A Smaller History of Rome Part 26

Julian affected in his dress and manners the rudeness and indifference of a philosopher, was free from vice, possessed considerable learning, and wrote a work of some value, in which he compared and studied the characters of the long line of his predecessors.

Jovian was now proclaimed emperor by the Eastern army, and concluded a dishonorable peace with the Persians. He next published an edict restoring Christianity, but was found dead in his bed, A.D. 364.

Valentinian was next chosen emperor, who gave the Eastern provinces to his brother Valens. He made Milan the seat of his own government, while Valens reigned at Constantinople; and the empire was from this time divided into the Eastern and the Western. The whole of the Western world was distressed by the invasion of barbarous tribes, and Valentinian now made his son Gratian his heir, in order to remove all doubt as to the succession. The Saxon pirates, meantime, hara.s.sed all the coasts of Gaul, while Britain was invaded by the Picts and Scots. Theodosius, however, defeated them, and was soon after sent to quell an insurrection in Africa. This he succeeded in doing, when Valentinian died suddenly, A.D. 375.

Valens, his brother, meantime had suppressed a rebellion in the East, led by Procopius; and then, having become an Arian, commenced a severe persecution of the orthodox, of whom no fewer than eighty ecclesiastics were put to death for supporting the election of a bishop of their own faith at Constantinople. Valens also succeeded in repelling the attacks of the Persians.

In the West Valentinian had been succeeded by his sons Gratian and Valentinian II. The brave Theodosius, meanwhile, whose valor had preserved the peace of the nation, was executed by order of Gratian, and soon after the Huns appeared upon the Danube. These savages are thought to have entered Europe from Tartary. Their faces were artificially flattened and their beards plucked out. They left the cultivation of their fields to the women or slaves, and devoted their lives to warfare.

A wandering race, they built no cities nor houses, and never slept beneath a roof. They lived upon horseback. The Huns first attacked their fellow-barbarians, the Ostrogoths, and made a fearful carnage, putting all the women and children to death.

The Gothic nation now begged permission from the Romans to cross the Danube, and settle within the Roman territory. Their request was granted, upon condition that they should surrender all their arms; but this condition was imperfectly fulfilled. The celebrated Bishop Ulphilas about this time converted the Goths to Arianism, invented a Gothic alphabet, and infused among the Goths a hatred for the Catholic faith, which served to increase their zeal in all their future conflicts with the Romans. Ill-treated by the Roman commissioners who had been sent by the Emperor Valens to superintend their settlement, the Goths marched against Constantinople. Valens wrote to Gratian for aid, and the latter, although his own dominions were hara.s.sed by the Germans, marched to the aid of his uncle, but died at Sirmium. Valens encountered Fritigern, the Gothic leader, near Adrianople, in A.D. 378, and was defeated and slain.

Nearly the whole of the Roman army was destroyed upon this fatal field.

Gratian now chose as his colleague Theodosius, the son of the former brave commander of that name, and Theodosius for a time restored the Roman empire. He defeated the Goths, won their affections by his clemency, and induced them to protect the frontiers of the Danube.

Gratian was defeated and put to death, A.D. 383, by a usurper, Maximus, who also deprived Valentinian II. of his province of Italy. Theodosius, however, defeated the usurper in A.D. 388, and generously restored Valentinian to his throne. Valentinian was murdered by a Frank, Arbogastes, in A.D. 392, but Theodosius marched against him, and defeated and destroyed the rebels Arbogastes and Eugenius, A.D. 394.

Theodosius the Great, who had thus reunited the empire under his own sway, belonged to the orthodox faith, and sought to suppress Arianism, as well as many other heresies which, had crept into the Christian Church. He was a prudent ruler, and resisted successfully the inroads of the barbarians. He divided his empire between his two sons, Honorius and Arcadius, the former becoming Emperor of the West, the latter, who was the elder, succeeding his father at Constantinople; and Theodosius soon after died, lamented by his subjects. Rufinus, who became the chief minister of Arcadius, oppressed and plundered the Eastern empire. He was universally hated by the people. Stilicho, on the other hand, who also became the chief minister of Honorius, was a very different character.

He was a brave and active commander, and restored the former glory of the Roman arms. His chief opponent was the famous Alaric, who now united the Gothic forces under his own command, and, having penetrated into Greece, ravaged and desolated that unhappy country. The barbarians plundered Athens, Corinth, Sparta, and Argos; and those cities, once so renowned for valor, seemed to offer him no resistance, so fallen was the ancient spirit of the Greeks. Stilicho, however, pursued Alaric into Elis, and would, perhaps, have totally destroyed the barbarians had not the feeble Arcadius not only made peace with Alaric, but appointed him to the command of Illyric.u.m. Alaric, not long after, invaded Italy, but was defeated by his rival. In A.D. 403 he again invaded Italy, and was induced to retreat by a considerable bribe.

The Emperor Honorius removed from Rome to Ravenna, where he believed himself more secure; and when a new horde of barbarians invaded Italy in A.D. 406, and had besieged Florence, they were totally defeated and destroyed by Stilicho. A portion of the invaders escaped into Gaul, where they committed great ravages, until Constantine, the governor of Britain, was proclaimed emperor, who wrested Gaul and Spain from the dominion of Honorius. This weak prince, in A.D. 408, consented to the murder of Stilicho. His new minister, Olympius, directed the slaughter of the families of the barbarians throughout Italy, a cruelty which was fearfully avenged.

Alaric, the scourge of Rome, marched into Italy, and in A.D. 408 besieged the capital. Pestilence and famine soon raged within the walls of Rome, until the Senate purchased a respite from their calamities by an enormous ransom. Honorius refused to confirm the treaty, and the next year Alaric once more appeared before the city. He took possession of Ostia, the port of Rome, reduced the Senate to surrender, and proclaimed Attalus emperor. Honorius still refusing to yield to his demands, Alaric resolved to punish Rome for the vices of its emperor. The sack of that city now followed, one of the most fearful tragedies in history.

No foreign enemy had appeared before the gates of Rome since the invasion of Hannibal, until Alaric made his successful inroad into Italy. The city still retained all that magnificence with which it had been invested by the emperors. The Colosseum, the baths, the aqueducts, the palaces of the Senators, the public gardens, and the ancient temples, still remained; but its people were lost in luxury and vice.

Learning was no longer respected among them, the gamester or the cook being more esteemed than philosophers or poets; and the luxurious Senators pa.s.sed their lives in frivolous and degrading amus.e.m.e.nts. The indolent people were maintained by a daily distribution of bread, baked in the public ovens; and oil, wine, and bacon were also provided for them during a part of the year. The public baths were open to the people, and for a small copper coin they might enter those scenes of luxury where the walls were incrusted with precious marble, and perpetual streams of hot water flowed from silver tubes. From the bath they pa.s.sed to the Circus, where, although the combats of gladiators had been suppressed by Christian princes, a succession of amus.e.m.e.nts was still provided. In this manner the luxurious n.o.bles and people of Rome pa.s.sed their tranquil, inglorious lives.

The wealth of the capital was such as might well attract the barbarous invader. The palaces of the Senators were filled with gold and silver ornaments, and the churches had been enriched by the contributions of pious worshipers. Many of the n.o.bles possessed estates which produced several hundred thousand dollars a year, and the wealth of the world was gathered within the walls of its capital.

We have no means of estimating accurately the population of Rome. Its walls embraced a circuit of twenty-one miles, and it is probable that nearly a million of people were contained within the walls and the suburbs.

Such was the condition of Rome when it was about to fall before the arms of the barbarians. August 24th, A.D. 410, Alaric approached the city, and the gates being opened to him by some Gothic slaves, his troops began at night a fearful scene of pillage and destruction. Men, women, and children were involved in a general ma.s.sacre; n.o.bles and plebeians suffered under a common fate. The Goths, as they entered, set fire to the houses in order to light their path, and the flames consumed a large part of the city. Great numbers of the citizens were driven away in hordes to be sold as slaves; others escaped to Africa, or to the islands on the coast of Italy, where the Goths, having no ships, were unable to follow them. But Alaric, who was an Arian, spared the churches of Rome, and was anxious to save the city from destruction. From this time, however, A.D. 410, began that rapid decay which soon converted Rome into a heap of ruins.

Alaric, after six days given to plunder, marched out of the city, to the southern part of Italy, where he died. His body was buried under the waters of a rivulet, which was turned from its course in order to prepare his tomb; and, the waters being once more led back to their channel, the captives who had performed the labor were put to death, that the Romans might never discover the remains of their Gothic scourge.

The brother of Alaric, Adolphus, who succeeded him, was married to the Princess Placidia, and now became the chief ally of Honorius. He restored Gaul to the empire, but was murdered while upon an expedition into Spain. Wallia, the next Gothic king, reduced all Spain and the eastern part of Gaul under the yoke of the Visigoths. The empire of the West was now rapidly dismembered. The Franks and Burgundians took possession of Gaul. Britain, too, was from this time abandoned by the Romans, and was afterward, in A.D. 448, overrun and conquered by the Angles and the Saxons, and thus the two great races, the English and the French, began.

Arcadius, the Eastern emperor, governed by his minister, the eunuch Eutropius, and by the Empress Eudoxia, was led into many cruelties; and St. Chrysostom, the famous bishop and orator, was one of the ill.u.s.trious victims of their persecutions. Arcadius died in A.D. 408, and was succeeded by the young Theodosius, who was controlled in all his measures by his sister Pulcheria, and for forty years Pulcheria ruled the East with uncommon ability. Honorius died in A.D. 423, when Valentinian III., son of Placidia, his sister, was made Emperor of the West. He was wholly governed by his mother, and thus Placidia and Pulcheria ruled over the civilized world.

The Vandals, who had settled in the province of Andalusia, in Spain, were invited into Africa by Count Boniface, who had been led into this act of treachery by the intrigues of his rival aetius. Genseric, the Vandal king, conquered Africa, although Boniface, repenting of his conduct, endeavored to recover the province; and thus Italy was now threatened on the south by the Vandal power in Africa.

The Huns, meantime, who had been detained upon the upper side of the Danube, now crossed that river, being united under the control of Attila, and became the terror of the civilized world. Attila first threatened an attack upon the Eastern empire, but at length turned his arms against the West. He was defeated by aetius and the Visigoths in A.D. 451, but the next year he invaded Italy, demanded the Princess Honoria in marriage, and destroyed many of the Italian cities. He spared the city of Rome, however, and finally died in A.D. 453. His death alone saved the empire from complete ruin.

Valentinian III., who had put to death the brave commander aetius, was murdered by the patrician Maximus in A.D. 455. The Vandals now besieged and plundered Rome, and sold many thousands of the citizens as slaves.

Avitus, a Gaul, next became emperor by the influence of Theodoric, king of the Visigoths, but was soon deposed by Count Ricimer, and was followed by Majorian, a man of merit, who endeavored to reform the nation. He died in A.D. 461. Count Ricimer then declared Severus emperor, but was forced to apply for aid against the Vandals to the court of Constantinople, where Leo was now emperor. Leo appointed Anthemius to the throne of the West, and sent an army against the Vandals in Africa, which was totally defeated. Ricimer then deposed Anthemius, and declared Olybrius emperor; but both Ricimer and Olybrius died in A.D. 472. Leo next appointed Julius Nepos his colleague.

Glycerius, an obscure soldier, made an effort to obtain the throne, but yielded to Nepos, and became Bishop of Salona. Orestes, who had succeeded Count Ricimer as commander of the barbarian mercenaries, deprived Nepos of his throne; and Nepos, having fled into Dalmatia, was executed by his old rival Glycerius.

Orestes gave the throne to his son Romulus, to whom he also gave the t.i.tle of Augustus, which was afterward changed by common consent to Augustulus. But Odoacer, the leader of the German tribes, put Orestes to death, sent Augustulus into banishment, with a pension for his support, and, having abolished the t.i.tle of emperor, in A.D. 476 declared himself King of Italy.

Romulus Augustus was the last emperor of the West, and bore the name of the founder of the monarchy as well as of the empire, a singular circ.u.mstance.

In this manner fell the Roman Empire, a n.o.ble fabric, which its founder hoped would endure forever. Its destruction, however, gave rise to the various kingdoms and states of modern Europe, and thus civilization and Christianity, which might have remained confined to the sh.o.r.es of the Mediterranean, have been spread over a large portion of the world.

CHAPTER XLV.

ROMAN LITERATURE UNDER THE EMPIRE. A.D. 14-476.

Roman literature, which had risen to its highest excellence under Augustus, declined rapidly under his successors, and was finally lost with the fall of the Western empire. The language was no longer pure, and neither prose nor poetry retained the harmony and elegance of the Augustan age. A certain sadness and discontent, which marks all the later literature, forms also a striking contrast with the cheerful tone of the earlier writers. Every part of the empire, however, abounded with men of letters, and a high degree of mental cultivation seems every where to have prevailed.

Epic poetry continued to nourish, and Virgil found many imitators. The best epic writer of this period was M. Annaeus Luca.n.u.s, who was born at Corduba, in Spain, in the year A.D. 38. Lucan was educated at Rome under the Stoic Cornutus, and was introduced by his uncle Seneca to the Emperor Nero. Having for a time enjoyed the patronage of Nero, he at length became the object of his jealousy and hatred, was accused of having taken part in Piso's conspiracy, and was condemned to death. He was allowed, as a favor, to put an end to his own life, and thus died, A.D. 65. Although so young, for he was scarcely twenty-seven years of age, Lucan, besides several shorter poems, produced the Pharsalia, an epic, of which he finished only ten books: it relates the wars between Caesar and Pompey, and contains many fine thoughts and striking images.

He evidently prefers Pompey to Caesar, and possessed a strong love for liberty, which lends vigor to his verses. His language is pure, his rhythm often harmonious, but he never attains the singular delicacy and sweetness of his master, Virgil.

C. Silius Italicus, the place of whose birth is unknown, also lived during the reign of Nero, and was Consul in the year A.D. 68. He was a Stoic, and put an end to his own life in the year A.D. 100, when he was about seventy-five years of age. His poem, the Punica, is an account of the second Punic War in verse, and is chiefly valuable to the historical student. He had little inventive power, and takes but a low rank in poetry.

P. Papinius Statius, the son of the teacher of the Emperor Domitian, was carefully educated at Rome, and became renowned at an early age for his poetical talents. He spent the last years of his life at Naples, which was also the place of his birth, and died there in the year A.D. 96. He wrote the Thebais, in twelve parts; the Achilleis, in two books; the Sylvae, a collection of poems; a tragedy, and other works. He seems to have borrowed much from earlier Greek writers, but was possessed of considerable poetical fervor.

Claudius Claudia.n.u.s, who lived under Theodosius the Great and his two sons, was probably born and educated at Alexandria, but we know little of his history. He came to Rome about A.D. 395, and, under the patronage of Stilicho, rose to a high position in the state. The time and place of his death are unknown. His chief works were, 1. Raptus Proserpinae, an unfinished poem in three parts; 2. Gigantomachia, another unfinished work; 3. De Bello Gildonico, of which we possess only the first book; and, 4. De Bello Getico, in which the poet sings the victory of Stilicho over Alaric at Pollentia. His poems have a rude vigor which sometimes strikes the attention, but are chiefly valued for the light they throw upon the Gothic wars. They are marked by many faults of taste.

Lyric poetry was little cultivated at Rome after the death of Horace; but satire, which was peculiar to the Romans, reached its highest excellence under the empire. Juvenal is still the master of this kind of writing, although he has been imitated by Boileau, Pope, and Johnson; and his contemporary Persius was also a writer of great power.

Aulus Persius Flaccus was born at Volaterrae, in Etruria, in the year A.D. 34, of a distinguished family of the equestrian rank. He was educated at Rome under the best masters, particularly under the Stoic Cornutus, with whom he lived in close friendship, as well as with Lucan, Seneca, and the most distinguished men of his time. He died at the early age of twenty-eight, leaving behind him six satires and a brief preface.

Persius possessed a generous, manly character, was the foe of every kind of vice, and formed one of that graceful band of writers who maintained their independence under the terrors of a despotic government.

Decimus Junius Juvenalis, of whose life we have few particulars, was born at Aquinum A.D. 38 or 40, and came up to Rome, where he at first studied eloquence with great ardor, but at length gave himself wholly to satirical writing. He offended Domitian by his satires, it is said, and was sent by that emperor to the extreme boundary of Egypt, where he died of grief and exile; but scarcely any fact in the history of this great man has been perfectly ascertained.

We possess sixteen satires of Juvenal, the last of which, however, is of doubtful authenticity. These satires are full of n.o.ble appeals to the purest emotions of virtue, and of severe rebukes for triumphant vice.

Juvenal's language is often harsh and his taste impure; but his ideas are so elevated, his perception of truth, honor, and justice so clear, that he seldom fails to win the attention of his readers.

Epigrams seem to have been a favorite mode of expressing thought at the court of Augustus, and almost every eminent Roman from the time of Cicero has left one or more of these brilliant trifles behind him. M.

Valerius Martialis, the chief of the epigrammatists, was born about A.D.

40, at Bibilis, in Spain, from whence he came to Rome, when about twenty, to perfect his education. Here he lived for thirty-five years, engaged in poetical pursuits, and patronized by t.i.tus and Domitian. He seems finally to have returned to his native land, where he was living in the year A.D. 100. His poems are about fifteen hundred in number, divided into fourteen books, and are altogether original in their design. They are always witty, often indecent, and contain many personal allusions which can not now be understood. Martial is one of the most gifted of the Roman writers.

The practice of writing epigrams was preserved until a very late period.

Seneca, Pliny the younger, Hadrian, and many others, were fond of composing them; and in modern times the epigram has been a favorite kind of poetry with most good writers.

Phaedrus, who lived under Augustus and Tiberius, wrote pleasing fables.

Calphurnius and Ausonius imitated Virgil's bucolics, and fragments of many other poets are preserved, whom we can not mention here.

Historical writers also abounded under the empire. Velleius Paterculus, an excellent historian descended from a patrician family, was born about B.C. 19. He was the friend and flatterer of Tiberius, and rose, in consequence, to several high offices. He was Quaestor in perhaps A.D. 7, and Praetor in A.D. 15. His _Historicae Romanae_, two books of which remain, is an abridgment of the history of the world, written in a clear and pleasing style, and is, in general, trustworthy. He flatters his benefactors, Augustus and Tiberius, but his fine tribute to the memory of Cicero shows that he felt a strong sympathy with that chief of the Republicans.

Valerius Maximus, who also lived under Tiberius, wrote a considerable work, composed of remarkable examples of virtue, and other anecdotes, collected from Roman or foreign history. He had plainly a just conception of moral purity, although he dedicates his book to Tiberius.

His style is inflated and tasteless, but the work is not without interest.

Next after Valerius arose Tacitus, the chief of the imperial prose writers. Tacitus, a plebeian by birth, was born at Interamna. The year of his birth is not known, but must have lain between A.D. 47 and A.D.

61. Tacitus served in the army under Vespasian and t.i.tus. He rose to many honors in the state, but in A.D. 89 left Rome, together with his wife, the daughter of the excellent Agricola. He returned thither in A.D. 97, and was made Consul by the Emperor Nerva. His death took place, no doubt, after A.D. 117. So few are the particulars that remain of the life of this eminent man; but the disposition and sentiments of Tacitus may be plainly discovered in his writings. He was honest, candid, a sincere lover of virtue. He lamented incessantly the fall of the old republic, and does not spare Augustus or Tiberius, whom he believed to be its destroyers. Like Juvenal, whom he resembled in the severity of his censure as well as the greatness of his powers, Tacitus wrote in a sad, desponding temper of mind, as if he foresaw the swift decline of his country.