they were sold or emancipated, the purchaser required some assurance that they had been the property of an enemy and not of a fellow-citizen.

A citizen could only forfeit his rights by apparent dereliction, and such dereliction of a valuable interest could not easily be presumed. Yet, according to the _Twelve Tables_, a prescription of one year for movables, and of two years for immovables, abolished the claim of the ancient master, if the actual possessor had acquired them by a fair transaction from the person whom he believed to be the lawful proprietor.[32] Such conscientious injustice, without any mixture of fraud or force could seldom injure the members of a small republic; but the various periods of three, of ten, or of twenty years, determined by Justinian, are more suitable to the latitude of a great empire. It is only in the term of prescription that the distinction of real and personal fortune has been remarked by the civilians; and their general idea of property is that of simple, uniform, and absolute dominion. The subordinate exceptions of use, of usufruct, of servitudes, imposed for the benefit of a neighbor on lands and houses, are abundantly explained by the professors of jurisprudence. The claims of property, as far as they are altered by the mixture, the division, or the transformation of substances, are investigated with metaphysical subtlety by the same civilians.

The personal title of the first proprietor must be determined by his death: but the possession, without any appearance of change, is peaceably continued in his children, the associates of his toil and the partners of his wealth. This natural inheritance has been protected by the legislators of every climate and age, and the father is encouraged to persevere in slow and distant improvements, by the tender hope that a long posterity will enjoy the fruits of his labor. The _principle_ of hereditary succession is universal; but the _order_ has been variously established by convenience or caprice, by the spirit of national institutions, or by some partial example which was originally decided by fraud or violence. The jurisprudence of the Romans appears to have deviated from the equality of nature much less than the Jewish, the Athenian, or the English institutions. On the death of a citizen all his descendants, unless they were already freed from his paternal power, were called to the inheritance of his possessions. The insolent prerogative of primogeniture was unknown; the two sexes were placed on a just level; all the sons and daughters were entitled to an equal portion of the patrimonial estate; and if any of the sons had been intercepted by a premature death, his person was represented and his share was divided by his surviving children.

On the failure of the direct line, the right of succession must diverge to the collateral branches. The degrees of kindred are numbered by the civilians, ascending from the last possessor to a common parent, and descending from the common parent to the next heir: my father stands in the first degree, my brother in the second, his children in the third, and the remainder of the series may be conceived by fancy, or pictured in a genealogical table. In this computation a distinction was made, essential to the laws and even the constitution of Rome; the _agnats_, or persons connected by a line of males, were called, as they stood in the nearest degree, to an equal partition; but a female was incapable of transmitting any legal claims; and the _cognats_ of every rank, without excepting the dear relation of a mother and a son, were disinherited by the _Twelve Tables_, as strangers and aliens. Among the Romans a _gens_ or lineage was united by a common _name_ and domestic rites; the various _cognomens_ or _surnames_ of Scipio or Marcellus distinguished from each other the subordinate branches or families of the Cornelian or Claudian race: the default of the _agnats_, of the same surname, was supplied by the larger denomination of _gentiles_; and the vigilance of the laws maintained in the same name the perpetual descent of religion and property.

A similar principle dictated the Voconian law, which abolished the right of female inheritance. As long as virgins were given or sold in marriage, the adoption of the wife extinguished the hopes of the daughter. But the equal succession of independent matrons supported their pride and luxury, and might transport into a foreign house the riches of their fathers. While the maxims of Cato were revered, they tended to perpetuate in each family a just and virtuous mediocrity: till female blandishments insensibly triumphed, and every salutary restraint was lost in the dissolute greatness of the republic. The rigor of the decemvirs was tempered by the equity of the prætors. Their edicts restored and emancipated posthumous children to the rights of nature; and upon the failure of the _agnats_ they preferred the blood of the _cognats_ to the name of the _gentiles,_ whose title and character were insensibly covered with oblivion. The reciprocal inheritance of mothers and sons was established in the Tertullian and Orphitian decrees by the humanity of the senate. A new and more impartial order was introduced by the _Novels_ of Justinian, who affected to revive the jurisprudence of the _Twelve Tables_. The lines of masculine and female kindred were confounded: the descending, ascending, and collateral series was accurately defined; and each degree, according to the proximity of blood and affection, succeeded the vacant possessions of a Roman citizen.

The order of succession is regulated by nature, or at least by the general and permanent reason of the law-giver: but this order is frequently violated by the arbitrary and partial wills, which prolong the dominion of the testator beyond the grave. In the simple state of society this last use or abuse of the right of property is seldom indulged; it was introduced at Athens by the laws of Solon; and the private testaments of a father of a family are authorized by the _Twelve Tables_. Before the time of the decemvirs a Roman citizen exposed his wishes and motives to the assembly of the thirty curiæ or parishes, and the general law of inheritance was suspended by an occasional act of the legislature. After the permission of the decemvirs, each private law-giver promulgated his verbal or written testament in the presence of five citizens, who represented the five classes of the Roman people; a sixth witness attested their concurrence; a seventh weighed the copper money, which was paid by an imaginary purchaser, and the estate was emancipated by a fictitious sale and immediate release.

This singular ceremony, which excited the wonder of the Greeks, was still practised in the age of Severus, but the prætor had already approved a more simple testament, for which they required the seals and signatures of seven witnesses, free from all legal exception and purposely summoned for the execution of that important act. A domestic monarch, who reigned over the lives and fortunes of his children, might distribute their respective shares according to the degrees of their merit or his affection; his arbitrary displeasure chastised an unworthy son by the loss of his inheritance, and the mortifying preference of a stranger. But the experience of unnatural parents recommended some limitations of their testamentary powers. A son or, by the laws of Justinian, even a daughter, could no longer be disinherited by their silence; they were compelled to name the criminal and to specify the offence; and the justice of the Emperor enumerated the sole causes that could justify such a violation of the first principles of nature and society. Unless a legitimate portion, a fourth part, had been reserved for the children, they were entitled to institute an action or complaint of _inofficious_ testament; to suppose that their father's understanding was impaired by sickness or age, and respectfully to appeal from his rigorous sentence to the deliberate wisdom of the magistrate.

In the Roman jurisprudence an essential distinction was admitted between the inheritance and the legacies. The heirs who succeeded to the entire unity, or to any of the twelve fractions of the substance of the testator, represented his civil and religious character, asserted his rights, fulfilled his obligations, and discharged the gifts of friendship or liberality, which his last will had bequeathed under the name of legacies. But as the imprudence or prodigality of a dying man might exhaust the inheritance and leave only risk and labor to his successor, he was empowered to retain the Falcidian portion; to deduct, before the payment of the legacies, a clear fourth for his own emolument. A reasonable time was allowed to examine the proportion between the debts and the estate, to decide whether he should accept or refuse the testament; and if he used the benefit of an inventory, the demands of the creditors could not exceed the valuation of the effects. The last will of a citizen might be altered during his life or rescinded after his death; the persons whom he named might die before him, or reject the inheritance, or be exposed to some legal disqualification. In the contemplation of these events he was permitted to substitute second and third heirs, to replace each other according to the order of the testament; and the incapacity of a madman or an infant to bequeath his property might be supplied by a similar substitution. But the power of the testator expired with the acceptance of the testament; each Roman of mature age and discretion acquired the absolute dominion of his inheritance, and the simplicity of the civil law was never clouded by the long and intricate entails which confine the happiness and freedom of unborn generations.

Conquest and the formalities of law established the use of codicils. If a Roman was surprised by death in a remote province of the empire he addressed a short epistle to his legitimate or testamentary heir, who fulfilled with honor, or neglected with impunity, this last request, which the judges before the age of Augustus were not authorized to enforce. A codicil might be expressed in any mode, or in any language; but the subscription of five witnesses must declare that it was the genuine composition of the author. His intention, however laudable, was sometimes illegal; and the invention of _fidei-commissa_, or trusts, arose from the struggle between natural justice and positive jurisprudence. A stranger of Greece or Africa might be the friend or benefactor of a childless Roman, but none, except a fellow-citizen, could act as his heir.

The Voconian law, which abolished female succession, restrained the legacy or inheritance of a woman to the sum of one hundred thousand sesterces, and an only daughter was condemned almost as an alien in her father's house. The zeal of friendship and parental affection suggested a liberal artifice: a qualified citizen was named in the testament, with a prayer or injunction that he would restore the inheritance to the person for whom it was truly intended. Various was the conduct of the trustees in this painful situation; they had sworn to observe the laws of their country, but honor prompted them to violate their oath; and if they preferred their interest under the mask of patriotism, they forfeited the esteem of every virtuous mind. The declaration of Augustus relieved their doubts, gave a legal sanction to confidential testaments and codicils, and gently unravelled the forms and restraints of the republican jurisprudence. But as the new practice of trusts degenerated into some abuse, the trustee was enabled, by the Trebellian and Pegasian decrees, to reserve one-fourth of the estate, or to transfer on the head of the real heir all the debts and actions of the succession. The interpretation of testaments was strict and literal; but the language of trusts and codicils was delivered from the minute and technical accuracy of the civilians.

III. The general duties of mankind are imposed by their public and private relations: but their specific _obligations_ to each other can only be the effect of (1) a promise, (2) a benefit, or (3) an injury; and when these obligations are ratified by law, the interested party may compel the performance by a judicial action. On this principle the civilians of every country have erected a similar jurisprudence, the fair conclusion of universal reason and justice.

1. The goddess of faith (of human and social faith) was worshipped, not only in her temples, but in the lives of the Romans; and if that nation was deficient in the more amiable qualities of benevolence and generosity, they astonished the Greeks by their sincere and simple performance of the most burdensome engagements. Yet among the same people, according to the rigid maxims of the patricians and decemvirs, a naked pact, a promise, or even an oath, did not create any civil obligation, unless it was confirmed by the legal form of a stipulation. Whatever might be the etymology of the Latin word, it conveyed the idea of a firm and irrevocable contract, which was always expressed in the mode of a question and answer. Do you promise to pay me one hundred pieces of gold? was the solemn interrogation of Seius. I do promise, was the reply of Sempronius. The friends of Sempronius, who answered for his ability and inclination, might be separately sued at the option of Seius; and the benefit of partition, or order of reciprocal actions, insensibly deviated from the strict theory of stipulation. The most cautious and deliberate consent was justly required to sustain the validity of a gratuitous promise; and the citizen who might have obtained a legal security, incurred the suspicion of fraud and paid the forfeit of his neglect. But the ingenuity of the civilians successfully labored to convert simple engagements into the form of solemn stipulations. The prætors, as the guardians of social faith, admitted every rational evidence of a voluntary and deliberate act, which in their tribunal produced an equitable obligation, and for which they gave an action and a remedy.

2. The obligations of the second class, as they were contracted by the delivery of a thing, are marked by the civilians with the epithet of real. A grateful return is due to the author of a benefit; and whoever is intrusted with the property of another has bound himself to the sacred duty of restitution. In the case of a friendly loan, the merit of generosity is on the side of the lender only; in a deposit, on the side of the receiver; but in a pledge, and the rest of the selfish commerce of ordinary life, the benefit is compensated by an equivalent, and the obligation to restore is variously modified by the nature of the transaction. The Latin language very happily expresses the fundamental difference between the _commodatum_ and the _mutuum_, which our poverty is reduced to confound under the vague and common appellation of a loan. In the former, the borrower was obliged to restore the same individual thing with which he had been accommodated for the temporary supply of his wants; in the latter it was destined for his use and consumption, and he discharged this mutual engagement by substituting the same specific value according to a just estimation of number, of weight, and of measure. In the contract of sale, the absolute dominion is transferred to the purchaser, and he repays the benefit with an adequate sum of gold or silver, the price and universal standard of all earthly possessions.

The obligation of another contract, that of location, is of a more complicated kind. Lands or houses, labor or talents, may be hired for a definite term; at the expiration of the time the thing itself must be restored to the owner, with the additional reward for the beneficial occupation and employment. In these lucrative contracts, to which may be added those of partnership and commissions, the civilians sometimes imagine the delivery of the object, and sometimes presume the consent of the parties. The substantial pledge has been refined into the invisible rights of a mortgage or _hypotheca_; and the agreement of sale, for a certain price, imputes from that moment the chances of gain or loss to the account of the purchaser. It may be fairly supposed that every man will obey the dictates of his interest; and if he accepts the benefit, he is obliged to sustain the expense of the transaction. In this boundless subject, the historian will observe the _location_ of land and money, the rent of the one and the interest of the other, as they materially affect the prosperity of agriculture and commerce.

The landlord was often obliged to advance the stock and instruments of husbandry, and to content himself with a partition of the fruits. If the feeble tenant was oppressed by accident, contagion, or hostile violence, he claimed a proportionable relief from the equity of the laws; five years were the customary term, and no solid or costly improvements could be expected from a farmer who at each moment might be ejected by the sale of the estate. Usury, the inveterate grievance of the city, had been discouraged by the _Twelve Tables_, and abolished by the clamors of the people. It was revived by their wants and idleness, tolerated by the discretion of the prætors, and finally determined by the _Code_ of Justinian. Persons of illustrious rank were confined to the moderate profit of 4 per cent. 6 was pronounced to be the ordinary and legal standard of interest; 8 was allowed for the convenience of manufacturers and merchants; 12 was granted to nautical insurance, which the wiser ancients had not attempted to define; but, except in this perilous adventure, the practice of exorbitant usury was severely restrained.[33] The most simple interest was condemned by the clergy of the East and West; but the sense of mutual benefit, which had triumphed over the laws of the republic, had resisted with equal firmness the decrees of the Church, and even the prejudices of mankind.[34]

3. Nature and society impose the strict obligation of repairing an injury; and the sufferer by private injustice acquires a personal right and a legitimate action. If the property of another be intrusted to our care, the requisite degree of care may rise and fall according to the benefit which we derive from such temporary possession; we are seldom made responsible for inevitable accident, but the consequences of a voluntary fault must always be imputed to the author. A Roman pursued and recovered his stolen goods by a civil action of theft; they might pass through a succession of pure and innocent hands, but nothing less than a prescription of thirty years could extinguish his original claim. They were restored by the sentence of the prætor, and the injury was compensated by double, or threefold, or even quadruple damages, as the deed had been perpetrated by secret fraud or open rapine, as the robber had been surprised in the fact or detected by a subsequent research. The Aquilian law defended the living property of a citizen, his slaves and cattle, from the stroke of malice or negligence: the highest price was allowed that could be ascribed to the domestic animal at any moment of the year preceding his death; a similar latitude of thirty days was granted on the destruction of any other valuable effects. A personal injury is blunted or sharpened by the manners of the times and the sensibility of the individual: the pain or the disgrace of a word or blow cannot easily be appreciated by a pecuniary equivalent.

The rude jurisprudence of the decemvirs had confounded all hasty insults, which did not amount to the fracture of a limb by condemning the aggressor to the common penalty of twenty-five _asses_. But the same denomination of money was reduced in three centuries from a pound to the weight of half an ounce: and the insolence of a wealthy Roman indulged himself in the cheap amusement of breaking and satisfying the law of the _Twelve Tables_. Veratius ran through the streets striking on the face the inoffensive passengers, and his attendant purse-bearer immediately silenced their clamors by the legal tender of twenty-five pieces of copper, about the value of one shilling. The equity of the prætors examined and estimated the distinct merits of each particular complaint. In the adjudication of civil damages the magistrate assumed the right to consider the various circumstances of time and place, of age and dignity, which may aggravate the shame and sufferings of the injured person: but if he admitted the idea of a fine, a punishment, an example, he invaded the province, though, perhaps, he supplied the defects of the criminal law.

IV. The execution of the Alban dictator, who was dismembered by eight horses, is represented by Livy as the first and the last instance of Roman cruelty in the punishment of the most atrocious crimes. But this act of justice, or revenge, was inflicted on a foreign enemy in the heat of victory and at the command of a single man. The _Twelve Tables_ afford a more decisive proof of the national spirit, since they were framed by the wisest of the senate, and accepted by the free voices of the people; yet these laws, like the statutes of Draco, are written in characters of blood. They approve the inhuman and unequal principle of retaliation; and the forfeit of an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a limb for a limb, is rigorously exacted, unless the offender can redeem his pardon by a fine of three hundred pounds of copper. The decemvirs distributed with much liberality the slighter chastisements of flagellation and servitude; and nine crimes of a very different complexion are adjudged worthy of death.

1. Any act of treason against the state, or of correspondence with the public enemy. The mode of execution was painful and ignominious: the head of the degenerate Roman was shrouded in a veil, his hands were tied behind his back, and after he had been scourged by the lictor, he was suspended in the midst of the Forum on a cross or inauspicious tree.

2. Nocturnal meetings in the city; whatever might be the pretence, of pleasure, or religion, or the public good.

3. The murder of a citizen; for which the common feelings of mankind demand the blood of the murderer. Poison is still more odious than the sword or dagger; and we are surprised to discover in two flagitious events how early such subtle wickedness has infected the simplicity of the republic, and the chaste virtues of the Roman matrons.[35] The parricide, who violated the duties of nature and gratitude, was cast into the river or the sea, enclosed in a sack; and a cock, a viper, a dog, and a monkey were successively added as the most suitable companions. Italy produces no monkeys; but the want could never be felt till the middle of the sixth century first revealed the guilt of a parricide.[36]

4. The malice of an incendiary. After the previous ceremony of whipping, he himself was delivered to the flames; and in this example alone our reason is tempted to applaud the justice of retaliation.

5. Judicial perjury. The corrupt or malicious witness was thrown headlong from the Tarpeian Rock to expiate his falsehood, which was rendered still more fatal by the severity of the penal laws and the deficiency of written evidence.

6. The corruption of a judge who accepted bribes to pronounce an iniquitous sentence.

7. Libels and satires, whose rude strains sometimes disturbed the peace of an illiterate city. The author was beaten with clubs, a worthy chastisement, but it is not certain that he was left to expire under the blows of the executioner.

8. The nocturnal mischief of damaging or destroying a neighbor's corn. The criminal was suspended as a grateful victim to Ceres. But the sylvan deities were less implacable, and the extirpation of a more valuable tree was compensated by the moderate fine of twenty-five pounds of copper.

9. Magical incantations; which had power, in the opinion of the Latian shepherds, to exhaust the strength of an enemy, to extinguish his life, and to remove from their seats his deep-rooted plantations. The cruelty of the _Twelve Tables_ against insolvent debtors still remains to be told; and I shall dare to prefer the literal sense of antiquity to the specious refinements of modern criticism. After the judicial proof or confession of the debt, thirty days of grace were allowed before a Roman was delivered into the power of his fellow-citizen. In this private prison twelve ounces of rice were his daily food; he might be bound with a chain of fifteen pounds weight, and his misery was thrice exposed in the market-place, to solicit the compassion of his friends and countrymen. At the expiration of sixty days the debt was discharged by the loss of liberty or life; the insolvent debtor was either put to death or sold in foreign slavery beyond the Tiber; but, if several creditors were alike obstinate and unrelenting, they might legally dismember his body and satiate their revenge by this horrid partition.

The advocates for this savage law have insisted that it must strongly operate in deterring idleness and fraud from contracting debts which they were unable to discharge; but experience would dissipate this salutary terror by proving that no creditor could be found to exact this unprofitable penalty of life or limb. As the manners of Rome were insensibly polished, the criminal code of the decemvirs was abolished by the humanity of accusers, witnesses, and judges; and impunity became the consequence of immoderate rigor. The Porcian and Valerian laws prohibited the magistrates from inflicting on a free citizen any capital, or even corporal, punishment, and the obsolete statutes of blood were artfully, and perhaps truly, ascribed to the spirit, not of patrician but of regal tyranny.

In the absence of penal laws and the insufficiency of civil actions, the peace and justice of the city were imperfectly maintained by the private jurisdiction of the citizens. The malefactors who replenish our jails are the outcasts of society, and the crimes for which they suffer may be commonly ascribed to ignorance, poverty, and brutal appetite. For the perpetration of similar enormities, a vile plebeian might claim and abuse the sacred character of a member of the republic; but on the proof or suspicion of guilt, the slave or the stranger was nailed to a cross: and this strict and summary justice might be exercised without restraint over the greatest part of the populace of Rome. Each family contained a domestic tribunal, which was not confined, like that of the prætor, to the cognizance of external actions; virtuous principles and habits were inculcated by the discipline of education, and the Roman father was accountable to the State for the manners of his children, since he disposed, without appeal, of their life, their liberty, and their inheritance. In some pressing emergencies the citizen was authorized to avenge his private or public wrongs. The consent of the Jewish, the Athenian, and the Roman laws approved the slaughter of the nocturnal thief; though in open daylight a robber could not be slain without some previous evidence of danger and complaint. Whoever surprised an adulterer in his nuptial bed might freely exercise his revenge; the most bloody and wanton outrage was excused by the provocation; nor was it before the reign of Augustus that the husband was reduced to weigh the rank of the offender, or that the parent was condemned to sacrifice his daughter with her guilty seducer.

After the expulsion of the kings the ambitious Roman who should dare to assume their title or imitate their tyranny, was devoted to the infernal gods; each of his fellow-citizens was armed with the sword of justice; and the act of Brutus, however repugnant to gratitude or prudence, had been already sanctified by the judgment of his country. The barbarous practice of wearing arms in the midst of peace, and the bloody maxims of honor were unknown to the Romans; and during the two purest ages, from the establishment of equal freedom to the end of the Punic wars, the city was never disturbed by sedition, and rarely polluted with atrocious crimes. The failure of penal laws was more sensibly felt, when every vice was inflamed by faction at home and dominion abroad. In the time of Cicero each private citizen enjoyed the privilege of anarchy; each minister of the republic was exalted to the temptations of regal power, and their virtues are entitled to the warmest praise, as the spontaneous fruits of nature or philosophy. After a triennial indulgence of lust, rapine, and cruelty, Verres, the tyrant of Sicily, could only be sued for the pecuniary restitution of three hundred thousand pounds sterling; and such was the temper of the laws, the judges, and perhaps the accuser himself, that on refunding a thirteenth part of his plunder Verres could retire to an easy and luxurious exile.[37]

The first imperfect attempt to restore the proportion of crimes and punishments was made by the dictator Sylla, who, in the midst of his sanguinary triumph, aspired to restrain the license rather than to oppress the liberty of the Romans. He gloried in the arbitrary proscription of four thousand seven hundred citizens. But in the character of a legislator he respected the prejudices of the times; and instead of pronouncing a sentence of death against the robber or assassin, the general who betrayed an army, or the magistrate who ruined a province, Sylla was content to aggravate the pecuniary damages by the penalty of exile, or, in more constitutional language, by the interdiction of fire and water. The Cornelian and afterward the Pompeian and Julian laws introduced a new system of criminal jurisprudence; and the emperors, from Augustus to Justinian, disguised their increasing rigor under the names of the original authors.

But the invention and frequent use of _extraordinary pains_ proceeded from the desire to extend and conceal the progress of despotism. In the condemnation of illustrious Romans the senate was always prepared to confound, at the will of their masters, the judicial and legislative powers. It was the duty of the governors to maintain the peace of their province by the arbitrary and rigid administration of justice; the freedom of the city evaporated in the extent of empire, and the Spanish malefactor, who claimed the privilege of a Roman, was elevated by the command of Galba on a fairer and more lofty cross. Occasional rescripts issued from the throne to decide the questions which, by their novelty or importance, appeared to surpass the authority and discernment of a proconsul. Transportation and beheading were reserved for honorable persons; meaner criminals were either hanged, or burned, or buried in the mines, or exposed to the wild beasts of the amphitheatre. Armed robbers were pursued and extirpated as the enemies of society; the driving away of horses or cattle was made a capital offence, but simple theft was uniformly considered as a mere civil and private injury. The degrees of guilt and the modes of punishment were too often determined by the discretion of the rulers, and the subject was left in ignorance of the legal danger which he might incur by every action of his life.

A sin, a vice, a crime, are the objects of theology, ethics, and jurisprudence. Whenever their judgments agree, they corroborate each other; but as often as they differ a prudent legislator appreciates the guilt and punishment according to the measure of social injury. On this principle the most daring attack on the life and property of a private citizen is judged less atrocious than the crime of treason or rebellion, which invades the _majesty_ of the republic; the obsequious civilians unanimously pronounced that the republic is contained in the person of its chief; and the edge of the Julian law was sharpened by the incessant diligence of the emperors. The licentious commerce of the sexes may be tolerated as an impulse of nature, or forbidden as a source of disorder and corruption; but the fame, the fortunes, the family of the husband, are seriously injured by the adultery of the wife. The wisdom of Augustus, after curbing the freedom of revenge, applied to this domestic offence the animadversion of the laws; and the guilty parties, after the payment of heavy forfeitures and fines, were condemned to long or perpetual exile in two separate islands.

Religion pronounces an equal censure against the infidelity of the husband; but, as it is not accompanied by the same civil effects, the wife was never permitted to vindicate her wrong; and the distinction of simple or double adultery, so familiar and so important in the canon law, is unknown to the jurisprudence of the _Code_ and the _Pandects_. I touch with reluctance and despatch with impatience a more odious vice, of which modesty rejects the name, and nature abominates the idea. The primitive Romans were infected by the example of the Etruscans and Greeks; in the mad abuse of prosperity and power, every pleasure that is innocent was deemed insipid; and the Scatinian law, which had been extorted by an act of violence, was insensibly abolished by the lapse of time and the multitude of criminals.

By this law the rape, perhaps the seduction, of an ingenuous youth was compensated as a personal injury by the poor damages of ten thousand sesterces, or fourscore pounds; the ravisher might be slain by the resistance or revenge of chastity; and I wish to believe that at Rome, as in Athens, the voluntary and effeminate deserter of his sex was degraded from the honors and the rights of a citizen. But the practice of vice was not discouraged by the severity of opinion; the indelible stain of manhood was confounded with the more venial transgressions of fornication and adultery, nor was the licentious lover exposed to the same dishonor which he impressed on the male or female partner of his guilt. From Catullus to Juvenal the poets accuse and celebrate the degeneracy of the times; and the reformation of manners was feebly attempted by the reason and authority of the civilians till the most virtuous of the Cæsars proscribed the sin against nature as a crime against society.

A new spirit of legislation, respectable even in its error, arose in the empire with the religion of Constantine. The laws of Moses were received as the divine original of justice, and the Christian princes adapted their penal statutes to the degrees of moral and religious turpitude. Adultery was first declared to be a capital offence: the frailty of the sexes was assimilated to poison or assassination, to sorcery or parricide; the same penalties were inflicted on the passive and active guilt of pederasty, and all criminals of free or servile condition were either drowned or beheaded, or cast alive into the avenging flames. The adulterers were spared by the common sympathy of mankind; but the lovers of their own sex were pursued by general and pious indignation: the impure manners of Greece still prevailed in the cities of Asia, and every vice was fomented by the celibacy of the monks and clergy.

Justinian relaxed the punishment at least of female infidelity: the guilty spouse was only condemned to solitude and penance, and at the end of two years she might be recalled to the arms of a forgiving husband. But the same Emperor declared himself the implacable enemy of unmanly lust, and the cruelty of his persecution can scarcely be excused by the purity of his motives. In defiance of every principle of justice he stretched to past as well as future offences the operations of his edicts, with the previous allowance of a short respite for confession and pardon. A painful death was inflicted by the amputation of the sinful instrument, or the insertion of sharp reeds into the pores and tubes of most exquisite sensibility; and Justinian defended the propriety of the execution, since the criminals would have lost their hands had they been convicted of sacrilege. In this state of disgrace and agony two bishops, Isaiah of Rhodes and Alexander of Diospolis, were dragged through the streets of Constantinople, while their brethren were admonished by the voice of a crier to observe this awful lesson, and not to pollute the sanctity of their character. Perhaps these prelates were innocent. A sentence of death and infamy was often founded on the slight and suspicious evidence of a child or a servant; the guilt of the green faction, of the rich, and of the enemies of Theodora was presumed by the judges, and pederasty became the crime of those to whom no crime could be imputed. A French philosopher[38] has dared to remark that whatever is secret must be doubtful, and that our natural horror of vice may be abused as an engine of tyranny. But the favorable persuasion of the same writer, that a legislator may confide in the taste and reason of mankind, is impeached by the unwelcome discovery of the antiquity and extent of the disease.

V. The free citizens of Athens and Rome enjoyed in all criminal cases the invaluable privilege of being tried by their country.

1. The administration of justice is the most ancient office of a prince: it was exercised by the Roman kings and abused by Tarquin, who alone, without law or council, pronounced his arbitrary judgments. The first consuls succeeded to this regal prerogative; but the sacred right of appeal soon abolished the jurisdiction of the magistrates, and all public causes were decided by the supreme tribunal of the people. But a wild democracy, superior to the forms, too often disdains the essential principles of justice: the pride of despotism was envenomed by plebeian envy, and the heroes of Athens might sometimes applaud the happiness of the Persian, whose fate depended on the caprice of a _single_ tyrant. Some salutary restraints, imposed by the people on their own passions, were at once the cause and effect of the gravity and temperance of the Romans. The right of accusation was confined to the magistrates. A vote of the thirty-five tribes could inflict a fine; but the cognizance of all capital crimes was reserved by a fundamental law to the assembly of the centuries, in which the weight of influence and property was sure to preponderate. Repeated proclamations and adjournments were interposed to allow time for prejudice and resentment to subside: the whole proceeding might be annulled by a seasonable omen or the opposition of a tribune; and such popular trials were commonly less formidable to innocence than they were favorable to guilt. But this union of the judicial and legislative powers left it doubtful whether the accused party was pardoned or acquitted; and in the defence of an illustrious client the orators of Rome and Athens address their arguments to the policy and benevolence, as well as to the justice, of their sovereign.

2. The task of convening the citizens for the trial of each offender became more difficult as the citizens and the offenders continually multiplied, and the ready expedient was adopted of delegating the jurisdiction of the people to the ordinary magistrates or to extraordinary inquisitors. In the first ages these questions were rare and occasional. In the beginning of the seventh century of Rome they were made perpetual: four prætors were annually empowered to sit in judgment on the state offences of treason, extortion, peculation, and bribery; and Sylla added new prætors and new questions for those crimes which more directly injure the safety of individuals. By these inquisitors the trial was prepared and directed; but they could only pronounce the sentence of the majority of judges. To discharge this important though burdensome office, an annual list of ancient and respectable citizens was formed by the prætor. After many constitutional struggles they were chosen in equal numbers from the senate, the equestrian order, and the people; four hundred and fifty were appointed for single questions, and the various rolls or _decuries_ of judges must have contained the names of some thousand Romans who represented the judicial authority of the State. In each particular cause a sufficient number was drawn from the urn; their integrity was guarded by an oath; the mode of ballot secured their independence; the suspicion of partiality was removed by the mutual challenges of the accuser and defendant; and the judges of Milo, by the retrenchment of fifteen on each side, were reduced to fifty-one voices or tablets of acquittal, of condemnation, or of favorable doubt.[39]

3. In his civil jurisdiction the prætor of the city was truly a judge, and almost a legislator; but as soon as he had prescribed the action of law he often referred to a delegate the determination of the fact. With the increase of legal proceedings, the tribunal of the centumvirs in which he presided acquired more weight and reputation. But whether he acted alone, or with the advice of his council, the most absolute powers might be trusted to a magistrate who was annually chosen by the votes of the people. The rules and precautions of freedom have required some explanation; the order of despotism is simple and inanimate. Before the age of Justinian, or perhaps of Diocletian, the decuries of Roman judges had sunk to an empty title: the humble advice of the assessors might be accepted or despised, and in each tribunal the civil and criminal jurisdiction was administered by a single magistrate, who was raised and disgraced by the will of the emperor.

A Roman accused of any capital crime might prevent the sentence of the law by voluntary exile or death. Till his guilt had been legally proved his innocence was presumed, and his person was free: till the votes of the last _century_ had been counted and declared, he might peaceably secede to any of the allied cities of Italy, or Greece, or Asia.[40] His fame and fortunes were preserved, at least to his children, by this civil death; and he might still be happy in every rational and sensual enjoyment, if a mind accustomed to the ambitious tumult of Rome could support the uniformity and silence of Rhodes or Athens. A bolder effort was required to escape from the tyranny of the Cæsars; but this effort was rendered familiar by the maxims of the Stoics, the example of the bravest Romans, and the legal encouragements of suicide. The bodies of condemned criminals were exposed to public ignominy, and their children, a more serious evil, were reduced to poverty by the confiscation of their fortunes. But if the victims of Tiberius and Nero anticipated the decree of the prince or senate, their courage and despatch were recompensed by the applause of the public, the decent honors of burial, and the validity of their testaments. The exquisite avarice and cruelty of Domitian appear to have deprived the unfortunate of this last consolation, and it was still denied even by the clemency of the Antonines.

A voluntary death which, in the case of a capital offence, intervened between the accusation and the sentence, was admitted as a confession of guilt, and the spoils of the deceased were seized by the inhuman claims of the treasury. Yet the civilians have always respected the natural right of a citizen to dispose of his life; and the posthumous disgrace invented by Tarquin,[41] to check the despair of his subjects, was never revived or imitated by succeeding tyrants. The powers of this world have indeed lost their dominion over him who is resolved on death, and his arm can only be restrained by the religious apprehension of a future state. Suicides are enumerated by Vergil among the unfortunate rather than the guilty;[42] and the poetical fables of the infernal shades could not seriously influence the faith or practice of mankind. But the precepts of the gospel, or the Church, have at length imposed a pious servitude on the minds of Christians, and condemn them to expect, without a murmur, the last stroke of disease or the executioner.

The penal statutes form a very small proportion of the sixty-two books of the _Code_ and _Pandects_; and in all judicial proceeding the life or death of a citizen is determined with less caution or delay than the most ordinary question of covenant or inheritance. This singular distinction, though something may be allowed for the urgent necessity of defending the peace of society, is derived from the nature of criminal and civil jurisprudence. Our duties to the state are simple and uniform: the law by which he is condemned is inscribed not only on brass or marble, but on the conscience of the offender, and his guilt is commonly proved by the testimony of a single fact. But our relations to each other are various and infinite; our obligations are created, annulled, and modified by injuries, benefits, and promises; and the interpretation of voluntary contracts and testaments, which are often dictated by fraud or ignorance, affords a long and laborious exercise to the sagacity of the judge. The business of life is multiplied by the extent of commerce and dominion, and the residence of the parties in the distant provinces of an empire is productive of doubt, delay, and inevitable appeals from the local to the supreme magistrate. Justinian, the Greek emperor of Constantinople and the East, was the legal successor of the Latian shepherd who had planted a colony on the banks of the Tiber. In a period of thirteen hundred years the laws had reluctantly followed the changes of government and manners, and the laudable desire of conciliating ancient names with recent institutions destroyed the harmony and swelled the magnitude of the obscure and irregular system.

The laws which excuse on any occasions the ignorance of their subjects confess their own imperfections. The civil jurisprudence, as it was abridged by Justinian, still continued a mysterious science and a profitable trade, and the innate perplexity of the study was involved in tenfold darkness by the private industry of the practitioners. The expense of the pursuit sometimes exceeded the value of the prize, and the fairest rights were abandoned by the poverty or prudence of the claimants. Such costly justice might tend to abate the spirit of litigation, but the unequal pressure serves only to increase the influence of the rich, and to aggravate the misery of the poor. By these dilatory and expensive proceedings, the wealthy pleader obtains a more certain advantage than he could hope from the accidental corruption of his judge. The experience of an abuse, from which our own age and country are not perfectly exempt, may sometimes provoke a generous indignation, and extort the hasty wish of exchanging our elaborate jurisprudence for the simple and summary decrees of a Turkish cadi. Our calmer reflection will suggest that such forms and delays are necessary to guard the person and property of the citizen; that the discretion of the judge is the first engine of tyranny, and that the laws of a free people should foresee and determine every question that may probably arise in the exercise of power and the transactions of industry. But the government of Justinian united the evils of liberty and servitude; and the Romans were oppressed at the same time by the multiplicity of their laws and the arbitrary will of their master.

FOOTNOTES:

[26] Among the works which have been recovered, by the persevering and successful endeavors of M. Mai and his followers to trace the imperfectly erased characters of the ancient writers on these palimpsests, Gibbon at this period of his labors would have hailed with delight the recovery of the _Institutes_ of Gaius, and the fragments of the Theodosian _Code_, published by M. Peyron of Turin.

[27] Pisa was taken by the Florentines in the year 1406; and in 1411 the _Pandects_ were transported to the capital. These events are authentic and famous.

[28] They were new bound in purple, deposited in a rich casket, and shown to curious travellers by the monks and magistrates bareheaded and with lighted tapers.

[29] Gibbon, dividing the _Institutes_ into four parts, considers the appendix of the criminal law in the last title as a fourth part.

[30] This parental power was strictly confined to the Roman citizen. The foreigner, or he who had only _jus Latii_, did not possess it. If a Roman citizen unknowingly married a Latin or a foreign wife, he did not possess this power over his son, because the son, following the legal condition of the mother, was not a Roman citizen. A man, however, alleging sufficient cause for his ignorance, might raise both mother and child to the rights of citizenship.

[31] The edict of Constantine first conferred this right; for Augustus had prohibited the taking as a concubine a woman who might be taken as a wife; and if marriage took place afterward, this marriage made no change in the rights of the children born before it; recourse was then had to adoption, properly called arrogation.

[32] The Roman laws protected all property acquired in a lawful manner. They imposed on those who had invaded it, the obligation of making restitution and reparation of all damage caused by that invasion; they punished it moreover, in many cases, by a pecuniary fine. But they did not always grant a recovery against the third person, who had become _bona fide_ possessed of the property. He who had obtained possession of a thing belonging to another, knowing nothing of the prior rights of that person, maintained the possession. The law had expressly determined those cases, in which it permitted property to be reclaimed from an innocent possessor. In these cases possession had the characters of absolute proprietorship. To possess this right, it was not sufficient to have entered into possession of the thing _in any manner_; the acquisition was bound to have that character of publicity, which was given by the observation of solemn forms, prescribed by the laws, or the uninterrupted exercise of proprietorship during a certain time: the Roman citizen alone could acquire this proprietorship. Every other kind of possession, which might be named imperfect proprietorship, was called _in bonis habere_. It was not till after the time of Cicero that the general name of _dominium_ was given to all proprietorship.

[33] Justinian has not condescended to give usury a place in his _Institutes_; but the necessary rules and restrictions are inserted in the _Pandects_ and the _Code_.

[34] Cato, Seneca, Plutarch, have loudly condemned the practice or abuse of usury. According to etymology, the principal is supposed to _generate_ the interest: "A breed for barren metal," exclaims Shakspeare--and the stage is an echo of the public voice.

[35] Livy mentions two remarkable and flagitious eras, of three thousand persons accused, and of one hundred and ninety noble matrons convicted, of the crime of poisoning. Hume discriminates the ages of private and public virtue. Rather say that such ebullitions of mischief (as in France in the year 1680) are accidents and prodigies which leave no marks on the manners of a nation.

[36] The first parricide at Rome was L. Ostius, after the Second Punic War. During the Cimbric, P. Malleolus was guilty of the first matricide.

[37] Verres lived near thirty years after his trial, till the Second Triumvirate, when he was proscribed by the taste of Mark Antony for the sake of his Corinthian plate.

[38] Montesquieu, that eloquent philosopher, conciliates the rights of liberty and of nature, which should never be placed in opposition to each other.

[39] We are indebted for this interesting fact to a fragment of Asconius Pedianus, who flourished under the reign of Tiberius. The loss of his _Commentaries on the Orations of Cicero_ has deprived us of a valuable fund of historical and legal knowledge.

[40] The extension of the Empire and _city_ of Rome obliged the exile to seek a more distant place of retirement.

[41] When he fatigued his subjects in building the Capitol, many of the laborers were provoked to despatch themselves: he nailed their dead bodies to crosses.

[42] The sole resemblance of a violent and premature death has engaged Vergil to confound suicides with infants, lovers, and persons unjustly condemned. Some of his editors are at a loss to deduce the idea or ascertain the jurisprudence of the Roman poet.

AUGUSTINE'S MISSIONARY WORK IN ENGLAND

A.D. 597

THE VENERABLE BEDE[43] JOHN RICHARD GREEN

St. Augustine was the first archbishop of Canterbury. He was educated in Rome under Pope Gregory I, by whom he was sent to Britain with forty monks of the Benedictine order, for the purpose of converting the English to Christianity. Bertha, wife of Ethelbert, king of Kent, was a Christian. She was a daughter of Charibert, king of Paris, and had brought her chaplain with her, who held services in the ruined church of St. Martin, near Canterbury.

There seemed little prospect, however, of the faith spreading among the wild islanders until Augustine arrived on the Isle of Thanet A.D. 596. The occasion of his being sent on this missionary errand is said to have been connected with an incident which has often been related, wherein it appears that Gregory, while yet a monk, struck with the beauty of some heathen Anglo-Saxon youths exposed for sale in the slave market at Rome, inquired concerning their nationality. Being told that they were Angles, he said: "_Non Angli sed angeli_ ['Not Angles, but angels'], and well may, for their angel-like faces it becometh such to be coheirs with the angels in heaven. In what province of England do they live?" "Deira" was the reply. "From _Dei ira_ ['God's wrath'] are they to be freed?" answered Gregory. "How call ye the king of that country?" "Ælla." "Then Alleluia surely ought to be sung in his kingdom to the praise of that God who created all things," said the gracious and clever monk.

"The conversion of the English to Christianity," says Freeman, "at once altered their whole position in the world. Hitherto our history had been almost wholly insular; our heathen forefathers had had but little to do, either in war or peace, with any nations beyond their own four seas. We hear little of any connection being kept up between the Angles and Saxons who settled in Britain, and their kinsfolk who abode in their original country. By its conversion England was first brought, not only within the pale of the Christian Church, but within the pale of the general political society of Europe. But our insular position, combined with the events of our earlier history, was not without its effect on the peculiar character of Christianity as established in England. England was the first great territorial conquest of the spiritual power, beyond the limits of the Roman Empire, beyond the influence of Greek and Roman civilization."

The following account from the _Ecclesiastical History_ of the Venerable Bede, the "father of English history," and foremost scholar of England in his age, is in the modern English rendering by Thomson, of King Alfred's famous translation, made for the instruction of the English people as the best work of that period on their own history.

As a contrast John Richard Green's treatment of the same episode is appended.

THE VENERABLE BEDE

When according to forthrunning time [it] was about five hundred and ninety-two years from Christ's hithercoming, Mauricius, the Emperor, took to the government, and had it two-and-twenty years. He was the fifty-fourth from Augustus. In the tenth year of that Emperor's reign, Gregory, the holy man, who was in lore and deed the highest, took to the bishophood of the Roman Church, and of the apostolic seat, and held and governed it thirteen years and six months and ten days. In the fourteenth year of the same Emperor, about a hundred and fifty years from the English nation's hithercoming into Britain, he was admonished by a divine impulse that he should send God's servant Augustine, and many other monks with him, fearing the Lord, to preach God's word to the English nation.

When they obeyed the bishop's commands, and began to go to the mentioned work, and had gone some deal of the way, then began they to fear and dread the journey, and thought that it was wiser and safer for them that they should rather return home than seek the barbarous people, and the fierce and the unbelieving, even whose speech they knew not; and in common chose this advice to themselves; and then straightway sent Augustine (whom they had chosen for their bishop if their doctrines should be received) to the Pope, that he might humbly intercede for them, that they might not need to go upon a journey so perilous and so toilsome, and a pilgrimage so unknown.

Then St. Gregory sent a letter to them, and exhorted and advised them in that letter: that they should humbly go into the work of God's word, and trust in God's help; and that they should not fear the toil of the journey, nor dread the tongues of evil-speaking men; but that, with all earnestness, and with the love of God, they should perform the good things which they by God's help had begun to do; and that they should know that the great toil would be followed by the greater glory of everlasting life; and he prayed Almighty God that he would shield them by his grace; and that he would grant to himself that he might see the fruit of their labor in the heavenly kingdom's glory, because he was ready to be in the same labor with them, if leave had been given him.

Then Augustine was strengthened by the exhortation of the blessed father Gregory, and with Christ's servants who were with him returned to the work of God's word, and came into Britain. Then was at that time Ethelbert king in Kent, and a mighty one, who had rule as far as the boundary of the river Humber, which sheds asunder the south folk of the English nation and the north folk. Then [there] is on the eastward of Kent a great island [Thanet by name], which is six hundred hides large, after the English nation's reckoning. The isle is shed away from the continuous land by the stream Wantsum, which is three furlongs broad, and in two places is fordable, and either end lies in the sea. On this isle came up Christ's servant Augustine and his fellows--he was one of forty. They likewise took with them interpreters from Frankland [France], as St. Gregory bade them; and he sent messengers to Ethelbert, and let him know that he came from Rome, and brought the best errand, and whosoever would be obedient to him, he promised him everlasting gladness in heaven, and a kingdom hereafter without end, with the true and living God.

When [he then] the King heard these words, then ordered he them to abide in the isle on which they had come up; and their necessaries to be there given them until he should see what he would do to them. Likewise before that a report of the Christian religion had come to him, for he had a Christian wife, who was given to him from the royal kin of the Franks--Bertha was her name; which woman he received from her parents on condition that she should have his leave that she might hold the manner of the Christian belief, and of her religion, unspotted, with the bishop whom they gave her for the help of that faith; whose name was Luidhard.

Then [it] was after many days that the King came to the isle, and ordered to make a seat for him out [of doors], and ordered Augustine with his fellows to come to his speech (a _conference_). He guarded himself lest they should go into any house to him; he used the old greeting, in case they had any magic whereby they should overcome and deceive him. But they came endowed--not with devil-craft, but with divine might. They bore Christ's rood-token--a silvern cross of Christ and a likeness of the Lord Jesus colored and delineated on a board; and were crying the names of holy men; and singing prayers together, made supplication to the Lord for the everlasting health of themselves and of those to whom they come.

Then the King bade them sit, and they did so; and they soon preached and taught the word of life to him, together with all his peers who were there present. Then answered the King, and thus said: Fair words and promises are these which ye have brought and say to us; but because they are new and unknown, we cannot yet agree that we should forsake the things which we for a long time, with all the English nation, have held.

But because ye have come hither as pilgrims from afar, and since it seems and is evident to me that ye wished to communicate to us also the things which ye believed true and best, we will not therefore be heavy to you, but will kindly receive you in hospitality, and give you a livelihood, and supply your needs. Nor will we hinder you from joining and adding to the religion of your belief all whom you can through your lore.

Then the King gave them a dwelling and a place in Canterbury, which was the chief city of all his kingdom, and as he had promised to give them a livelihood and their worldly needs, he likewise gave them leave that they might preach and teach the Christian faith. It is said that when they went and drew nigh to the city, as their custom was, with Christ's holy cross, and with the likeness of the great King our Lord Jesus Christ, they sung with a harmonious voice this Litany and Antiphony: _Deprecamur te_, etc. "We beseech thee, Lord, in all thy mercy, that thy fury and thy wrath be taken off from this city and [from] thy holy house, because we have sinned. Alleluia."

Then it was soon after they had entered into the dwelling place which had been granted to them in the royal city, when they began to imitate the apostolic life of the primitive church--that is, served the Lord in constant prayers, and waking and fasting, and preached and taught God's word to whom they might, and slighted all things of this world as foreign; but those things only which were seen [to be] needful for their livelihood they received from those whom they taught; according to that which they taught, they [themselves] through everything lived; and they had a ready mind to suffer adversity, yea likewise death [it] self, for the truth which they preached and taught. Then was no delay that many believed and were baptized. They also wondered at the simplicity of [their] harmless life and the sweetness of their heavenly lore.

There was by east well-nigh the city a church built in honor of St. Martin long ago, while the Romans yet dwelt in Britain [in which church the Queen (was) wont to pray, of whom we said before that she was a Christian]. In this church at first the holy teachers began to meet and sing and pray, and do mass-song, and teach men and baptize, until the King was converted to the faith, and they obtained more leave to teach everywhere, and to build and repair churches.

Then came it about through the grace of God that the King likewise among others began to delight in the cleanest life of holy [men] and their sweetest promises, and they also gave confirmation that those were true by the showing of many wonders; and he then, being glad, was baptized. Then began many daily to hasten and flock together to hear God's word, and to forsake the manner of heathenism, and joined themselves, through belief, to the oneness of Christ's holy Church. Of their belief and conversion [it] is said that the King was so evenly glad that he, however, forced none to the Christian manner [of worship], but that those who turned to belief and to baptism he more inwardly loved, as they were fellow-citizens of the heavenly kingdom. For he had learnt from his teachers and from the authors of his health that Christ's service should be of good will, not of compulsion. And he then, the King, gave and granted to his teachers a place and settlement suitable to their condition, in his chief city, and thereto gave their needful supplies in various possessions.

During these things the holy man Augustine fared over sea, and came to the city Arles, and by Ætherius, archbishop of the said city, according to the behest and commandment of the blessed father St. Gregory, was hallowed archbishop of the English people, and returned and fared into Britain, and soon sent messengers to Rome, that was Laurence a mass-priest and Peter a monk, that they should say and make known to the blessed St. Gregory that the English nation had received Christ's belief, and that he had been consecrated as bishop. He likewise requested his advice about many causes and questions which were seen by him [to be] needful; and he soon sent suitable answers of them.

Asked by St. Augustine, bishop of the church of Canterbury: First, of bishops, how they shall behave and live with their fellows. Next, on the gifts of the faithful which they bring to holy tables and to God's churches--how many doles of them shall be?

Answered by Pope St. Gregory: Holy writ makes it known, quoth he, which I have no doubt thou knowest, and sunderly the blessed Paul's epistle, which he wrote to Timothy, in which he earnestly trained and taught him how he should behave and do in God's house. For it is the manner of the apostolic seat, when they hallow bishops, that they give them commandments, and that of all the livelihood which comes in to them there shall be four doles. One, in the first place, to the bishop and his family for food, and entertainment of guests and comers; a second dole to God's servants; a third to the needy; the fourth to renewing and repair of God's church. But because thy brotherliness has been trained and taught in monastic rules, thou shalt not, however, be asunder from thy fellows in the English church, which now yet is newly come and led to the faith of God. This behavior and this life thou shalt set up, which our fathers had in the beginning of the new-born church, when none of them said aught of that which they owned was his in sunder; but they all had all things common. If, then, any priests or God's servants are settled without holy orders, let those who cannot withhold themselves from women take them wives, and receive their livelihood outside. For of the same fathers, of whom we spoke before, [it] is written that they dealt their worldly goods to sundry men as every [one] had need.

Likewise concerning their livelihood it is to be thought and foreseen (_i.e., provided_) that they live in good manners under ecclesiastical rules, and sing psalms and keep wakes and hold their hearts and tongues and bodies clean from all forbidden [things] to Almighty God. But, as to those living in common life, what have we to say how they deal their alms, or exercise hospitality, and fulfil mercy? since all that is left over in their worldly substance is to be reached and given to the pious and good, as the master of all, our Lord Christ, taught and said: _Quod superest_, etc. "What is over and left, give alms, and to you are all [things] clean."

Asked by St. Augustine: Since there is one faith, and are various customs of churches, there is one custom of mass-song in the holy Roman Church, and another is had in the kingdom of Gaul.

Answered by Pope St. Gregory: Thou thyself knowest the manner and custom of the Roman Church, in which thou wert reared; but now it seems good, and is more agreeable to me, that whatsoever thou hast found either in the Roman Church or in Gaul, or in any other [church], that was more pleasing to Almighty God, thou should carefully choose that, and set it to be held fast in the Church of the English nation, which now yet is new in the faith. For the things are not to be loved for places; but the places for good things. Therefore what things thou choosest as pious, good, and right from each of sundry churches, these gather thou together, and settle into a custom in the mind of the English nation.

Asked by Augustine: I pray thee, what punishment shall he suffer--whosoever takes away anything by stealth from a church?

Answered by Gregory: This may thy brotherliness determine from the thief's condition, how he may be corrected. For there are some who have worldly wealth, and yet commit theft; there are some who are in this wise guilty through poverty. Therefore need is that some be corrected by waning of their worldly goods, some by stripes; some more sternly, some more mildly. And though the punishment be inflicted a little harder or sterner, yet it is to be done of love, not of wrath nor of fury; because through the throes of this is procured to the man that he be not given to the everlasting fires of hell-torments. For in this manner we ought to punish men, as the good fathers are wont [to do] their fleshly children, whom they chide and swinge for their sins; and yet those same whom they chide and chastise by these pains they also love, and wish to have for their heirs, and for them hold their worldly goods which they possess, whom they seem in anger to persecute and torment. For love is ever to be held in the mind, and it dictates and determines the measure of the chastisement, so that the mind does nothing at all beside the right rule. Thou likewise addest in thy inquiry, how those things should be compensated which have been taken away from a church by theft. But, oh! far be it that God's Church should receive with increase what she seems to let alone of earthly things, and seek worldly gain by vain things.

Asked by Bishop St. Augustine: At what generation shall Christian people be joined among themselves in marriage with their kinsfolk?... Answered by St. Gregory: ... But because there are many in the English nation [who], while they were then yet in unbelief, are said to have been joined together in this sinful marriage,[44] now they are to be admonished, since they have come to the faith, that they hold themselves off from such iniquities, and understand that it is a heavy sin, and dread the awful doom of God, lest they for fleshly love receive the torments of everlasting death. They are not, however, for this cause to be deprived of the communion of Christ's body and blood, lest this thing may seem to be revenged on them, in which they through unwittingness sinned before the bath of baptism. For at this time the Holy Church corrects some things through zeal, bears with some through mildness, overlooks some through consideration, and so bears and overlooks that often by bearing and overlooking she checks the opposing evil. All those who come to the faith of Christ are to be reminded that they may not dare to commit any such thing. But, if any shall commit them, then are they to be deprived of Christ's body and blood; for, as some little is to be borne with in regard to those men who through unwittingness commit sin, so on the other hand it is to be strongly pursued in those who dread not to sin wittingly.

Asked by Bishop St. Augustine: If a great distance of journey lies between, so that bishops may not easily come, whether may a bishop be hallowed without the presence of other bishops.

Answered by Gregory: In the English Church, indeed, in which thou alone as yet art found a bishop, thou canst not hallow a bishop otherwise than without other bishops; but bishops must come to thee out of the kingdom of Gaul, that they may stand as witness at the bishop's hallowing, for the hallowing of bishops must not be otherwise than in the assembling and witnessing of three or four bishops, that they may send [up] and pour [forth] their petitions and prayers to the Almighty God for his favor.

Asked by Augustine: How must we do with the bishops of Gaul and Britain?

Answered by Pope Gregory: Over the bishops of Gaul we give thee no authority, because from the earlier times of my predecessors the bishop of the city Arles received the pallium, whom we ought not to degrade nor to deprive of the received authority. But, if thou happen to go into the province of Gaul, have thou a conference and consultation with the said bishop what is to be done, or, if any vices are found in bishops, how they shall be corrected and reformed; and if there be a supposition that he is too lukewarm in the vigor of his discipline and chastisement, then is he to be inflamed and abetted by thy brotherliness's love,[45] that he may ward off those things which are contrary to the behest and commands of our Maker, from the manners of the bishops. Thou mayest not judge the bishops of Gaul without their own authority; but thou shalt mildly admonish them, and show them the imitation of thy good works. All the bishops of Britain we commend to thy brotherliness, in order that the unlearned may be taught, the weak strengthened by thy exhortation, and the perverse corrected by thy authority.[46]

Augustine likewise bade [his messengers] acquaint him that a great harvest was here present and few workmen. And he then sent with the aforesaid messengers more help to him for divine learning, among whom the first and greatest were Mellitus and Justus and Paulinus and Rufinianus, and by them generally all those things which were needful for the worship and service of the Church--communion vessels, altar-cloth, and church ornaments, and bishops' robes, and deacons' robes, as also reliques of the apostles and holy martyrs, and many books. He likewise sent to Augustine the bishop a pallium, and a letter in which he intimated how he should hallow other bishops, and in what places [he should] set them in Britain.

The blessed Pope Gregory likewise at the same time sent a letter to King Ethelbert, and along with it many worldly gifts of diverse sorts. He wished likewise by these temporal honors to glorify the King, to whom he had, by his labor and by his diligence in teaching, opened and made known the glory of the heavenly kingdom.

And then St. Augustine, as soon as he received the bishop-seat in the royal city, renewed and wrought, with the King's help, the church which he had learnt was wrought long before by old Roman work, and hallowed it in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ; and he there set a dwelling-place for himself and all his after-followers. He likewise built a monastery by east of the city, in which Ethelbert the King, by his exhortation and advice, ordered to build a church worthy of the blessed apostles Peter and Paul, and he enriched it with various gifts, in which church the body of Augustine, and of all the Canterbury bishops together, and of their kings, might be laid. The church, however, not Augustine, but Bishop Laurentius, his after-follower, hallowed.

The first abbot at the same monastery was a mass-priest named Peter, who was sent back as a messenger into the kingdom of Gaul, and then was drowned in a bay of the sea, which was called Amfleet, and was laid in an unbecoming grave by the inhabitants of the place. But the Almighty God would show of what merit the holy man was, and every night a heavenly light was made to shine over his grave, until the neighbors, who saw it, understood that it was a great and holy man who was buried there; and they then asked who and whence he was: they then took his body, and laid and buried it in a church in the city of Boulogne, with the honor befitting so great and so holy a man.

Then it was that Augustine, with the help of King Ethelbert, invited to his speech the bishops and teachers of the Britons, in the place which is yet named Augustine's Oak, on the borders of the Hwiccii and West Saxons. And he then began, with brotherly love, to advise and teach them, that they should have right love and peace between them, and undertake, for the Lord, the common labor of teaching divine lore in the English nation. And they would not hear him, nor keep Easter at its right tide, and also had many other things unlike and contrary to ecclesiastical unity. When they had held a long conference and strife about those things, and they would not yield any things to Augustine's instructions, nor to his prayers, nor to his threats, and [those] of his companions, but thought their own customs and institutions better than [that] they should agree with all Christ's churches throughout the world; then the holy father Augustine put an end to this troublesome strife, and thus spoke:

"Let us pray Almighty God, who makes the one-minded to dwell in his Father's house, that he vouchsafe to signify to us by heavenly wonders which institution we ought to follow, by what ways to hasten to the entrance of his kingdom. Let an infirm man be brought hither to us, and, through whose prayer soever he be healed, let his belief and practice be believed acceptable to God, and to be followed by all."

When his adversaries had hardly granted that, a blind man of English kin was led forth: he was first led to the bishops of the Britons, and he received no health nor comfort through their ministry. Then at last Augustine was constrained by righteous need, arose and bowed his knees, [and] prayed God the Almighty Father that he would give sight to the blind man, that he through one man's bodily enlightening might kindle the gift of ghostly light in the hearts of many faithful Then soon, without delay, the blind man was enlightened, and received sight; and the true preacher of the heavenly light, Augustine, was proclaimed and praised by all. Then the Britons also acknowledged with shame that they understood that it was the way of truth which Augustine preached; they said, however, that they could not, without consent and leave of their people, shun and forsake their old customs. They begged that again another synod should be [assembled], and they then would attend it with more counsellors.

When that accordingly was set, seven bishops of the Britons came, and all the most learned men, who were chiefly from the city Bangor: at that time the abbot of that monastery was named Dinoth. When they then were going to the meeting, they first came to a [certain] hermit, who was with them holy and wise. They interrogated and asked him whether they should for Augustine's lore forsake their own institutions and customs. Then answered he them, "If he be a man of God, follow him." Quoth they to him, "How may we know whether he be so?" Quoth he: "[Our] Lord himself hath said in his gospel, Take ye my yoke upon you, and learn from me that I am mild and of lowly heart. And now if Augustine is mild and of lowly heart, then it is [to be] believed that he bears Christ's yoke and teaches you to bear it. If he then is unmild and haughty, then it is known that he is not from God, nor [should] ye mind his words." Quoth they again, "How may we know that distinctly?" Quoth he, "See ye that he come first to the synod with his fellows, and sit; and, if he rises toward you when ye come, then wit ye that he is Christ's servant, and ye shall humbly hear his words and his lore. But if he despise you, and will not rise toward you since there are more of you, be he then despised by you." Well, they did so as he said.

When they had come to the synod-place, the archbishop Augustine was sitting on his seat. When they saw that he rose not for them, they quickly became angry, and upbraided him [as being] haughty, and gainsaid and withstood all his words. The archbishop said to them: "In many things ye are contrary to our customs and so to [those] of all God's churches; and yet if ye will be obedient to me in these three things--that first ye celebrate Easter at the right tide; that ye fulfil the ministry of baptism, through which we are born as God's children, after the manner of the holy Roman and apostolic Church; and that, thirdly, ye preach the word of the Lord to the English people together with us--we will patiently bear with all other things which ye do that are contrary to our customs." They said that they would do none of these things, nor would have him for an archbishop; they said among themselves, "If he would not now rise for us, much more, if we shall be subjected to him, will he contemn us for naught." It is said that the man of God, St. Augustine, in a threatening manner foretold, "if they would not receive peace with men of God, that they should receive unpeace and war from their foes; and, if they would not preach among the English race the word of life, they should through their hands suffer the vengeance of death."

And through everything, as the man of God had foretold, by the righteous doom of God it came to pass; and very soon after this Ethelfrith, king of the English, collected a great army, and led it to Legcaster, and there fought against the Britons, and made the greatest slaughter of the faithless people. While he was beginning the battle, King Ethelfrith saw their priests and bishops and monks standing aloof in a safer place, that they should pray and make intercession to God for their warriors: he inquired and asked what that host was, and what they were doing there. When he understood the cause of their coming, then said he, "So! I wot if they cry to their God against us, though they bear not a weapon, they fight against us, for they pursue us with their hostile prayers and curses." He then straightway ordered to turn upon them first, and slay them. Men say that there were twelve hundred of this host, and fifty of them escaped by flight; and he so then destroyed and blotted out the other host of the sinful nation, not without great waning of his [own] host; and so was fulfilled the prophecy of the holy bishop Augustine, that they should for their trowlessness suffer the vengeance of temporal perdition, because they despised the skilful counsel of their eternal salvation.

After these things Augustine, bishop [of Britain], hallowed two bishops: the one was named Mellitus, the other Justus. Mellitus he sent to preach divine lore to the East Saxons, who are shed off from Kentland by the river Thames, and joined to the east sea. Their chief city is called Lundencaster (_now London_), standing on the bank of the foresaid river; and it is the market-place of land and sea comers. The King in the nation at that time was Seabright (_or Sabert_), Ethelbert's sister-son, and his vassal. Then he and the nation of the East Saxons received the word of truth and the faith of Christ through Mellitus, the bishop's lore. Then King Ethelbert ordered to build a church in London, and to hallow it to St. Paul the apostle, that he and his after-followers might have their bishop-seat in that place. Justus he hallowed as bishop in Kent itself at Rochester, which is four-and-twenty miles right west from Canterbury, in which city likewise King Ethelbert ordered to build a church, and to hallow it to St. Andrew the apostle; and to each of these bishops the King gave his gifts and bookland and possessions for them to brook with their fellows.

After these things, then, Father Augustine, beloved of God, departed [this life], and his body was buried without [doors], nigh the church of the blessed apostles Peter and Paul, which we mentioned before, because it was not then yet fully built nor hallowed. As soon as it was hallowed, then his body was put into it, and becomingly buried in the north porch of the church, in which likewise the bodies of all the after-following archbishops are buried but two; that is, Theodorus and Berhtwald, whose bodies are laid in the church itself, because no more might [be so] in the foresaid porch. Well-nigh in the middle of the church is an altar set and hallowed in name of St. Gregory, on which every Saturday their memory and decease are celebrated with mass-song by the mass-priest of that place. On St. Augustine's tomb is written an inscription of this sort: Here resteth Sir[47] Augustine, the first archbishop of Canterbury, who was formerly sent hither by the blessed Gregory, bishop of the Roman city; and was upheld by God with working of wonders. King Ethelbert and his people he led from the worship of idols to the faith of Christ, and, having fulfilled the days of his ministry in peace, departed on the 26th day of May in the same King's reign.

JOHN RICHARD GREEN

Years had passed by since Gregory pitied the English slaves in the market-place of Rome. As bishop of the imperial city he at last found himself in a position to carry out his dream of winning Britain to the faith, and an opening was given him by Ethelbert's marriage with Bertha, a daughter of the Frankish king Charibert of Paris. Bertha, like her Frankish kindred, was a Christian; a Christian bishop accompanied her from Gaul; and a ruined Christian church, the church of St. Martin beside the royal city of Canterbury, was given them for their worship.

The King himself remained true to the gods of his fathers; but his marriage no doubt encouraged Gregory to send a Roman abbot, Augustine, at the head of a band of monks to preach the Gospel, to the English people. The missionaries landed in 597 in the Isle of Thanet, at the spot where Hengist had landed more than a century before; and Ethelbert received them sitting in the open air, on the chalk-down above Minster where the eye nowadays catches miles away over the marshes the dim tower of Canterbury.

The King listened patiently to the long sermon of Augustine as the interpreters the abbot had brought with him from Gaul rendered it in the English tongue. "Your words are fair," Ethelbert replied at last with English good sense, "but they are new and of doubtful meaning." For himself, he said, he refused to forsake the gods of his fathers, but with the usual religious tolerance of his race he promised shelter and protection to the strangers.

The band of monks entered Canterbury bearing before them a silver cross with a picture of Christ, and singing in concert the strains of the litany of their church. "Turn from this city, O Lord," they sang, "thine anger and wrath, and turn it from thy holy house, for we have sinned." And then in strange contrast came the jubilant cry of the older Hebrew worship, the cry which Gregory had wrested in prophetic earnestness from the name of the Yorkshire king in the Roman market-place, "Alleluia!"[48]

It was thus that the spot which witnessed the landing of Hengist became yet better known as the landing-place of Augustine. But the second landing at Ebbsfleet was in no small measure a reversal and undoing of the first. "Strangers from Rome" was the title with which the missionaries first fronted the English King. The march of the monks as they chanted their solemn litany was in one sense a return of the Roman legions who withdrew at the trumpet-call of Alaric. It was to the tongue and the thought not of Gregory only, but of the men whom his Jutish fathers had slaughtered or driven out that Ethelbert listened in the preaching of Augustine.

Canterbury, the earliest royal city of German England, became a centre of Latin influence. The Roman tongue became again one of the tongues of Britain, the language of its worship, its correspondence, its literature. But more than the tongue of Rome returned with Augustine. Practically his landing renewed that union with the western world which the landing of Hengist had destroyed. The new England was admitted into the older commonwealth of nations. The civilization, art, letters, which had fled before the sword of the English conquerors returned with the Christian faith. The great fabric of the Roman law indeed never took root in England, but it is impossible not to recognize the result of the influence of the Roman missionaries in the fact that codes of the customary English law began to be put in writing soon after their arrival.

A year passed before Ethelbert yielded to the preaching of Augustine. But from the moment of his conversion the new faith advanced rapidly and the Kentish men crowded to baptism in the train of their King. The new religion was carried beyond the bounds of Kent by the supremacy which Ethelbert wielded over the neighboring kingdoms. Sebert, king of the East Saxons, received a bishop sent from Kent, and suffered him to build up again a Christian church in what was now his subject city of London, while the East Anglian king Redwald resolved to serve Christ and the older gods together.

FOOTNOTES:

[43] Translated by King Alfred the Great.

[44] That is, with their near kinsfolk.

[45] A brother is here styled "his brotherliness," as a pope "his holiness."

[46] The remainder of this is not translated here.

[47] "Sir" in English (_Schir_, Scottish) equal to _Dominus_, Latin, was five or six centuries ago prefixed to the name of every ordained priest.

[48] See introduction to _Augustine's Missionary Work in England_.

THE HEGIRA

CAREER OF MAHOMET: THE KORAN: AND MAHOMETAN CREED

A.D. 622

IRVING OCKLEY

The flight of Mahomet from Mecca to Medina occurred June 20, 622, and was called the _hegira_, or departure of the prophet. That event marks the commencement of the Mahometan era, which is called there-from the _Hegira_. According to the civil calculation it is fixed at Friday, July 16th, the date of the Mahometans, although astronomers and some historians assign it to the day preceding. While primarily referring to the flight of Mahomet, the term is applied also to the emigration to Medina, prior to the capture of Mecca (630) of those of Mahomet's disciples, who henceforth were known as Mohajerins--Emigrants or Refugees--which became a title of honor.

A scion of the family of Hashem and of the tribe of Koreish, the noblest race in Arabia, and the guardians of the ancient temple and idols of the Kaaba, Mahomet was born at Mecca, August 20, A.D. 570. He acquired wealth and influence by his marriage with Kadijah, a rich widow, but, about his fortieth year, by announcing himself as an apostle of God, sent to extirpate idolatry and to restore the true faith of the prophets Abraham, Moses, and Jesus, he and his converts were exposed to contumely and persecution.

It was, as Irving's recital shows, necessary for the preservation of his life--which was threatened by his own tribe, the Koreishites--that Mahomet should leave Mecca, and he escaped none too soon. It must also be observed that by this going out he found ampler means for the spread of his doctrine and the increase of his followers. His very presence among strangers drew multitudes to the support of his cause, and the enthusiasm aroused by the prophet at Medina made that city the centre of his first great propaganda. There Mahomet died; in the Great Mosque is his tomb, and Medina is sometimes called the "City of the Prophet." From this centre began the development and spread of Islam into a world-religion, which has flourished to the present day, when its followers are estimated at nearly two hundred millions, having large empire and still wider influence among some of the most important races of the East.

WASHINGTON IRVING

The fortunes of Mahomet were becoming darker and darker in his native place. Kadijah, his original benefactress, the devoted companion of his solitude and seclusion, the zealous believer in his doctrines, was in her grave; so also was Abu-Taleb, once his faithful and efficient protector. Deprived of the sheltering influence of the latter, Mahomet had become, in a manner, an outlaw in Mecca; obliged to conceal himself, and remain a burden on the hospitality of those whom his own doctrines had involved in persecution. If worldly advantage had been his object, how had it been attained? Upward of ten years had elapsed since first he announced his prophetic mission; ten long years of enmity, trouble, and misfortune. Still he persevered, and now, at a period of life when men seek to enjoy in repose the fruition of the past, rather than risk all in new schemes for the future, we find him, after having sacrificed ease, fortune, and friends, prepared to give up home and country also, rather than his religious creed.

As soon as the privileged time of pilgrimage arrived, he emerged once more from his concealment, and mingled with the multitude assembled from all parts of Arabia. His earnest desire was to find some powerful tribe, or the inhabitants of some important city, capable and willing to receive him as a guest, and protect him in the enjoyment and propagation of his faith.

His quest was for a time unsuccessful. Those who had come to worship at the Kaaba[49] drew back from a man stigmatized as an apostate; and the worldly-minded were unwilling to befriend one proscribed by the powerful of his native place.

At length, as he was one day preaching on the hill Al Akaba, a little to the north of Mecca, he drew the attention of certain pilgrims from the city of Yathreb. This city, since called Medina, was about two hundred and seventy miles north of Mecca. Many of its inhabitants were Jews and heretical Christians. The pilgrims in question were pure Arabs of the ancient and powerful tribe of Khazradites, and in habits of friendly intercourse with the Keneedites and Naderites, two Jewish tribes inhabiting Mecca, who claimed to be of the sacerdotal line of Aaron. The pilgrims had often heard their Jewish friends explain the mysteries of their faith and talk of an expected messiah. They were moved by the eloquence of Mahomet, and struck with the resemblance of his doctrines to those of the Jewish law; insomuch that when they heard him proclaim himself a prophet, sent by heaven to restore the ancient faith, they said, one to another, "Surely this must be the promised messiah of which we have been told." The more they listened, the stronger became their persuasion of the fact, until in the end they avowed their conviction, and made a final profession of their faith.

As the Khazradites belonged to one of the most powerful tribes of Yathreb, Mahomet sought to secure their protection, and proposed to accompany them on their return; but they informed him that they were at deadly feud with the Awsites, another powerful tribe of that city, and advised him to defer his coming until they should be at peace. He consented; but on the return home of the pilgrims, he sent with them Musab Ibn Omeir, one of the most learned and able of his disciples, with instructions to strengthen them in the faith, and to preach it to their townsmen.

Thus were the seeds of Islamism first sown in the city of Medina. For a time they thrived but slowly. Musab was opposed by the idolaters, and his life threatened; but he persisted in his exertions and gradually made converts among the principal inhabitants. Among these were Saad Ibn Maads, a prince or chief of the Awsites, and Osaid Ibn Hodheir, a man of great authority in the city. Numbers of the Moslems of Mecca also, driven away by persecution, took refuge in Medina, and aided in propagating the new faith among its inhabitants, until it found its way into almost every household.

Feeling now assured of being able to give Mahomet an asylum in the city, upward of seventy of the converts of Medina, led by Musab Ibn Omeir, repaired to Mecca with the pilgrims in the holy month of the thirteenth year of "the mission," to invite him to take up his abode in their city. Mahomet gave them a midnight meeting on the hill Al Akaba. His uncle Al Abbas, who, like the deceased Abu-Taleb, took an affectionate interest in his welfare, though no convert to his doctrines, accompanied him to this secret conference, which he feared might lead him into danger. He entreated the pilgrims from Medina not to entice his nephew to their city until more able to protect him; warning them that their open adoption of the new faith would bring all Arabia in arms against them.

His warnings and entreaties were in vain; a solemn compact was made between the parties. Mahomet demanded that they should abjure idolatry, and worship the one true God openly and fearlessly. For himself he exacted obedience in weal and woe; and for the disciples who might accompany him, protection; even such as they would render to their own wives and children. On these terms he offered to bind himself to remain among them, to be the friend of their friends, the enemy of their enemies.

"But, should we perish in your cause," asked they, "what will be our reward?"

"Paradise," replied the prophet.

The terms were accepted; the emissaries from Medina placed their hands in the hands of Mahomet, and swore to abide by their compact. The latter then singled out twelve from among them, whom he designated as his apostles; in imitation, it is supposed, of the example of our Saviour. Just then a voice was heard from the summit of the hill, denouncing them as apostates and menacing them with punishment. The sound of this voice, heard in the darkness of the night, inspired temporary dismay. "It is the voice of the fiend Iblis," said Mahomet scornfully; "he is the foe of God; fear him not." It was probably the voice of some spy or eavesdropper of the Koreishites; for the very next morning they manifested a knowledge of what had taken place in the night, and treated the new confederates with great harshness as they were departing from the city.

It was this early accession to the faith, and this timely aid proffered and subsequently afforded to Mahomet and his disciples, which procured for the Moslems of Medina the appellation of Ansarians, or auxiliaries, by which they were afterward distinguished.

After the departure of the Ansarians, and the expiration of the holy month, the persecutions of the Moslems were resumed with increased virulence, insomuch that Mahomet, seeing a crisis was at hand, and being resolved to leave the city, advised his adherents generally to provide for their safety. For himself he still lingered in Mecca with a few devoted followers.

Abu Sofian, his implacable foe, was at this time governor of the city. He was both incensed and alarmed at the spreading growth of the new faith, and held a meeting of the chief of the Koreishites to devise some means of effectually putting a stop to it. Some advised that Mahomet should be banished the city; but it was objected that he might gain other tribes to his interest, or perhaps the people of Medina, and return at their head to take his revenge. Others proposed to wall him up in a dungeon, and supply him with food until he died; but it was surmised that his friends might effect his escape. All these objections were raised by a violent and pragmatical old man, a stranger from the province of Nedja, who, say the Moslem writers, was no other than the devil in disguise, breathing his malignant spirit into those present.

At length it was declared by Abu-Jahl that the only effectual check on the growing evil was to put Mahomet to death. To this all agreed, and as a means of sharing the odium of the deed, and withstanding the vengeance it might awaken among the relatives of the victim, it was arranged that a member of each family should plunge his sword into the body of Mahomet.

It is to this conspiracy that allusion is made in the eighth chapter of the _Koran_:

"And call to mind how the unbelievers plotted against thee, that they might either detain thee in bonds, or put thee to death, or expel thee the city; but God laid a plot against them; and God is the best layer of plots."

In fact, by the time the murderers arrived before the dwelling of Mahomet, he was apprised of the impending danger. As usual, the warning is attributed to the angel Gabriel, but it is probable it was given by some Koreishite, less bloody-minded than his confederates. It came just in time to save Mahomet from the hands of his enemies. They paused at his door, but hesitated to enter. Looking through a crevice they beheld, as they thought, Mahomet wrapped in his green mantle, and lying asleep on his couch. They waited for a while, consulting whether to fall on him while sleeping or wait until he should go forth. At length they burst open the door and rushed toward the couch. The sleeper started up; but, instead of Mahomet, Ali stood before them. Amazed and confounded they demanded, "Where is Mahomet?" "I know not," replied Ali sternly, and walked forth; nor did anyone venture to molest him. Enraged at the escape of their victim, however, the Koreishites proclaimed a reward of a hundred camels to anyone who should bring them Mahomet alive or dead.

Divers accounts are given of the mode in which Mahomet made his escape from the house after the faithful Ali had wrapped himself in his mantle and taken his place upon the couch. The most miraculous account is, that he opened the door silently, as the Koreishites stood before it, and, scattering a handful of dust in the air, cast such blindness upon them that he walked through the midst of them without being perceived. This, it is added, is confirmed by the verse of the thirtieth chapter of the _Koran_: "We have thrown blindness upon them, that they shall not see." The most probable account is that he clambered over the wall in the rear of the house, by the help of a servant, who bent his back for him to step upon it.[50]

He repaired immediately to the house of Abu-Bekr, and they arranged for instant flight. It was agreed that they should take refuge in a cave in Mount Thor, about an hour's distance from Mecca, and wait there until they could proceed safely to Medina; and in the mean time the children of Abu-Bekr should secretly bring them food. They left Mecca while it was yet dark, making their way on foot by the light of the stars, and the day dawned as they found themselves at the foot of Mount Thor. Scarce were they within the cave when they heard the sound of pursuit. Abu-Bekr, though a brave man, quaked with fear.

"Our pursuers," said he, "are many, and we are but two."

"Nay," replied Mahomet, "there is a third; God is with us!"

And here the Moslem writers relate a miracle, dear to the minds of all true believers. By the time, say they, that the Koreishites reached the mouth of the cavern, an acacia-tree had sprung up before it, in the spreading branches of which a pigeon had made its nest and laid its eggs, and over the whole a spider had woven its web. When the Koreishites beheld these signs of undisturbed quiet, they concluded that no one could recently have entered the cavern; so they turned away, and pursued their search in another direction.

Whether protected by miracle or not, the fugitives remained for three days undiscovered in the cave, and Asama, the daughter of Abu-Bekr, brought them food in the dusk of the evenings.

On the fourth day, when they presumed the ardor of pursuit had abated, the fugitives ventured forth, and set out for Medina, on camels which a servant of Abu-Bekr had brought in the night for them. Avoiding the main road usually taken by the caravans, they bent their course nearer to the coast of the Red Sea. They had not proceeded far, however, before they were overtaken by a troop of horse headed by Soraka Ibn Malec. Abu-Bekr was again dismayed by the number of their pursuers; but Mahomet repeated the assurance, "Be not troubled; Allah is with us." Soraka was a grim warrior, with shagged iron-gray locks and naked sinewy arms rough with hair. As he overtook Mahomet, his horse reared and fell with him. His superstitious mind was struck with it as an evil sign. Mahomet perceived the state of his feeling, and by an eloquent appeal wrought upon him to such a degree that Soraka, filled with awe, entreated his forgiveness, and turning back with his troop suffered him to proceed on his way unmolested.

The fugitives continued their journey without further interruption, until they arrived at Kobe, a hill about two miles from Medina. It was a favorite resort of the inhabitants of the city, and a place to which they sent their sick and infirm, for the air was pure and salubrious. Hence, too, the city was supplied with fruit; the hill and its environs being covered with vineyards and with groves of the date and lotus; with gardens producing citrons, oranges, pomegranates, figs, peaches, and apricots, and being irrigated with limpid streams.

On arriving at this fruitful spot Al Kaswa, the camel of Mahomet, crouched on her knees, and would go no farther. The prophet interpreted it as a favorable sign, and determined to remain at Koba, and prepare for entering the city. The place where his camel knelt is still pointed out by pious Moslems, a mosque named Al Takwa having been built there to commemorate the circumstance. Some affirm that it was actually founded by the prophet. A deep well[51] is also shown in the vicinity, beside which Mahomet reposed under the shade of the trees, and into which he dropped his seal ring. It is believed still to remain there, and has given sanctity to the well, the waters of which are conducted by subterraneous conduits to Medina. At Koba he remained four days, residing in the house of an Awsite named Colthum Ibn Hadem. While at this village he was joined by a distinguished chief, Boreida Ibn al Hoseib, with seventy followers, all of the tribe of Saham. These made profession of faith between the hands of Mahomet.

Another renowned proselyte who repaired to the prophet at this village was Salman al Parsi--or the Persian. He is said to have been a native of a small place near Ispahan, and that, on passing one day by a Christian church, he was so much struck by the devotion of the people, and the solemnity of the worship, that he became disgusted with the idolatrous faith in which he had been brought up. He afterward wandered about the East, from city to city and convent to convent, in quest of a religion, until an ancient monk, full of years and infirmities, told him of a prophet who had arisen in Arabia to restore the pure faith of Abraham.

This Salman rose to power in after years, and was reputed by the unbelievers of Mecca to have assisted Mahomet in compiling his doctrine. This is alluded to in the sixteenth chapter of the _Koran_: "Verily, the idolaters say, that a certain man assisted to compose the _Koran_; but the language of this man is Ajami--or Persian--and the _Koran_ is indited in the pure Arabian tongue."

The Moslems of Mecca, who had taken refuge some time before in Medina, hearing that Mahomet was at hand, came forth to meet him at Koba; among these were the early convert Talha, and Zobeir, the nephew of Kadijah. These, seeing the travel-stained garments of Mahomet and Abu-Bekr, gave them white mantles, with which to make their entrance into Medina. Numbers of the Ansarians, or auxiliaries, of Medina, who had made their compact with Mahomet in the preceding year, now hastened to renew their vow of fidelity.

Learning from them that the number of proselytes in the city was rapidly augmenting, and that there was a general disposition to receive him favorably, he appointed Friday, the Moslem Sabbath,[52] the sixteenth day of the month Rabi, for his public entrance.

Accordingly on the morning of that day he assembled all his followers to prayer; and after a sermon, in which he expounded the main principles of his faith, he mounted his camel Al Kaswa, and set forth for that city, which was to become renowned in after ages as his city of refuge.

Boreida Ibn al Hoseib, with his seventy horsemen of the tribe of Saham, accompanied him as a guard. Some of the disciples took turns to hold a canopy of palm leaves over his head, and by his side rode Abu-Bekr. "O apostle of God!" cried Boreida, "thou shalt not enter Medina without a standard"; so saying, he unfolded his turban, and tying one end of it to the point of his lance, bore it aloft before the prophet.

The city of Medina was fair to approach, being extolled for beauty of situation, salubrity of climate, and fertility of soil; for the luxuriance of its palm-trees, and the fragrance of its shrubs and flowers. At a short distance from the city a crowd of new proselytes to the faith came forth in sun and dust to meet the cavalcade. Most of them had never seen Mahomet, and paid reverence to Abu-Bekr through mistake; but the latter put aside the screen of palm leaves, and pointed out the real object of homage, who was greeted with loud acclamations.

In this way did Mahomet, so recently a fugitive from his native city, with a price upon his head, enter Medina, more as a conqueror in triumph than an exile seeking an asylum. He alighted at the house of a Khazradite, named Abu-Ayub, a devout Moslem, to whom moreover he was distantly related; here he was hospitably received, and took up his abode in the basement story.

Shortly after his arrival he was joined by the faithful Ali,[53] who had fled from Mecca, and journeyed on foot, hiding himself in the day and travelling only at night, lest he should fall into the hands of the Koreishites. He arrived weary and way-worn, his feet bleeding with the roughness of the journey.

Within a few days more came Ayesha, and the rest of Abu-Bekr's household, together with the family of Mahomet, conducted by his faithful freedman Zeid, and by Abu-Bekr's servant Abdallah.

SIMON OCKLEY

Mahomet had hitherto propagated his religion by fair means only. During his stay at Mecca he had declared his business was only to preach and admonish; and that whether people believed or not was none of his concern. He had hitherto confined himself to the arts of persuasion, promising, on the one hand, the joys of paradise to all who should believe in him, and who should, for the hopes of them, disregard the things of this world, and even bear persecution with patience and resignation; and, on the other, deterring his hearers from what he called infidelity, by setting before them both the punishments inflicted in this world upon Pharaoh and others, who despised the warnings of the prophets sent to reclaim them; and also the torments of hell, which would be their portion in the world to come. Now, however, when he had got a considerable town at his command, and a good number of followers firmly attached to him, he began to sing another note. Gabriel now brings him messages from heaven to the effect that, whereas other prophets had come with miracles and been rejected, he was to take different measures, and propagate Islamism by the sword. And accordingly, within a year after his arrival at Medina he began what was called the holy war. For this purpose he first of all instituted a brotherhood, joining his Ansars or helpers, and his Mohajerins or refugees together in pairs; he himself taking Ali for his brother. It was in allusion to this that Ali, afterward when preaching at Cufa, said, "I am the servant of God, and brother to his apostle."

In the second year of the Hegira, Mahomet changed the Kebla of the Mussulman, which before this time had been toward Jerusalem, ordering them henceforth to turn toward Mecca when they prayed. In the same year he also appointed the fast of the month Ramadan.

Mahomet having now a pretty large congregation at Medina found it necessary to have some means of calling them to prayers; for this purpose he was thinking of employing a horn, or some instrument of wood, which should be made to emit a loud sound by being struck upon. But his doubts were settled this year by a dream of one of his disciples, in which a man appearing to him in a green vest recommended as a better way, that the people should be summoned to prayers by a crier calling out, "Allah acbar, Allah acbar," etc.; "God is great, God is great, there is but one God, Mahomet is his prophet;[54] come to prayers, come to prayers." Mahomet approved of the scheme, and this is the very form in use to this day among the Mussulmans; who, however, in the call to morning prayers, add the words, "Prayer is better than sleep, prayer is better than sleep"--a sentiment not unworthy the consideration of those who are professors of a better religion.

The same year the apostle sent some of his people to plunder a caravan going to Mecca; which they did, and brought back two prisoners to Medina. This was the first act of hostility committed by the Mussulmans against the idolaters. The second was the battle of Beder. The history of the battle is thus given by Abulfeda: "The apostle, hearing that a caravan of the Meccans was coming home from Syria, escorted by Abu Sofian at the head of thirty men, placed a number of soldiers in ambuscade to intercept it. Abu Sofian, being informed thereof by his spies, sent word immediately to Mecca, whereupon all the principal men except Abu Laheb--who, however, sent Al Asum son of Hesham in his stead--marched out to his assistance, making in all nine hundred and fifty men, whereof two hundred were cavalry. The apostle of God went out against them with three hundred and thirteen men, of whom seventy-seven were refugees from Mecca, the rest being helpers from Medina; they had with them only two horses and seventy camels, upon which they rode by turns. The apostle encamped near a well called Beder, from the name of the person who was owner of it, and had a hut made where he and Abu-Bekr sat. As soon as the armies were in sight of each other, three champions came out from among the idolaters, Otha son of Rabia, his brother Shaiba, and Al Walid son of Otha; against the first of these, the prophet sent Obeidah son of Hareth, Hamza against the second, and Ali against the third: Hamza and Ali slew each his man and then went to the assistance of Obeidah, and having killed his adversary, brought off Obeidah, who, however, soon after died of a wound in his foot.

"All this while the apostle continued in his hut in prayer, beating his breast so violently that his cloak fell off his shoulders, and he was suddenly taken with a palpitation of the heart; soon recovering, however, he comforted Abu-Bekr, telling him God's help was come. Having uttered these words, he forthwith ran out of his hut and encouraged his men, and taking a handful of dust threw it toward the Koreishites, and said, 'May their faces be confounded,' and immediately they fled. After the battle, Abdallah, the son of Masud, brought the head of Abu Jehel to the apostle, who gave thanks to God; Al As, brother to Abu Jehel, was also killed; Al Abbas also, the prophet's uncle, and Ocail son of Abu Taleb, were taken prisoners. Upon the news of this defeat Abu Laheb died of grief within a week."

Of the Mussulmans died fourteen martyrs (for so they call all such as die fighting for Islamism). The number of idolaters slain was seventy; among whom my author names some of chief note, Hantala son of Abu Sofian, and Nawfal, brother to Kadijah. Ali slew six of the enemy with his own hand.

The prophet ordered the dead bodies of the enemy to be thrown into a pit, and remained three days upon the field of battle dividing the spoil; on occasion of which a quarrel arose between the helpers and the refugees, and to quiet them the eighth chapter of the _Koran_ was brought from heaven. It begins thus, "They will ask thee concerning the spoils: say, The spoils belong to God and his apostle": and again in the same chapter, "And know that whenever ye gain any, a fifth part belongeth to God, and to the apostle, and his kindred, and the orphans, and the poor." The other four-fifths are to be divided among those who are present at the action. The apostle, when he returned to Safra in his way to Medina, ordered Ali to behead two of his prisoners.

The victory at Beder was of great importance to Mahomet; to encourage his men, and to increase the number of his followers, he pretended that two miracles were wrought in his favor, in this, as also in several subsequent battles: first, that God sent his angels to fight on his side; and second, made his army appear to the enemy much greater than it really was. Both these miracles are mentioned in the _Koran_, chapter