No More Learning

A. — I have none of those, neither the leisure, nor other men's help, nor so retired a place that might suit me for such a work ; therefore I know not what I shall do.
348 BLOSSOM-GATHERINGS FROM SAINT AUGUSTINE.
R. — I wot not, then, aught better than that thou pray. Make thy wish to God, the Savior of mind and body, that thou may thereby get health, and what thou wishest. And when thou hast prayed, write then the prayer, lest thou forget it, that thou be the worthier of thy ability. And pray in few words deeply, with full understanding.
O Lord, who art the Maker of all creatures, grant me first that I may know thee rightly and distinctly, and that I may earn that I be worthy that thou for thy mercy redeem and deliver me. I call to thee, Lord, who wroughtest all that else could not be made, nor even abide without thee. I call to thee, Lord, who leavest none of thy creatures to become to naught. To him I call, who wrought all the creatures beautiful, without any matter. To thee I call, who never wroughtest any evil, but every good work wroughtest. To him I call, who teacheth to a few wise men that evil is naught. Lord, thou who hast wrought all things worthy and nothing unworthy ; to thee is no creature untoward; though any one will, it cannot, for thou hast shapen them all orderly and peaceable and harmonious, and none of them can altogether " fordo " another. But always the beautiful beautifieth the unbeautiful. To thee I call, whom everything loveth that can love, both those which know what they love, and those which know not what they love. Thou who hast shapen all the creatures without any evil, very good, — thou, who wilt not altogether show thyself openly to any but them who are cleansed in their mind, — I call to thee, Lord, for thou art the Father of soothfastness, and wisdom, and true life, and of the highest life and of the highest blessedness, and of the highest brightness, and of the understanding's light. — Thou, who art Father of the Son, who has awakened and yet wakens us from the sleep of our sins, and warneth us that we come to thee, — to thee I pray, Lord, who art the highest soothfastness, and for thee is sooth all that sooth is. I pray to thee, Lord, who art the highest wisdom, and through thee are wise all they that are wise. I pray to thee, Lord, who art right life, and through thee live all they that live. Thou art the highest blessed ness, and for thee are blessed all they that are blessed. Thou
art the highest good (and for thee is good all that good is), and beautiful. Thou art the understanding's light; through thee man understands. I pray to thee, Lord, who wieldest all the world ; whom we cannot know bodily, neither by eyes, nor by
A. — I will do as thou teachest me.
BLOSSOM-GATHERINGS FROM SAINT AUGUSTINE. 349
smell, nor by ears, nor by taste, nor by touch ; although such laws as we have, and such customs as we have, we took from thy kingdom, and from thy kingdom we draw the example of all the good that we do. For every one falls who flees from thee, and every one rises who turns to thee, and every one stands who abides in thee ; and he dies who altogether forsakes thee, and he quickens who comes to thee ; and each of them, and he lives indeed who thoroughly abides in thee. None forsakes thee that is wise, and none seeks thee but the wise, and none alto gether finds thee but the cleansed. That is, that a man is lost, that a man forsakes thee. He who loves thee seeks thee ; he who follows thee has thee. The truths which thou hast given us awaken us from the sleep of our sins. Our hope heaves us up to thee. Our limbs, which thou hast given us, fasten us to thee. Through thee we overcome our foes, both ghostly and bodily. Thou who art a free giver, come to me, and have mercy on me ; for thou hast bestowed on us great gifts, that is that we shall never altogether perish, so that we become to naught.
O Lord, thou who warnest us that we should watch, thou hast given us reason, that we may discern and distinguish good and evil, and flee the evil. Thou hast given us the power that we should not despond in any toil nor in any inconvenience, it is no wonder, for thou very well rulest, and makest us well serve thee. Thou hast well taught us that we may understand that that was strange to us and transitory, which we look upon as our own, that is, worldly wealth, and thou hast also taught us to understand that that is our own, which we look upon as strange to us ; that is, the kingdom of heaven, which we then
Thou who hast taught us that we should do naught unlawful, and hast also taught (us) that we should not be sorrowful though our substance waned to us. Thou who hast taught us that we should subject our body to our mind. Thou who didst then overcome death when thou thyself didst arise, and also wilt make all men arise. Thou who honorest us all to thee, and cleansest us from all our sins, and justifiest us, and hearest all our prayers. Thou who hast made us of thy household, and who teachest us all righteousness, and always teachest us good, and always doest us good, and leavest us not to serve an unrighteous lord, as we formerly did. Thou callest us to our way, and leadest us to the door, and openest to us, and givest us the bread of everlasting life, and the drink from
disregarded.
350 BLOSSOM-GATHERINGS FROM SAINT AUGUSTINE.
life's well. Thou who threatenest men for their sins, and teachest them to deem right dooms, and to do righteousness.
Thou hast strengthenest in, and yet strengthen our belief that the unbelieving may not mar and hinder us. Thou hast given us, and yet givest, the understanding, that we may over come the error of those (who teach that) men's souls have no recompense, after this world, of their earnings either of good or of evil, whichsoever they here do; thou who hast loosed us from the thraldom of other creatures. Thou always preparest everlasting life for us, and preparest us also for the everlasting life.
Come now to my help, thou who art the only, eternal, and true God of Majesty, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, without any jarring or change, and without any need or un- might, and without death. Thou who always dwellest in the highest brightness, and in the highest steadiness ; in the high est unanimity and in the highest sufficiency; for to thee is no want of any good; but thou always abidest thus full of every good unto eternity. Thou art Father and Son and Holy Ghost.
Thee serve all the creatures which thou hast shapen ; to thee is every good soul subject; by thy behest the heaven turneth and all the stars keep their run : by thy behest the sun brings light by day, and the moon (brings) light at night. By their likeness thou steerest and wieldest all this world, so that all creatures change as day and night. Thou rulest the year, and riddest the change of the four tides, that is Lent and Sum mer and Harvest and Winter; of which each changes with another, and turns so that each is again evenly that which it was before, and there where it was before : and so change all the stars (planets), and turn in the same wise ; and again the sea and rivers. On the same wise turn all creatures ; some change in another wise, so that the same come not again there where they formerly were, altogether so as they formerly were, but others come for them ; as leaf on trees and apples and grass and worts and trees grow old and sear; and others come, wax green and grow and ripen ; for that they again begin to wither. And so all beasts and fowls, so as is now long to reckon all to thee. Yea even men's bodies grow old as other creatures grow old; but as they formerly live more worthily than trees or beasts, so they also shall arise more worthfully
BLOSSOM-GATHERINGS FROM SAINT AUGUSTINE. 351
on doom's day, so that never after shall the bodies end nor wax old : and though the body was formerly rotten, yet was the soul always living since it was first shapen.
And all the creatures about which we are speaking that they seem to us unharmonious and unsteady — they have, however, some deal of steadiness, for they are bridled with the bridle — God's commandments. God gave freedom to men's souls, that they might do either good or evil, whether they would: and promised good (as a) reward to the well-doing, and evil to the evil-doers. With God is prepared the well-spring of every good to us which we have ; he shields us against all evils. Nothing is above him : but all things are under him, or with, or in him. He wrought man to his likeness ; and every man who knows himself, knows that this is all sooth.
To that God I call, and say, Hear me ! hear me, O Lord, for thou art my God, and my Lord, my Father, and my Maker, and my Governor, and my hope, and my substance, and my worship, and my house and my birth-land, and my health, and my life. Hear, hear me, Lord, thy servant! Thee few under stand. Thee alone I love over all things : thee I seek ; thee I follow ; thee I am ready to serve ; under thy government I wish to abide, for thou alone reignest. I pray thee, that thou command me that which thou wilt. But heal my eyes, and upon (them), that I may see thy wonders ; and drive from me folly and pride ; and give me wisdom that I may know thee ;
and teach me whither I should look to thee, that I may there behold thee ; then believe I that I shall gladly do that which thou commandest me.
I beseech thee, thou merciful, well- willing, and well-working Lord, that thou receive me, thy runaway ; for I was formerly thine and fled I from thee to the devil, and fulfilled his will ; and much misery I suffered in his service. But if it now seems to thee, as to me it seems, long enough I have suffered the pains, which I now awhile have suffered, and have longer than I ought served thy foes, whom thou hast in bonds ; long enough have I been in the reproach and the shame which they brought on me. But receive me now, thy lonely servant ; for I am come fleeing from them. Lo ! they took me before I had fled from thee to them. Give me never again to them now (that) I have sought thee ; but open thy door and teach me how I shall come to it. I have naught to bring thee but a good will ; for I my
852 BLOSSOM-GATHERINGS FROM SAINT AUGUSTINE.
self have naught else; nor know I aught better than that. I love the heavenly and the ghostly over this heavenly, as I also do, good Father, for I know naught better than that.
But I wot not how I shall now come to thee unless thou teach me ; but teach me it and help me. If by faith they find me, who find thee, give me then faith. If by any other craft they find thee, who find thee, give me that craft. If by wisdom they find thee, who find thee, give me then wisdom ; and increase in me the hope of the everlasting life, and thy love increase in me. O how wonderful is thy goodness, for it is unlike all goods. I desire to come to thee, and all that I have need of on the way I desire from thee, and chiefly that without which I cannot come to thee if thou forsake me : for through
thee I
. . . But I wot though that thou wilt not forsake me, unless I forsake thee ; nor will I also forsake thee, for thou art the highest good. There is none who rightly seeks thee that he finds thee not. He alone seeks thee aright whom thou teachest aright, that they may seek thee, and how they shall seek thee. Well, O good Father, well deliver me from the error in which I have erred till this, and yet err in ; and teach me the way in which no foe may find (me) ere I come to thee. If I love naught over thee, I beseech thee that I may find thee ; and if I immoderately and unlawfully desire anything, free me of that, and make me worthy that I may see thee.
Thou best Father, and thou wisest, I commend to thee my body, that thou hold it hale. I wot not, though, what I there ask, whether I ask (what is) profitable or unprofitable to myself, or to the friends whom I love, and (who) love me. Nor wot I this, how long thou wilt hold it hale ; therefore I commit and commend it, for thou knowest better than I know what I need ; therefore I pray thee, that thou always teach me the while that I am in this body, and in this world ; and help me that I may always search out the counsel that is likeworth to thee and best rightworth to me for this life.
And now yet, over all other things, I most earnestly pray thee, that thou altogether convert me to thee, and let nothing over come me on this way, so that I may not come to thee ; and cleanse me the while that I am in this world, and make me humble. Give me. . . . Make me discreet and righteous and forethoughtful and perfect. And, O God, make me a lover and a finder of thy wisdom. And make me worthy that I be dwelling in thy blessed kingdom. Be it so !
STILICHO AND ALARIC. 353
STILICHO AND ALARIC. By THOMAS HODGKXN.
[Thomas Hodokin, one of the ablest historical writers of the century, is a banker, as Grote, Lubbock, Bagehot, Rogers, and other strong literary men have been. He was born in 1831, in Tottenham, England, of a Quaker family ; educated as a lawyer, he abandoned it from ill health ; founded a banking firm in Newcastle-on-Tyne, which has since branched into many other places. In 1874 he began his noble literary monument, "Italy and her Invaders," to ex tend from the death of Julian to the accession of Charlemagne ; the last volume is still to come. He has also written valuable monographs. ]
Let us pass on from Honorius to describe the character and fortunes of the real ruler of the Western world, Stilicho.
Stilicho was born probably between 350 and 360. He was the son of a Vandal chief who had entered the service of the Emperor Valens, and had apparently commanded his squad rons of barbarian auxiliaries in a creditable manner. When the young Vandal, tall and of stately presence, moved through the streets of Constantinople, the crowds on either hand defer entially made way for him. And yet he was still only a private soldier, but the instinct of the multitude foretold his future advancement. Nor was that advancement long in coming ; scarcely had he attained manhood when the Emperor sent him on an embassy to the Persian court. Arrived at Babylon (con tinues the flattering bard) his proud deportment struck awe into the hearts of the stern nobles of Parthia, while the quiver- bearing multitude thronged eagerly to gaze on the illustrious stranger ; and the Persian ladies, smitten by his goodly appear ance, nourished in secret the hopeless flame of love.
Hopeless — for a higher alliance than that of any Persian dame was in store for him on his return to Constantinople. There, in the court of her uncle Theodosius, dwelt the learned and dignified Serena. She was the daughter of his brother, the elder Honorius, and was older than any of his own chil dren. . . . Such was the bride whom the Emperor (probably about the year 385) bestowed on the young warrior. Hence forward his promotion was certain. He rose to high rank in the army, being made Magister Utriusque Militiae some years before the death of Theodosius, he distinguished himself in many campaigns against the Visigoths, and finally, when his wife Serena had brought her little cousin Honorius to his dying
vol. vii. — 23
354 STILICHO AND ALARIC.
father at Milan, Stilicho received from his sovereign, whom he had no doubt accompanied in his campaign against Arbogast, the guardianship of his son and the regency of the Western Empire.
Of the great abilities of Stilicho as a general and a civil administrator there can be no doubt. As to the integrity of his character there is a conflict of testimony. Our best course will be to watch the life of the great Vandal for ourselves, and draw our own conclusion at its close.
One thing is certain, that the animosity existing between Stilicho and the successive ministers of the Eastern Emperor (an animosity which does not necessarily imply any fault on the part of the former) was one most potent cause of the down fall of the Western Empire. In part this was due to the peculiar position of military affairs at the time of the death of Theodosius. The army of the East, the backbone of which was the Gothic auxiliaries, had just conquered, at the river Frigidus, the army of the West, which similarly depended upon the Frankish and West German soldiery. The two hosts coalesced in devotion to Theodosius ; they were perhaps ready to follow the standards of a rising general like Stilicho, but they were in no great haste to march off to wearisome sentinel duty on the frontiers of Persia or Scythia, nor was Stilicho anxious so to scatter them. Hence heartburnings between him and the Eastern court, and complaints, perhaps well founded, made by the latter, that he kept all the most able- bodied and warlike soldiers for himself, and sent the cripples and good-for-nothing fellows to Constantinople. Whatever the original grievance, for a period of thirteen years (from 395 -408) hearty cooperation between the courts of Rome and Con stantinople was unknown, and intrigues which it is impossible now to unravel were being woven by the ministers of Arcadius against Honorius, perhaps by Stilicho against them. The Roman Empire was a house divided against itself, and it is therefore no marvel if it was brought to naught.
Alaric (the all-ruler) surnamed Baltha (the bold), was the Visigothic chieftain whose genius taught him the means of turning this estrangement between the two empires to the best account. He was probably born about 360. We have already met with him crossing the Alps as a leader of auxiliaries in the army of Theodosius, when that emperor marched to encounter Eugenius and Arbogast. With the accession of the two young
STILICHO AND ALARIC. 855
princes the spell of the Theodosian name over the barbarian mind was broken. The ill-timed parsimony of Rufinus, per haps of Stilicho also, curtailed the largesses hitherto given to the Gothic troops, and thus yet further estranged them from the empire. Then, individual grievances were not wanting to their general.
But however varied the causes might be, the effect is clear. From the day that Ala-Reiks was accepted as leader of the Gothic people their policy changed ; or rather, they began to have a policy, which they had never had before. No longer now satisfied to serve as the mere auxiliary of Rome, Alaric adopted the maxim which he himself had probably heard from the lips of Priulf just before his murder by Fravitta, that the Goths had fought Rome's battles long enough, and that the time was now come for them to fight their own. Hovering on the frontiers both of Honorius and Arcadius, he, in the words of Claudian,
" Sold his alternate oaths to either throne. "
But that is, of course, the hostile version of his conduct. He doubtless fought craft with craft, but no well-established
charge of perfidy is brought against him. "
And let not the vague and disparaging term barbarian
"
mislead us as to the degree of culture and refinement of char acter which were to be found in such a man as the Visigothic hero. We have not now before us a mere Tartar ruffian like Attila, Zengis, or Timur, still less a savage, however stately, like a chief of the Iroquois or Algonquins. Probably one of our own Plantagenet princes, Edward I. or the Black Prince, would furnish us with a more apt resemblance. Knowing the Roman court and army well, and despising them as heartily, educated in the Christian faith, proud of the willing allegiance of a nation of warriors, fated to destroy, yet not loving the work of mere destruction, Alaric and the kings of the Visi goths who followed him are, in fact, knights errant who rear the standard of chivalry — with its errors as well as its noble thoughts — in the level waste of the Orientalized despotism and effete civilization of the Roman Empire.
Such, then, was the chief whom the Visigothic warriors, in accordance with the usages of their forefathers, raised upon the buckler and held aloft in the sight of all men as their newly chosen king. The purpose of this election is not clouded by
356 STILICHO AND ALARIC.
any doubt. As Jornandes says, " The new king taking counsel with his people, decided to carve out for themselves new king doms rather than, through sloth, to continue the subjects of others. "
And little as they knew what they were doing, the flaxen- haired barbarians who in the Illyrian plains raised amid shouts of Thiudans, Thiudans, (" the king ! the king ! ") the shield upon which Alaric stood erect, were in fact upheaving into reality the stately monarchy of Spain, with her Pelayos and San Fernandos, her Alonzos and Conquistadors, her Ferdinand and Isabella, with Columbus landing at Guanahani, and Vasco Nunez wading knee-deep into the new-found ocean of the Pacific to take possession of its waves and shores for Spain. All these sights, and, alas, also her Inquisition, her autos-da-fe, her wrecked Armada, the impotence and bankruptcy of Iberia in these latter days, might have passed before the unsealed eyes of a seer, had there been such an one among those Gothic warriors ; for all these things were to spring from that day's decision.
Alaric struck first at the East. In one, or more probably two, expeditions (395 and 396) he pushed south from the old outworn battlefield of Moesia, penetrated Thessaly, passed the unguarded defile of Thermopylae, and, according to the heathen enthusiast Zosimus, " having gathered all his troops round the sacred city of Athens, he was about to proceed to the assault. When lo ! he beheld Athene Promachus, just as she is repre sented in her statues, clothed in full armor, going round about the walls thereof, and Achilles standing upon the battlements, with that aspect of divine rage and thirst for battle which Homer ascribes to him when he heard of the death of Patroclus. Awestruck at the sight, Alaric desisted from his warlike enter prise, signaled for truce, and concluded a treaty with the Athenians. After which he entered the city in peaceful guise with a few of his followers, was hospitably entertained by the chief inhabitants, received presents from them, and departed, leaving both Athens and Attica untouched by the ravages of war. "
He did not turn homewards, however, but penetrated into Peloponnesus, where Corinth, Argos, and Sparta all fell before him.
The precise details of these campaigns are difficult to re cover, and happily lie beyond our horizon. What is important
STILICHO AND ALARIC. 357
for us is their bearing on the relations between the two minis ters, Stilicho and Rufinus. The latter is accused, and with too great a concurrence of testimony to allow us to reject it as a mere fabrication of his enemies, of having actually invited Alaric to invade his master's dominions, or, at any rate, of hav ing smoothed Alaric's passage into Greece in order to remove him from his too menacing neighborhood to Constantinople. He was jealous of the overshadowing power of Stilicho, he was too conscious of his own intense unpopularity with all classes ; even the dumb loyalty of his master was beginning to fail him. Surrounded by so many dangers, Rufinus seems to have con ceived the desperate idea of playing off one barbarian against another, of saving himself from the Vandal Stilicho by means of Alaric the Goth.
Stilicho, who still commanded the greater part of the united force of both empires, had come up with the Goth, and was on the point of giving battle, when letters arrived from Con stantinople, subscribed by the hand of Arcadius, commanding him to desist from further prosecution of the war, to withdraw the legions of Honorius within the limits of the Western Empire, and to send the other half of the army straight to Constantinople. This infatuated decree, which can only be explained by the supposition that Arcadius had really been persuaded of the disloyalty of Stilicho, and feared the rebel more than the barbarian, had been wrung from the Emperor by the cajolery and menaces of Rufinus.
Stilicho obeyed at once, notwithstanding the earnest dis suasions of the soldiers, with a promptness which must surely be allowed to count heavily in proof of his loyalty to the Theo- dosian line and his reluctance to weaken the commonwealth by civil war. The army of the whole Roman Empire had appeared for the last time in one common camp : the Western portion set off for Italy, the Eastern for Constantinople. With deep resentment in their hearts, the latter passed through Thessaly and Macedon, revolving silently a scheme of revenge which, if it passed from the domain of thought into that of uttered words, was faithfully kept from all outside, an army's secret.
[Rufinus was slain by them, the soldier who stabbed him saying, " With this sword Stilicho strikes thee. " Gainas the Goth was the chief agent, and for some years held Rufinus's power. ]
858 STTLICHO AND ALAEIO.
Again, in the year 396, did Stilicho, now commanding only the Western forces, volunteer to deliver Greece from the Visi goths. The outset of the campaign was successful. The greater part of Peloponnesus was cleared of the invader, who was shut up in the rugged mountain country on the confines of Elis and Arcadia. The Roman army was expecting soon to behold him forced by famine to an ignominious surrender, when they discovered that he had pierced the lines of circum- vallation at an unguarded point, and marched with all his plunder northwards to Epirus. What was the cause of this unlooked-for issue of the struggle ? " The disgraceful careless ness of Stilicho," says Zosimus. "He was wasting his time with harlots and buffoons when he should have been keeping close watch on the enemy. " " Treason," hints Orosius. " Orders from Constantinople, where a treaty had been concluded with Alaric," half suggests Claudian, but he does not tell the story as if he himself believed it. The most probable explanation of this and of some similar passages in Stilicho's subsequent career is that Fabian caution cooperated with the instinct of the condottiere against pushing his foe too hard.
There was always danger for Rome in driving Alaric to desperation; there was danger privately for Stilicho if the dead Alaric should render him no longer indispensable.
Whatever might be the cause, by the end of 396 Alaric was back again in his Illyrian eyrie ; and thenceforward, what ever threats might be directed towards the East, the actual weight of his arms was felt only by the West. Partly, at least, this is to be accounted for by the almost sublime cowardice of the ministers of Arcadius, who rewarded his Grecian raids by clothing him with the sacred character of an officer of the Empire in their portion of Illyricum. During an interval of quiescence, which lasted apparently about four years, the Visi- gothic king was using the forms of Roman law, the machinery of Roman taxation, the almost unbounded authority of a Roman provincial governor, to prepare the weapon which was one day to pierce the heart of Rome herself.
In the year 400 Stilicho was raised to the consulship. The promotion seems to have come somewhat tardily to one whose power and whose services were so transcendent, but there was perhaps a reluctance to confer this peculiarly Roman office on one so recently sprung from a barbarian stock.
STILICHO AND ALARIC. 859
In the course of the year 400 Alaric descended into Italy with an army, which, as so often in the case of these barbaric campaigns, was not an army, but a nation. Determined not to return to Illyria, but to obtain, by force or persuasion, a settle ment for his people on the Italian soil, he brought with him his wife and children, the families of his warriors, all the spoil which he had taken in Greece, all the treasures which he had accumu lated during his rule in Eastern Illyricum. He marched from Belgrade up the valley of the Save by Laybach and the well- remembered pass of the Pear-Tree.
Because of the comparatively defenceless character of this part of the Italian frontier, the wise forethought of Senate and emperors had planted in this corner of the Venetian plain the great colony, port, and arsenal of Aquileia, whose towers were visible to the soldiers of Alaric's army as they wound round the last spurs of the Julian Alps, descending into the valley of the Isonzo. Aquileia was still the virgin fortress, the Metz of imperial Italy, and not even Alaric was to rob her of her impreg nable glory. A battle took place under her walls, in which the
Romans suffered a disastrous defeat; but the city — we may say with almost absolute certainty — did not surrender. Re membering, it may be, Fridigern's exclamation that " He did not make war upon stone walls," Alaric moved forward through Venetia. Across his road to Rome lay the strong city of Ravenna, guarded by a labyrinth of waters. He penetrated as far as the bridge, afterwards called the bridge of Candidianus, within three miles of the city ; but he eventually retired from the untaken stronghold, and abandoning it would seem for the present his designs on Rome, marched westwards toward Milan.
These operations may perhaps have occupied Alaric from the summer of 400 to that of 401. His progress seems slow and his movements uncertain, but some of the delay may be accounted for by the fact that he was acting in concert with another invader. This was " Radagaisus the Goth," who was operating from the North, and trying to descend into Italy by the Brenner or the Splugen Pass, while Alaric was carrying on the campaign in the East, and endeavoring to reduce the for tresses of Venetia. After several months had been consumed by the Visigoth in his operations before Aquileia and Ravenna, he advanced, in the year 401, up the valley of the Po, and besieged Honorius either in Milan or possibly in the strong
city of Asti (Asta in Piedmont).
860 STILICHO AND ALARIC.
Throughout the Roman world the consternation was extreme when it was known that the Goths, in overwhelming numbers, were indeed in Italy. A rumor like that of the fall of Sebas- topol after the battle of the Alma, born none knew where, prop agated none knew how, traveled fast over Britain, Gaul, and Spain, to the effect that the daring attempt of Alaric had already succeeded, that the city was even now his prey.
In the course of this Rhaetian campaign, Stilicho seems to have effectually repelled the invading hosts. He not only pushed them back into their settlements by the Danube, but he also raised, in these trans-Alpine provinces and among these half -rebellious tribes, an army which was suited in numbers to its work, " not so great as to be burdensome to Italy or formi dable to its ruler. "
The clouds which have gathered round the movements of both the rival chiefs at length lift, partially, and we find them face to face with one another at Pollentia during the season of Easter, 402. About twenty miles southeast of Turin, on the left bank of the Tanaro, in the great alluvial plain which is here Piedmont, but a little farther east will be Lombardy, still stands the little village of Pollenzo. This was the place which Alaric and his Goths were now besieging. It seems certain that Alaric was taken unawares and forced into a battle which he had not foreseen; and this from a cause which illustrates the strange reactions of the barbaric and civilized influences upon one another in this commencing chaos. On the 4th of
April, Good Friday occurred. Alaric, with his army, Chris tian though Arian, was keeping the day with the accustomed religious observances, when he was attacked and forced to fight by Stilicho's lieutenant, Saulus. This man, the same who fought under Theodosius at the battle of the Frigidus, was by birth an Alan, and was probably surrounded by many of his countrymen, that race of utter savages who once dwelt between the Volga and the Don, and arrested the progress of the Huns, but had now yielded to their uncouth conquerors and rolled on with them over Europe, as fierce and as heathenish as they. The pigmy body of Saulus was linked to a dauntless spirit; every limb was covered with the scars of battle, his face had been flattened by many a club stroke, and his little dark Tartar eyes glowed with angry fire. He knew that suspicions had been entertained of his loyalty to the Empire, and he burned to prove their falsity. Having forced Alaric and his warriors
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to suspend their Paschal devotions, he dashed his cavalry with Hun-like impetuosity against their stately line of battle. At the first onset he fell, and his riderless horse, rushing through the ranks, carried dismay to the hearts of his followers.
The light cavalry on the wings were like to have fled in dis astrous rout, when Stilicho moved forward the steady foot sol diers of the legions from the center, and turned, says Claudian, defeat into victory. The Gothic rout (if we may trust Clau- dian's story of the battle) soon became a disastrous flight. The Roman soldiers, eager for revenge, were scarce diverted from their purpose by the rich stores of plunder which were thrown in their way by the despairing fugitives. Every trophy of the barbarian but added fury to the Roman pursuit, reviving as it did the bitter memories of Roman humiliation; and this fury reached its height when, amid a store of other splendid apparel, the purple garments of the murdered Valens were drawn forth to light. Crowds of captives who had followed the chariot of the Gothic king for years now received their freedom, kissed the gory hands of their deliverers, and, revisiting their long deserted homes, looked with wonder on the changes wrought there by Time.
After the vivid and circumstantial account which Claudian gives us of the Roman victory at Pollentia, it is almost humili ating to be obliged to mention that there is some doubt whether it was a Roman victory at all. Probably it was one of those bloody but indecisive combats, like Borodino and Leipzig, in which he who is technically the victor is saved but as by a hair's breadth from defeat. That the battle was no crushing defeat for the Goths seems sufficiently proved by the events which immediately followed it. Stilicho concluded a treaty of some kind with Alaric, and the Gothic king, recrossing the Po, commenced a leisurely retreat through Lombardy. Having arrived at Verona and committed some act which was inter preted as a breach of the treaty, he there, according to Claudian, sustained another severe defeat ; but this engagement is not mentioned by any other writer. As it was, however, he suc ceeded in repassing the Alps, with what proportion of his forces we are quite unable to determine.
Claudian, who is our only authority for this part of the his tory, gives us no accurate details, only pages of declamation about the crushed spirits of the Gothic host, the despair of their leader, and his deep regret at ever having allowed himself
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to be cajoled away from the nearer neighborhood of Rome by his fatal treaty with Stilicho. " Reading between the lines," we can see that all this declamation is but a labored defence of Stilicho's conduct in making a bridge of gold for a retreating foe. That much and angry criticism was excited by this and some similar passages of the great minister's career is evidenced by the words of the contemporary historian Orosius (immedi ately following the mention of Stilicho's name), "I will not speak of King Alaric with his Goths, often defeated, often hemmed in, and always allowed to escape. " Probably, how ever, the criticisms were unjust. Stilicho had a weapon of uncertain temper to wield: legionaries enervated and undis ciplined ; barbarian auxiliaries, some of whom might sym pathize with their northern brethren if they saw them too hardly pressed. It was by skill of fence rather than by mad clashing of sword against sword that the game was to be won ; and it would have been poor policy to have driven the Visi- gothic army to bay, and to have let them discover —
" What reinforcements they might gain from hope ; If not, what resolution from despair. "
The year 405 witnessed the second consulship of Stilicho, and another great inroad of barbarians. Alaric was not the leader in this new invasion ; he was at this time, according to one authority, quartered in Epirus, and concerting measures with Stilicho for a joint attack on the Eastern Empire. The new invader is a wild figure bearing the name of Radagaisus, a Goth, but not of Alaric's following, though formerly his con federate. This man, " far the most savage of all past or present enemies of Rome," was known to be fanatically devoted to the false deities of his heathen ancestors ; and as the tidings came that he, with his 200,000 or some said 400,000 followers, had crossed the Alps, and was vowing to satiate his fierce gods with the blood of all who bore the Roman name, a terrible despair seized all the fair cities of Italy.
However, Rome's hour of doom had not yet come. The fierce barbarian horde, instead of marching along the Lom bard plain to Rimini, and thence by the comparatively easy Flaminian Way to Rome, chose the nearer but difficult route across the Tuscan Apennines. Stilicho marched against them, and succeeded in hemming them in, in the rugged hill coun try, where, owing to the shortness of provisions, their very
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numbers were their ruin. Without incurring any of the risks of battle, the Roman army, " eating, drinking, sporting " (says Orosius), for some days kept watch over 200,000 starving men, till at last Radagaisus gave up the game, and tried to steal away from his camp. He fell into the hands of the Roman soldiery, was kept prisoner for a little time, — perhaps with some thought of his decking the triumph of Consul Stilicho, — and then put to death. His unhappy followers were sold for an aureus (about twelve shillings sterling) apiece, like the poorest cattle ; but owing to the privations which they had endured, they died off so fast that the purchasers (as Orosius tells us with grim satisfaction) took no gain of money, having to spend on the burial of their captives the money which they had grudged for their purchase. And thus ended the invasion of Radagaisus.
The two great invasions of Alaric and Radagaisus effected little directly against Italy; but by compelling Stilicho to weaken his line on the Rhenish frontier, they indirectly caused the empire to lose three mighty provinces in the West. While those two chieftains have been crying "check" to the king, castles and knights and bishops have been ruthlessly swept off a distant portion of the board.
Such was the state of affairs when the scene was suddenly changed by the death of Arcadius, the Emperor of the East. For some months, perhaps years, before his death, strange and unintelligible transactions had taken place between Stilicho and Alaric. Stung by the repeated insults and embittered by the persistent hostility of the Eastern court, — anxious also to repay them in kind for their attempt, by means of Gildo's trea son, to separate Africa from the dominions of his master, — the Roman general appears to have actually contemplated the design of joining the Gothic king in the invasion of Epirus, and thus by barbarian aid uniting Eastern Illyricum to the Western Empire. This invasion, if ever in truth projected, was stopped by a false report of the death of Alaric, and by the too true intelligence of the revolt of the British army under Constantine. —
Alaric, who had actually entered Epirus,
an invader or ally, neither he himself nor any contemporary statesman could, perhaps, have accurately explained, — appear ing on the northeastern horizon of Italy, demanded pay for his unfinished enterprise.
but whether as
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The Emperor, the Senate, Stilicho, assembled at Rome to consider what answer should be given to the ambassadors of the Visigoth. Many senators advised war rather than peace purchased by such disgraceful concessions. The Senator Lam- pridius, a man of high birth and character, exclaimed indig nantly, "iVon est ista pax sed pactio servitutu'" (That is no peace, but a mere selling of yourselves into slavery). Stilicho's voice, strange to say, was all for an amicable settlement. Partly persuaded that Alaric really deserved some reparation for the loss he had sustained through the fluctuation of the imperial counsels, but more unwilling to oppose a courageous " no " to the advice of the all-powerful minister, the Senate acquiesced in his decision, and ordered payment of 4000 pounds of gold (about £160,000 sterling) to the ambassadors of Alaric.
The position of Stilicho was at this time one of great appar ent stability. Though his daughter, the Empress Maria, was dead, her place had been supplied by another daughter, Ther- mantia, who, it might reasonably be supposed, could secure her feeble husband's loyalty to her father. With Alaric for his friend, with Arcadius, who had been drilled by his ministers into hostility, dead, it might have seemed that there was no quarter from whence danger could menace the supremacy of the great minister.
This security, however, was but in appearance. Honorius was beginning to chafe under the yoke ; perhaps even his brother's death made Stilicho seem less necessary to his safety. An adverse influence, too, of which the minister suspected nothing, had sprung up in the imperial court. Olympius, a native of some town on the Euxine shore, had ascended, through Stilicho's patronage, to some high position in the household. This man, who, according to Zosimus, " under the appearance of Christian piety concealed a great deal of rascal ity," was now whispering away the character of his benefactor. With him seem to have cooperated the clergy, who sincerely disapproved of Honorius's marriage with the sister of the late Empress; and who also had imbibed a strange notion that Eucherius, the son of Stilicho, was a pagan at heart, and medi tated, should he one day succeed to power, the restoration of the ancient idolatry. Strange to say, the pagans also had their reasons for disliking the same all-powerful family.
and Serena had despoiled heathen temples. ]
[Stilicho
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Thus did the two religions, the old and the new, unite in muttered discontent against the great captain. The people also, wounded and perplexed by the strange scene in the Sen ate, and the consequent payment to Alaric, had perhaps lost some of their former confidence in the magic of his name. On the other hand, the army, whose demoralized condition was probably the real cause of his policy of non-resistance, and whom his stern rule had alone made in any measure efficacious against the barbarian, were some of them growing restive under the severity of his discipline. Partially, too, we can discern the workings of a spirit of jealousy among the Roman legionaries against the Teutonic comrades by whom they found themselves surrounded and often outstripped in the race for promotion. Stilicho's own Vandal origin would naturally exacerbate this feeling, and would render unpardonable in him preferences which might have been safely manifested by Theodosius. At Ticinum (the modern Pavia) the troops were thoroughly alien ated from Stilicho; and at Bologna, whither Honorius had journeyed from Ravenna, the soldiers broke out into open mutiny. Stilicho, being summoned by the Emperor, sup pressed the revolt, and either threatened or actually inflicted the dread punishment of decimation, the ultima ratio of a Roman general.
In the midst of this quicksand of suspicions and disaffec- tions three facts were clear and solid. The usurper Constan- tine (Britain's contribution to the difficulties of Rome) was steadily advancing through Gaul toward the capital, and had, in fact, already established himself at Aries. Alaric, though he had received the 4000 golden librae, hovered still nearer the frontier, and was evidently wearying for a fight with some enemy. Arcadius was dead : the guardianship of the little Theodosius was a tempting prize, and one which the dying words of his grandfather might possibly be held to confer upon the great Vandal minister. Honorius proposed to journey to the East, and assume this guardianship himself ; but Stilicho drew out so formidable an account of the expenditure necessary for the journey of so majestic a being, that the august cipher, who was probably at heart afraid of the dangers of the way, abandoned his project. Stilicho's scheme, we are told, was to employ Alaric in suppressing the revolt of Constantine, while he himself went eastwards to settle the affairs of the young Emperor at Constantinople. Honorius gave his consent to both
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parts of the scheme, wrote the needed letters for Alaric and Theodosius, and then set off with Olympius for Ticinum. The minister, conscious that he was beset by some dangers, but ignorant of the treachery of Olympius, neither removed the mutinous soldiery from Ticinum, nor set forth to assume the command of the armies of the East, but, with strange irresolu tion, lingered on still at Ravenna. That irresolution proved his ruin.
[Olympius raised a mutiny among the soldiers at Ticinum, which ended in a massacre, in which many leading officers of Stilicho's party were slain,
with many citizens. ]
The best defence of Stilicho's loyalty is to be found in his own conduct when he heard of the mutiny of Ticinum. The news found him at Bologna ; perhaps he had escorted the Emperor so far on his westward journey. He called a council of war, composed of the generals of the barbarian auxiliaries. All felt themselves alike threatened by this murderous out break of bastard Roman patriotism. The first report stated that the Emperor himself was dead. " Then," said all, — and Stilicho approved the decision, — "on behalf of the violated taeramentum, let us march and avenge his murder on the mutineers. " But when a correcter version of the events reached them, Stilicho refused to avenge the massacre of his friends only, the Emperor being unharmed, and loudly declared that to lead barbarians to an attack on the Roman army was, in his opinion, neither righteous nor expedient.
To this resolution he steadfastly adhered, though the con viction forced itself upon his mind that Honorius was now incurably alienated from him. Then the barbarian generals, one by one, separated themselves from what they felt to be a doomed cause. Sarus, the Goth, who had fought under Stilicho's orders, now turned against his old chief, made a night attack on his quarters, slaughtered his still faithful Hunnish guards, but reached the general's tent only to find that he had taken horse and ridden off with a few followers for Ravenna. Not for the hand of the ungrateful Sarus was reserved that reward which Olympius was yearning to pay for the head of his rival.
Stilicho, though a fugitive, seems still to be more anxious for the safety of the Empire than for his own. As he passes city after city, where the wives and children of the barbarian
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soldiers are kept as hostages for their fidelity, he adjures the magistrates not on any pretence to allow one of the barbarians to enter. He enters Ravenna ; shortly after his arrival come messengers bearing letters written by the Emperor, under the steady pressure of Olympius, commanding that Stilicho shall be arrested and kept in honorable confinement without bonds. Informed of the arrival of this mandate, he took refuge by night in a Christian church. When day dawned the soldiers entered the building ; on their solemn assurance, ratified by an oath, sworn in the presence of the bishop, that the Emperor's orders extended not to his death but only to the placing him under guard, Stilicho surrendered himself. Once out of the sanctuary, and entirely in the power of the soldiers, he learned the arrival of a second letter from Honorius, to the effect that his crimes against the state were judged deserving of death. The barbarian troops, who yet surrounded him, his slaves, his friends, wished still to resist with the sword ; but this he utterly forbade, and by threats, and the still lingering terror of his brow, he compelled his defenders to desist. Then, in some what of a martyr's spirit, and with a heart already broken by man's ingratitude, and weary of life, he offered his neck to the sword of the executioner, and in a moment "that good gray head, which all men knew," was rolling in the dust. [August
23, 408. ]
" So died," says Zosimus (v. 34), " the man who was more
moderate than any others who bore rule in that time. "
The circumstances of Stilicho's death naturally recall to
our minds "The Death of Wallenstein. " The dull, suspicious Honorius is replaced by Ferdinand II. , Olympius by the elder Piccolomini, Sarus by Butler, Alaric by Wrangel, Stilicho him self by the great Duke of Friedland. Only let not the parallel mislead us as to the merits of the chief actors. Wallenstein was at length disloyal to Ferdinand ; Stilicho was never untrue to Honorius.
That he was a brave and hardy soldier and a skillful general is virtually confessed by all. That his right hand was free from bribes and unjust exactions, only his flatterers assert, and we need not believe. That he was intensely tenacious of power, that he imposed his will in all things on the poor puppet Honorius, is clear, and also that the necessities of the state amply justified him in doing so. The inveterate hatred which existed between him and each successive minister of Arcadius
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certainly hastened the downfall of the Empire, and it is difficult to believe that there might not have been a better understand ing between them had he so desired.
The accusations of secret confederacy with Alaric would seem mere calumnies if it were not for the painful scene in the Senate and Lampridius's indignant ejaculation, "JVon est ista pax sed pactio servitutis. " Without imputing actual disloyalty to Stilicho, we may perceive in him, ever after the terrible slaughter and doubtful combat of Pollentia, a disinclination to push Alaric to extremities, a feeling which seems to have been fully reciprocated by his great antagonist. Possibly some such involuntary tribute of respectful fear would have been mutually paid by Napoleon and Wellington had Waterloo been a drawn battle. Stilicho may also have remembered too faithfully that the East had given Alaric his first vantage ground against Rome ; and he may have been too ready to keep that barbaric weapon unblunted, to be used on occasion against Constanti nople. Yet on a review of his whole life, when contemplating the circumstances of his death, preeminently when observing the immediate change which his removal from the chessboard produced upon the whole fortunes of the game, with confidence we feel entitled to say, " This man remained faithful to his Emperor, and was the great defence of Rome. " Cruel tortures, inflicted by the command of Olympius, failed to elicit from any of Stilicho's party the least hint of his having conceived any treasonable designs.
It is plain, however, that justly or unjustly the name of the deceased minister was connected with the policy of conciliation towards the barbarians and employment of auxiliaries from among them. As soon as the death of Stilicho was announced, the purely Roman legionaries rose and took a noble revenge for the affronts which they may have received at the hands of their Teutonic fellow-soldiers. In every city where the wives and children of these auxiliaries were dwelling, the legionaries rushed in and murdered them. The inevitable result was, that the auxiliaries, a band of 30,000 men, inheriting the bar barian vigor, and adding to that whatever remained of Roman military skill, betook themselves to the camp of Alaric, and prayed him to lead them to the vengeance for which they hun gered.
But it is a characteristic of the strange period upon which we are now entering (408-410) that no one of the chief person
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ages seems willing to play the part marked out for him. Alaric, who had before crossed mountains and rivers in obedience to the prophetic voice, " penetrabis ad urbem," now, when the game is clearly in his hands, hesitates and hangs back. Hono- rius shows a degree of firmness in his refusal to treat with the barbarians, which, had it been justified by the slightest traces of military capacity or of intelligent adaptation of means to ends, and had his own person not been safe from attack behind the ditches of Ravenna, might have been almost heroic. And both alike, the fears of the brave and the courage of the coward, have one result, to make the final catastrophe more complete and more appalling.
Alaric's Three Sieges of Rome.
A few weeks were probably spent in the fruitless negotia tions between Alaric and Honorius after the murder of Stilicho. Then the Visigothic king finally decided to play the great game, and while it was still early autumn crossed the Julian Alps and descended into the plains of Italy to try once more if that voice were true which was ever sounding in his ears, " penetrabis ad urbem. "
While he was proceeding by rapid marches towards Rome, laying waste all the open country, and plundering the towns and villages, none of which was strong enough to close its gates against him, a man in the garb of a monk suddenly appeared in the royal tent. The holy man warned him in solemn tones to refrain from the perpetration of such atrocities, and no longer to delight in slaughter and blood. To whom Alaric replied, " I am impelled to this course in spite of myself : for something within urges me every day irresistibly onwards, saying, Proceed to Rome and make that city desolate. "
Alaric meanwhile pressed on, and soon, probably in the month of September, he stood before the walls of Rome and commenced his First Siege of the City.
The actual appearance of the skin-clothed barbarians within sight of the Capitol, so long the inviolate seat of Empire, found the Senate resourceless and panic-stricken. One only sugges tion, the cruel thought of coward hearts, was made. Serena, the widow of Stilicho, still lived in Rome. Her husband had made a league with Alaric : might not she traitorously open
to him the gates of the city ? Unable, apparently, among the vol. vii. — 24
370 STILICHO AND ALARIC.
million or so inhabitants of Rome to find a sufficient guard for one heartbroken widow, they decreed that Serena should be strangled. "
But (as Zosimus sarcastically remarks) not even the de struction of Serena caused Alaric to desist from the blockade. " The course of the Tiber was watched so that no provisions should be brought into the city from above or from below. Day after day they looked forth towards the northeastern horizon, expecting help from Ravenna, but it came not. The daily portion of food allotted to each citizen was reduced to one half, then to one third, of its ordinary quantity. To famine was added sickness ; and then, when the surrounding enemy made it impossible to bury the dead outside the walls, the city itself became one vast sepulchre, and pestilence arose from the streets and squares covered with decaying corpses.
At length, when they had tried every other loathsome means of satisfying hunger, and were not far from cannibalism, they determined to send an embassy to the enemy. The language which the ambassadors were directed to use had in it some what of the ring of the old world-conquering republic's voice : " The Roman people were prepared to make peace on moderate terms, but were yet more prepared for war. They had arms in their hands, and from long practice in their use had no reason to dread the result of battle. " These swelling words of vanity only provoked the mirth of Alaric, who had served under the eagles, and knew what the Roman populace's " practice in the use of arms " amounted to. With a loud Teutonic laugh he exclaimed, " Thick grass is easier mowed than thin. "
After much ridicule showered upon the ambassadors who had brought so magnanimous a message, business was resumed, and they contrived again to inquire as to the terms of a " mod erate peace. " The Goth's announcement of his conditions was, says Zosimus, "beyond even the insolence of a barbarian. " "Deliver to me all the gold that your city contains, all the silver, all the movable property that I may find there, and moreover all your slaves of barbarian origin: otherwise I desist not from the siege. " Said one of the ambassadors, "But if you take all these things, what do you leave to the citizens ? " Alaric, still in a mood for grim jesting, replied in one gruff word 8aivalo8, "your souls" [or "your lives"].
The ambassadors returned to the Senate with their message of despair. The Senate, enervated by centuries of powerless
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sycophancy, found themselves compelled to look forth upon a horizon blacker than their heroic ancestors had seen after the terrible day of Cannae.
At length, after much discussion, Alaric consented to allow the city to ransom herself by a payment of 5000 pounds' weight of gold, 30,000 of silver, 4000 silken tunics, 3000 hides dyed scarlet, and 3000 pounds of pepper. It is a strange catalogue of the things which were objects of desire to a nation emerging from barbarism. The pepper suggests the conjecture that the Gothic appetite had already lost some of its original keenness in the fervent southern lands.
And so ended the First Gothic siege of Rome, a siege in which no swords were crossed, no blood drawn. Famine was the only weapon used by Alaric.
After this matter of the payment was settled, the future relations between the people of Rome and the Gothic king came under discussion. No one hinted now (nor for two gen erations later) at making the barbarian ruler of any part of Italy. But to constitute him the permanent champion of Rome; to conclude a strict offensive and defensive alliance with one whose sword weighed so heavily in the scale ; in fact, to revert to and carry further the policy of Stilicho, which these very Romans had probably been among the loud est in condemning, — this did seem to the Senate a wise rec ognition of existing facts, a chance of saving the majesty of Rome from further humiliation. And such doubtless it was, and Theodosius himself, or Constantine, seeing Alaric's un feigned eagerness for such an alliance, would have concluded it with gladness. But all the endeavors of statesmanship were foiled by the impenetrable stolidity of Honorius, who could not make either war or peace, nor could comprehend the existence of any danger to the Empire so long as his sacred person was unharmed.