Part 14

The description which the great student of ancient history just now quoted gives of the siege which Rome at that time endured is entirely in keeping with our subject. "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.... 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 Lasta, 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 outbreak of a pestilence soon added to the horrors of famine. Rome again suffered the loss of thousands of her citizens through disease. If the extent of this calamity was less than during the Great Plague, a century and a half before, mourning was nevertheless almost universal. Gibbon says, "many thousands of the inhabitants of Rome expired in their houses or in the streets, for want of sustenance." But the almost unending funeral procession of the former period was now lacking, as the public sepulchres without the walls were within the circle of the invading horde.

There was no relief. When ambassadors pleaded with Alaric for the great multitude of the people against whom he was contending, his sole reply was: "The thicker the hay, the easier it is mowed." When he stipulated the ransom by which alone the city could be saved, and the ministers of the senate humbly inquired what he purposed to leave to them, he haughtily replied: "Your lives." The promise of five thousand pounds of gold, thirty thousand pounds of silver, four thousand robes of silk, three thousand pieces of fine scarlet cloth, and three thousand pounds of pepper suspended for a time the vengeance which centuries of oppression by Rome had accumulated in barbarian hearts.

The Roman courtiers, however, had neither the wisdom nor the honesty to keep faith with the enemy whom they could not resist and on whose good graces depended their safety. The patience of Alaric became exhausted. He threw off all restraint, determining to take the fate and also the resources of the Empire into his own hands. The year 410 saw the city, which had for a millennium been the proud mistress of the world, captured and at the mercy of the barbaric nations which for so many centuries had furnished her wealth and slaves.

The conqueror declared that he waged war with the Romans and not with the Apostles. Consequently, while he encouraged his soldiers to seize the opportunity to enrich themselves and enjoy the fruits of victory, he gave commands that the sanctity of the churches should be observed. The ecclesiastical writers recount instances of seemingly remarkable protection vouchsafed to the holy virgins, who were at the mercy of a licentious soldiery. But there is every evidence that the customary fate of the conquered in those savage times was abundantly meted out. It is on record that many Christian women, in order to save themselves from what they dreaded still more, sought death in the waters of the Tiber. Others were more fortunate in being able to find protection in flight. "The most illustrious of these fugitives," says Gibbon, "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 which she beheld, at sea, the flames of her burning palace, and fled with her daughter, Læta, and her grand-daughter, 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 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 Syrian merchants."

Alaric died shortly after his conquest, and the sceptre of the Gothic kingdom passed to the hand of Adolphus, his brother-in-law. The latter was a brave and able general, and seems to have possessed a nature not discreditable to the time in which he lived. He proposed--the proposal had all the effect of a command--a treaty of alliance with Honorius. It practically amounted to annexation; but the Roman emperor was not in a position to refuse any proposition which the Goth might see fit to make. Nor could the Romans prevent Adolphus from strengthening his own interest, as well as consulting his passion, in taking to wife the half-sister of Honorius, Placidia, the daughter of Theodosius and Galla.

Placidia was just ripening into womanhood when Alaric first appeared before Rome. She was taken as a hostage by the Gothic conqueror, and, though reduced to the indignity of being a prisoner in a barbarian camp, was treated with great consideration. Her beauty and her mental gifts won the regard of Adolphus: and no sooner had he succeeded to the kingship, than he requested of Honorius her hand. Such an alliance was repugnant to the Romans, but, as in other matters, the request was only a polite form of command. Placidia herself does not appear to have been unwilling to accept the situation, and her nuptials were celebrated in splendid state. The exploits of his army in Italy had enabled Adolphus to present his bride with a magnificent wedding gift. The historian Olympiodorus recounts that fifty handsome boys were employed to carry this present. They came before her, carrying a bowl in each hand. One bowl was filled with pieces of gold, the other with precious gems. Adolphus always manifested a strong and tender affection for his wife; nor did he ever lose an opportunity to honor her birth, seating her above himself on state occasions.

This union, however, was destined to be short-lived. Adolphus was stricken down by the hand of an assassin; his enemy was seated upon his throne; and Placidia, being brutally and of purpose made one of a number of common captives, was compelled to run for twelve miles before the horse of the barbarian chieftain, the murderer of a husband whom she had sincerely loved. Possibly it was her sufferings which aroused the people; however, her persecutor was himself assassinated a few days after his own murderous act; and Placidia was restored to her brother, her ransom being six hundred thousand measures of wheat.

Placidia would have been willing, in accordance with the Christian teaching of the time, to have lamented the loss of Adolphus in continual widowhood. But another marriage was arranged for her, without her consent: she was awarded as a prize to Constantius the general for his services to Honorius. The results of this marriage were the birth of Honoria and of Valentinian III., and, probably through the schemes of Placidia, the promotion of her husband to the title of Augustus. But it was not long before the princess again found herself a widow; and though mischievous tongues magnified the caresses of childish affection on the part of Honorius to signs of a fondness warmer than their kinship would warrant, a quarrel between these two caused Placidia to go with her children to Constantinople.

At the death of Honorius, Valentinian, though no more than six years of age, was invested with the purple. But his mother was empress; the policy of the Empire was directed by her; and for twenty-five years she maintained her power. Gibbon speaks slightingly of her ability; but it could not have been little, else how did she retain a rule which any chance military adventurer might be tempted to seize? The historian refers to Cassiodorus, who compares the regencies of Placidia and Amalasuntha, to the disadvantage of the former.

The life of the Roman empress had been filled with more adventures and changes of fortune than were wont to fall to the lot of woman, even in those troublous times, but her story is less strange and is certainly happier than that of her daughter, Honoria. There is in existence a medal bearing the countenance of Honoria, and it is a fair face; it bears the inscription Augusta. The young princess was invested with this honor and rank in order that she might be above the aspirations of any subject. As early as her sixteenth year, however, she chafed against the isolation to which she was doomed. Denied legitimate love, she abandoned herself to an illicit relationship with one of the domestic officers of the palace, the fact of which was soon revealed by her pregnancy. She was exiled by her mother to Constantinople, where she spent several years in close restraint and great unhappiness. Attila the Hun was at that time the particular barbarian who was harassing the Empire; and suddenly he announced that he had received the betrothal of the princess Honoria, and that he claimed her as his bride. Then her astonished relatives learned that she really had been in correspondence with Attila, and had besought him to claim her in marriage. It is probable that a spirit of mischief actuated Honoria in this; for no educated woman could in reality desire to be joined in marriage with the Hun, unless it were from motives very different from love. The king had at first disdained her advances, and was willing to act upon them only when it suited the policy dictated by his ambition. But Placidia steadfastly refused to countenance her daughter's procedure; and Honoria, being first married to a man of mean extraction, in order that the question of her matrimonial disposal might never again be a source of trouble, was shut up in a close prison for the rest of her days. It is not unlikely that her misfortunes arose rather from her position than her character. That her life with Attila, had she attained her object, would have proved more desirable than perpetual imprisonment is difficult to believe. His respect for woman may be estimated from the fact that he was a polygamist, and also from the fact that he watched his soldiers amuse themselves with the awful death agonies of two hundred maidens, whom they tore limb from limb with wild horses and crushed under the wheels of heavy wagons.

Placidia died in the year 450. She was buried at Ravenna; and, with some ambiguity of meaning, it is said that there her corpse, seated in a chair of cypress wood, was preserved for ages. Her son perished by the avenging hand of a senator whose wife he had perfidiously violated. He was the last emperor of the house of Theodosius; and his mother was the last woman, with a name in history, who was worthy of mention in the records of the perishing Western Empire.

With the death of Placidia, we arrive at the end of a cycle in the evolution of the human race. It was contemporaneous with the terminus of ancient Aryan civilization--it was during a climacteric in human history. Again the world was to revert to the rudeness necessarily accompanying the vigorous strength which characterizes the setting forth of a new race. The world began again--polished manners and social order gave place to strenuosity and individualism. The strong hand again became the one thing needful. Literature was silent, and art was forgotten. Of the glory of classic civilization there remained only a memory; and even this grew faint, for the struggle for existence became exacting. Nevertheless, from all that Rome had done and had been there remained an imperishable deposit. From the ruins of one civilization there is gathered the foundations for the succeeding. Rome left, among other contributions to absolute progress, the idea of nationality and a belief in the necessity of popular law. In these two respects, woman shared in the determined progress of the world. The Roman woman manifested the capacity of her sex to place a steady hand on the helm of the state; she wrested for herself some of those legal rights to which, by virtue of her humanity at least, she is indubitably entitled.

VIII

WOMEN OF THE FRANKISH CHURCH

We may now consider ourselves to have nearly passed the transition period between the Classic and the Middle Ages, and to have begun to enter that indefinite range of history known as Mediævalism--indefinite as to character rather than extent of period. A new world opens to our view; a world which we examine under the influence of the romanticist more than under that of the philosopher. In the age to which our researches have now brought us we find that the life of woman has wholly changed. Evolution has taken a new beginning. In place of the state as the symbol and the object of power and progress individualism has come to the front and asserted itself. There is now more play for personal initiation on the part of the multitude. The activity of the individual is more directly attributable to his personal motives and culminates more fully in his own desires. Consequently, though woman is still held down to an inferior level, and is hampered by unequal laws, she has more room in which to assert herself, and she plays a stronger part in historical events. Practically, though not theoretically, she is still given in marriage without her consent; but she is no longer regarded as a mere possession. Her surroundings also have wonderfully changed. In place of the porticoed villa with its marble floor and beautiful statuary, its highly decorated atrium and sparkling fountains, she is now seen in what was the rudiment of the turreted castle with its rough hall and rush-strewn floor. She has lost the learning by which she was wont to delight her idle hours with classic poetry and Greek philosophy; if she can read at all, her accomplishment is a rare one, and the most powerful stimulus to her imagination is the song of illiterate bards who recite the heroic achievements of her race. In this she has reverted to literature in its embryonic condition. Her religion has gained morality, though emphatically more in theory than in practice, but it has distinctly lost in poetry. Elegance has disappeared from every phase of her life. When she rides abroad it is no longer in a splendidly equipped litter, but, in hardier fashion, upon horseback. While for her to lead men-at-arms is an extreme rarity, she is far likelier to attain ruling authority than she was under the refined civilization of older times. With the Franks, however, supreme rule by a woman, in any direct manner, was rendered impossible by the ancient Salic law which prescribed that "no portion of really Salic land (that is to say, in the full territorial ownership of the head of the family) should pass into the possession of women, but it should belong altogether to the virile sex."

To us the early Mediæval life seems more remote and less intelligible than that of the classic age. We are more at home in the villas of Rome than in the castles of Charlemagne. This is partly because the literature of the latter age has not presented such a satisfying picture as have the immortal productions of the former; but more largely because the genius of modern civilization has its counterpart in the social ideas of classic times, rather than in the individualistic motive of mediævalism.

The period covered by this chapter extends over four hundred years, from the end of the fifth century to the tenth. In our selection of characters from the successive generations during that term, we shall have an eye to their utility as representing types of the feminine, even more than to their aptitude for illustrating any special development in civilized habits. Evolution proceeded slowly in those days, and, consequently, a century or two did not greatly change social habits.

Somewhere about the middle of the fifth century, a Frankish chief named Childeric was driven from his own people by the varying fortunes of war. He took refuge among the Thuringians, and rewarded their kindness by seducing Basina, the wife of their king. After his return, she left her husband and joined her lover, becoming his recognized wife. Childeric's guilt in this affair is somewhat mitigated by the spirit of Basina, who declared that she chose the Frank solely because she knew no man who was wiser, stronger or handsomer, surely a frank admission of natural sentiment. The offspring of this free union was Clovis, the founder of the kingdom of the Franks, and the means whereby it became Christian.

While still a youth, though established in the chieftainship by his valor in marauding expeditions, Clovis heard of the beauty and the desirable character of Clotilde, the niece of Gondebaud, King of the Burgundians. She had been brought up amidst the most barbarous scenes which those times could produce. Her father and her two brothers had been put to death by her uncle, who had also caused her mother Agrippina to be thrown into the Rhone, with a stone fastened to her neck, and drowned. Clotilde and her sister Chrona, he permitted to live. The latter had become a nun, while Clotilde, no less religious, was living at Geneva where, as it is said, she employed her whole time in works of piety and charity. Clovis sent to Gondebaud asking the hand of his niece; but it appears that at first his suit was not favorably looked upon, for the Frank resorted to unusual measures whereby he gained his end and provided the material for an interesting story. It is told as follows by Fredegaire in his commentary on the history by Gregory of Tours: "As he was not allowed to see Clotilde, 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 ensure confidence in himself, he took with him the ring of Clovis. On his arrival at Geneva, Clotilde received him as a pilgrim charitably, and whilst 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 this 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 in 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 and told Clovis all that had passed and the instructions he had received from Clotilde. "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 be married. Without any delay, the council was assembled at Chalons, and preparations were 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 you 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, '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, 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 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 kingdom to which Clovis welcomed his queen was not large. It comprised no more than the island of the Batavians, and the dioceses of Tournay and Arras. Nevertheless, this marriage was of exceeding importance in the history of Europe, for by virtue of his qualities Clovis was destined to go far in conquest, and to establish the beginning of a great nation; and the question of his conversion, whether to Arianism or to Catholicism, was fairly certain to be answered by his matrimonial alliance. The time had come when political wisdom provided the most effective argument against paganism.