The Roman and the Teuton Part 8

Belisarius garrisoned Rome, and the Goths attacked it, but in vain. You must read the story of that famous siege in the really brilliant pages of old Procopius, the last good historian of the old world.

Moreover, and this is most important, Belisarius raised the native population against the Goths. As he had done in Africa, when in one short campaign he utterly destroyed the now effeminate aristocracy of the Vandals, so he did in Italy. By real justice and kindness; by proclaiming himself the deliverer of the conquered from the yoke of foreign tyrants, he isolated the slave-holding aristocracy of the Goths from the ma.s.s of the inhabitants of Italy.

Belisarius and the Goths met, and the Goths conquered. But to take Rome was beyond their power; and after that a long miserable war struggled and wrangled up and down over the wretched land; city after city was taken and destroyed, now by Roman, now by Goth. The lands lay waste, the people disappeared in tens of thousands. All great Dietrich's work of thirty years was trampled into mud.

There were horrible sieges and destructions by both parties;--sack of Milan by Goths, sack of Rimini and the country round by Romans; horrors of famine at Auximum; two women who kept an inn, killing and eating seventeen men, till the eighteenth discovered the trap and killed them.

Everywhere, as I say, good Dietrich's work of thirty years trampled into gory mud.

Then Theudebert and his false Franks came down to see what they could get; all (save a few knights round the king) on foot, without bow or lance; but armed with sword, shield, and heavy short-handled double-edged francisc, or battle-axe. At the bridge over the Ticinus they (nominal Catholics) sacrificed Gothic women and children with horrid rites, fought alike Goths and Romans, lost a third of their army by dysentery, and went home again.

At last, after more horrors, Vitigis and his Goths were driven into Ravenna. Justinian treated for peace; and then followed a strange peripeteia, which we have, happily, from an eye-witness, Procopius himself. The Roman generals outside confessed their chance of success hopeless. The Goths inside, tired of the slow Vitigis, send out to the great Belisarius, Will he be their king? King over them there in Italy?

He promised, meaning to break his promise; and to the astonishment and delight of the Romans, the simple and honest barbarians opened the gates of Ravenna, and let in him and his Romans, to find themselves betrayed and enslaved. 'When I saw our troops march in,' says Procopius, 'I felt it was G.o.d's doing, so to turn their minds. The Goths,' he says, 'were far superior in numbers and in strength; and their women, who had fancied these Romans to be mighty men of valour, spit in the faces of their huge husbands, and pointing to the little Romans, reproached them with having surrendered to such things as that.' But the folly was committed.

Belisarius carried them away captive to Constantinople, and so ended the first act of the Gothic war.

In the moment of victory the envy of the Byzantine court undid all that it had done. Belisarius returned with his captives to Rome, not for a triumph, but for a disgrace; and Italy was left open to the Goths, if they had men and heart to rise once more.

And they did rise. Among the remnant of the race was left a hero, Totila by name;--a Teuton of the ancient stamp. Totilas, 'free from death'--'the deathless one,' they say his name means. Under him the nation rose once more as out of the ground.

A Teuton of the ancient stamp he was, just and merciful exceedingly. Take but two instances of him, and know the man by them. He retook Naples.

The Romans within were starving. He fed them; but lest they should die of the sudden repletion, he kept them in by guards at each gate, and fed them up more and more each day, till it was safe to let them out, to find food for themselves in the country. A Roman came to complain that a Goth had violated his daughter. He shall die, said Totila. He shall not die, said the Goths. He is a valiant hero. They came clamouring to the king.

He answered them quietly and firmly. They may choose to-day, whether to let this man go unpunished, or to save the Gothic nation and win the victory. Do they not recollect how at the beginning of the war, they had brave soldiers, famous generals, countless treasures, horses, weapons, and all the forts of Italy? And yet under Theodatus, a man who loved gold better than justice, they had so angered G.o.d by their unrighteous lives, that--what had happened they knew but too well. Now G.o.d had seemed to have avenged himself on them enough. He had begun a new course with them. They must begin a new course with him; and justice was the only path. As for the man's being a valiant hero: let them know that the unjust and the ravisher were never brave in fight; but that according to a man's life, such was his luck in battle.

His n.o.ble words came all but true. The feeble generals who were filling Belisarius's place were beaten one by one, and almost all Italy was reconquered. Belisarius had to be sent back again to Italy: but the envy, whether of Justinian himself, or of the two wicked women who ruled his court, allowed him so small a force that he could do nothing.

Totila and the Goths came down once more to Rome. Belisarius in agony sent for reinforcements, and got them; but too late. He could not relieve Rome. The Goths had ma.s.sed themselves round the city, and Belisarius, having got to Ostia (Portus) at the Tiber's mouth, could get no further. This was the last woe; the actual death-agony of ancient Rome. The famine grew and grew. The wretched Romans cried to Bessas and his garrison, either to feed them or to kill them out of their misery.

They would do neither. They could hardly at last feed themselves. The Romans ate nettles off the ruins, and worse things still. There was not a dog or a rat left. They even killed themselves. One father of five children could bear no longer their cries for food. He wrapped his head in his mantle, and sprang into the Tiber, while the children looked on.

The survivors wandered about like spectres, brown with hunger, and dropped dead with half-chewed nettles between their lips. To this, says Procopius, had fortune brought the Roman senate and people. Nay, not fortune, but wickedness. They had wished to play at being free, while they themselves were the slaves of sin.

And still Belisarius was coming,--and still he did not come. He was forcing his way up the Tiber; he had broken Totila's chain, burnt a tower full of Goths, and the city was on the point of being relieved, when one Isaac made a fool of himself, and was taken by the Goths. Belisarius fancied that Portus, his base of operations, with all his supplies, and Antonia, the worthless wife on whom he doted, were gone. He lost his head, was beaten terribly, fell back on Ostia, and then the end came.

Isaurians from within helped in Goths by night. The Asinarian gate was opened, and Rome was in the hands of the Goths.

And what was left? What of all the pomp and glory, the spoils of the world, the millions of inhabitants?

Five or six senators, who had taken refuge in St. Peter's, and some five hundred of the plebs; Pope Pelagius crouching at Totila's feet, and crying for mercy; and Rusticiana, daughter of Symmachus, Boethius' widow, with other n.o.ble women, in slaves' rags, knocking without shame at door after door to beg a bit of bread. And that was what was left of Rome.

Gentlemen, I make no comment. I know no more awful page in the history of Europe. Through such facts as these G.o.d speaks. Let man be silent; and look on in fear and trembling, knowing that it was written of old time--The wages of sin are death.

The Goths wanted to kill Rusticiana. She had sent money to the Roman generals; she had thrown down Dietrich's statues, in revenge for the death of her father and her husband. Totila would not let them touch her. Neither maid, wife, nor widow, says Procopius, was the worse for any Goth.

Next day he called the heroes together. He is going to tell them the old tale, he says--How in Vitigis' time at Ravenna, 7000 Greeks had conquered and robbed of kingdom and liberty 200,000 rich and well-armed Goths. And now that they were raw levies, few, naked, wretched, they had conquered more than 20,000 of the enemy. And why? Because of old they had looked to everything rather than to justice; they had sinned against each other and the Romans. Therefore they must choose, and be just men henceforth, and have G.o.d with them, or unjust, and have G.o.d against them.

Then he sends for the wretched remnant of the senators and tells them the plain truth:--How the great Dietrich and his successors had heaped them with honour and wealth; and how they had returned his benefits by bringing in the Greeks. And what had they gained by changing Dietrich for Justinian? Logothetes, who forced them by blows to pay up the money which they had already paid to their Gothic rulers; and revenue exacted alike in war and in peace. Slaves they deserve to be; and slaves they shall be henceforth.

Then he sends to Justinian. He shall withdraw his army from Italy, and make peace with him. He will be his ally and his son in arms, as Dietrich had been to the Emperors before him, or if not, he will kill the senate, destroy Rome, and march into Illyric.u.m.

Justinian leaves it to Belisarius.

Then Totila begins to destroy Rome. He batters down the walls, he is ready to burn the town. He will turn the evil place into a sheep-pasture. Belisarius flatters and cajoles him from his purpose, and he marches away with all his captives, leaving not a living soul in Rome.

But Totila shews himself a general unable to cope with that great tactician. He divides his forces, and allows Belisarius to start out of Ostia and fortify himself in Rome. The Goths are furious at his rashness: but it is too late, and the war begins again, up and down the wretched land, till Belisarius is recalled by some fresh court intrigue of his wicked wife, and another and even more terrible enemy appears on the field, Na.r.s.es the eunuch, avenging his wrong upon his fellow-men by cunning and courage almost preternatural. He comes upon them with a mighty host: but not of Romans alone. He has gathered the Teuton tribes;--Herules, the descendants probably of Odoacer's confederates; Gepids, who have a long blood-feud against the Goths; and most terrible of all, Alboin with his five thousand more Burgundians, of whom you will hear enough hereafter. We read even of mult.i.tudes of Huns, and even of Persian deserters from the Chosroo. But Na.r.s.es' policy is the old Roman one--Teuton must destroy Teuton. And it succeeds.

In spite of some trouble with the Franks, who are holding Venetia, he marches down victorious through the wasted land, and Totila marches to meet him in the Apennines. The hero makes his last speech. He says, 'There will be no need to talk henceforth. This day will end the war.

They are not to fear these hired Huns, Herules, Lombards, fighting for money. Let them hold together like desperate men.' So they fight it out. The Goths depending entirely on the lance, the Romans on a due use of every kind of weapon. The tremendous charge of the Gothic knights is stopped by showers of Hun and Herule arrows, and they roll back again and again in disorder on the foot: but in spite of the far superior numbers of the Romans, it is not till nightfall that Na.r.s.es orders a general advance of his line. The Goths try one last charge; but appalled by the numbers of the enemy, break up, and, falling back on the foot, throw them into confusion, and all is lost.

The foot are cut down flying. The knights ride for their lives. Totila and five hors.e.m.e.n are caught up by Asbad the Gepid chief. Asbad puts his lance in rest, not knowing who was before him. 'Dog,' cries Totila's page, 'wilt thou strike thy lord?' But it is too late. Asbad's lance goes through his back, and he drops on his horse's neck. Scipwar (Shipward) the Goth wounds Asbad, and falls wounded himself. The rest carry off Totila. He dies that night, after reigning eleven stormy years.

The Goths flee across the Po. There is one more struggle for life, and one more hero left. Teia by name, 'the slow one,' slow, but strong. He shall be king now. They lift him on the shield, and gather round him desperate, but determined to die hard. He finds the treasure of Totila, hid in Pisa. He sends to Theudebald and his Franks. Will they help him against the Roman, and they shall have the treasure; the last remnant of the Nibelungen h.o.a.rd. No. The Luegenfelden will not come. They will stand by and see the butchery, on the chance of getting all Italy for themselves. Na.r.s.es storms Rome--or rather a little part of it round Hadrian's Mole, which the Goths had fortified; and the Goths escape down into Campania, mad with rage.

That victory of Na.r.s.es, says Procopius, brought only a more dreadful destruction on the Roman senate and people. The Goths, as they go down, murder every Roman they meet. The day of grace which Totila had given them is over. The Teutons in Na.r.s.es' army do much the same. What matter to Burgunds and Herules who was who, provided they had any thing to be plundered of? Totila has allowed many Roman senators to live in Campania. They hear that Na.r.s.es has taken Rome, they begin to flock to the ghastly ruin. Perhaps there will be once again a phantom senate, phantom consuls, under the Romani nominis umbram. The Goths catch them, and kill them to a man. And there is an end of the Senatus Populusque Roma.n.u.s.

The end is near now. And yet these terrible Goths cannot be killed out of the way. On the slopes of Vesuvius, by Nuceria, they fortify a camp; and as long as they are masters of the neighbouring sea, for two months they keep Na.r.s.es at bay. At last he brings up an innumerable fleet, cuts off their supplies; and then the end comes. The Goths will die like desperate men on foot. They burst out of camp, turn their horses loose, after the fashion of German knights--One hears of the fashion again and again in the middle age,--and rush upon the enemy in deep solid column.

The Romans have hardly time to form some sort of line; and then not the real Romans, I presume, but the Burgunds and Gepids, turn their horses loose like the Goths. There is no need for tactics; the fight is hand to hand; every man, says Procopius, rushing at the man nearest him.

For a third of the day Teia fights in front, sheltered by his long pavisse, stabbing with a mighty lance at the mob which makes at him, as dogs at a boar at bay. Procopius is awed by the man. Most probably he saw him with his own eyes. Second in valour, he says, to none of the Heroes.

Again and again his shield is full of darts. Without moving a foot, without turning an inch right or left, says Procopius, he catches another from his shield-bearer, and fights on. At last he has twelve lances in his shield, and cannot move it: coolly he calls for a fresh one, as if he were fixed to the soil, thrusts back the enemy with his left hand, and stabs at them with his right. But his time is come. As he shifts his shield for a moment his chest is exposed, and a javelin is through him.

And so ends the last hero of the East Goths. They put his head upon a pole, and carry it round the lines to frighten the Goths. The Goths are long past frightening.

All day long, and all the next day, did the Germans fight on, Burgund and Gepid against Goth, neither giving nor taking quarter, each man dying where he stood, till human strength could bear up no longer, while Na.r.s.es sat by, like an ugly Troll as he was, smiling to see the Teuton slay the Teuton, for the sake of their common enemy. Then the Goths sent down to Na.r.s.es. They were fighting against G.o.d. They would give in, and go their ways peaceably, and live with some other Teuton nations after their own laws. They had had enough of Italy, poor fellows, and of the Nibelungen h.o.a.rd. Only Na.r.s.es, that they might buy food on the journey back, must let them have their money, which he had taken in various towns of Italy.

Na.r.s.es agreed. There was no use fighting more with desperate men. They should go in peace. And he kept his faith with them. Perhaps he dared not break it. He let them go, like a wounded lion crawling away from the hunter, up through Italy, and over the Po, to vanish. They and their name became absorbed in other nations, and history knows the East Goths no more.

So perished, by their own sins, a n.o.ble nation; and in perishing, destroyed utterly the Roman people. After war and famine followed as usual dreadful pestilence, and Italy lay waste for years. Henceforth the Italian population was not Roman, but a mixture of all races, with a most powerful, but an entirely new type of character. Rome was no more Senatorial, but Papal.

And why did these Goths perish, in spite of all their valour and patriotism, at the hands of mercenaries?

They were enervated, no doubt, as the Vandals had been in Africa, by the luxurious southern climate, with its gardens, palaces, and wines. But I have indicated a stronger reason already:--they perished because they were a slave-holding aristocracy.

We must not blame them. All men then held slaves: but the original sin was their ruin, though they knew it not. It helped, doubtless, to debauch them; to tempt them to the indulgence of those fierce and greedy pa.s.sions, which must, in the long run, lower the morality of slaveholders; and which, as Totila told them, had drawn down on them the anger of heaven. But more; though they reformed their morals, and that n.o.bly, under the stern teaching of affliction, that could not save them.

They were ruined by the inherent weakness of all slaveholding states; the very weakness which had ruined, in past years, the Roman Empire. They had no middle cla.s.s, who could keep up their supplies, by exercising for them during war the arts of peace. They had no lower cla.s.s, whom they dare entrust with arms, and from whom they might recruit their hosts.

They could not call a whole population into the field, and when beaten in that field, carry on, as Britain would when invaded, a guerilla warfare from wood to wood, and hedge to hedge, as long as a coign of vantage-ground was left. They found themselves a small army of gentlemen, chivalrous and valiant, as slaveholders of our race have always been; but lessening day by day from battle and disease, with no means of recruiting their numbers; while below them and apart from them lay the great ma.s.s of the population, helpless, unarmed, degraded, ready to side with any or every one who would give them bread, or let them earn it for themselves (for slaves must eat, even though their masters starve), and careless of, if not even hostile to, their masters'

interests, the moment those masters were gone to the wars.

In such a case, nothing was before them, save certain defeat at last by an enemy who could pour in ever fresh troops of mercenaries, and who had the command of the seas.

I may seem to be describing the case of a modern and just as valiant and n.o.ble a people. I do not mention its name. The parallel, I fear, is too complete, not to have already suggested itself to you.

LECTURE VII--PAULUS DIACONUS

And now I come to the final settlement of Italy and the Lombard race; and to do that well, I must introduce you to-day to an old chronicler--a very valuable, and as far as we know, faithful writer--Paul Warnefrid, alias Paul the Deacon.

I shall not trouble you with much commentary on him; but let him, as much as possible, tell his own story. He may not be always quite accurate, but you will get no one more accurate. In the long run, you will know nothing about the matter, save what he tells you; so be content with what you can get. Let him shew you what sort of an account of his nation, and the world in general, a Lombard gentleman and clergyman could give, at the end of the 8th century.

You recollect the Lombards, of whom Tacitus says, 'Longobardos paucitas n.o.bilitat.' Paulus Warnefrid was one of their descendants, and his history carries out the exact truth of Tacitus' words. He too speaks of them as a very small tribe. He could not foresee how much the 'n.o.bilitat' meant. He knew his folk as a brave semi-feudal race, who had conquered the greater part of Italy, and tilled and ruled it well; who were now conquered by Charlemagne, and annexed to the great Frank Empire, but without losing anything of their distinctive national character. He did not foresee that they would become the architects, the merchants, the goldsmiths, the bankers, the scientific agriculturists of all Europe. We know it. Whenever in London or any other great city, you see a 'Lombard Street,' an old street of goldsmiths and bankers--or the three golden b.a.l.l.s of Lombardy over a p.a.w.nbroker's shop--or in the country a field of rye-gra.s.s, or a patch of lucerne--recollect this wise and n.o.ble people, and thank the Lombards for what they have done for mankind.