Thou
pendulum
betwixt a smile and tear, Ages and realms are crowded in this span,
THE RUINS OF ROME.
THE RUINS OF ROME.
Universal Anthology - v07
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
368 STILICHO AND ALARIC.
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
STILICHO AND ALARIC. 369
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
STILICHO AND ALARIC. 371
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.
The Senate sent an embassy to the Emperor to represent to him the piteous condition of the Mistress of the World, and implore him to consent to the treaty with Alaric. Honorius tore himself away for a few hours from his poultry, heard ap parently without emotion the sufferings of his people, gave a step in official rank to two of the ambassadors, and declined their request. As soon as the news of this refusal reached Alaric he recommenced the blockade of the city.
372 STILICHO AND ALARIC.
Practically all power centered in Jovius [who had supplanted Olympius] ; and Jovius, as having overthrown the enemy of StUicho, and also as having been of old "guest-friend" of Alaric in Epirus, had peculiar facilities for effecting that accommodation with the Visigothic king which the state imperatively required. With the Emperor's consent he invited Alaric to a conference, which was held at Rimini, about thirty Roman miles from Ravenna. [Terms were fixed for an accommodation . ]
In transmitting these demands to his master, Jovius gave a secret hint that probably if Alaric himself were gratified with some high official position, such as that of Magiiter Utriusque Militice (Captain-General of Horse and Foot), he would be found willing to abate considerably from the stringency of his demands. To this Honorius replied, — and for once we do hear a man's voice, though not a wise man's, — "You have behaved hastily in this matter. Payments of gold and subsi dies of corn belong to your duty as pretorian prefect, and I do not blame you for having arranged these according to your own judgment. But military command it is mine alone to bestow, and I hold it unfitting that such offices as you name should ever be held by Alaric or any of his race. "
This letter arrived when Jovius and Alaric were conversing. Was it pique against the Emperor, was it despair, was it mere folly, that impelled the minister to read it from the beginning to the end in the hearing of the Visigoth ? Alaric listened to all the rest of the letter patiently enough, but when he heard the scornful close he broke off the negotiations abruptly, and declared that he would revenge on Rome herself the insult offered to himself and his race.
Jovius, whose conduct is a perfect mystery of needless vil lainy, — who, in short, behaved exactly like an Italian states man of the sixteenth century who had lost his Machiavel, — rushed back to Ravenna, and induced the Emperor to take an oath that he would conclude no peace with Alaric, but would wage against him perpetual war. When Honorius had taken this oath, Jovius, touching the Emperor's head, repeated the same words, and all who held high office in the state were com pelled to follow his example. And yet every one of these men in his secret heart knew that a just and honorable peace with Alaric was the only chance of rescuing Rome from impending destruction.
STILICHO AND ALARIC. 373
Honorius made some feeble preparations for war, enrolled 10,000 Huns in his armies, imported cattle and sheep from Dalmatia for the provisionment of Ravenna, and sent some scouts to watch the progress of the Gothic army towards Rome.
But again Alaric, though duped and insulted, was seized by one of those strange qualms of awe or compassion which so often might have saved the Imperial City. He offered in fact to abate three provinces, Venetia, Istria, and Dalmatia, from his former demand, and to be satisfied with the two Noricums alone [Austria proper, Styria, and Corinthia], provinces already so wasted by barbarian invasions as to be of very small value to the treasury. He asked for no office or dignity, civil or mili tary, nor even for gold, but only for such a supply of rations to his troops as the Emperor himself should consider reason able ; and in return for these slight concessions he promised friendship and military assistance against any enemy who might arise to trouble the peace of Honorius and his Romans. The moderation of Alaric excited general surprise, for in truth his demands were such as an Augustus might almost have con ceded to an Arminius, or a Trajan to a Decebalus ; but, for some reason hidden from us, Jovius and his creatures did not dare to advise their acceptance. The Visigoth, pale with rage at the tidings of the refusal of his request, set to work without further forbearance to commence the Second Siege of the City.
The second siege of Rome by Alaric is one of the surprises of history. With the remembrance of the terrible famine and pestilence which accompanied the first siege vividly before us, with the knowledge of the repeated insults since then inflicted upon the Visigothic king, we expect to see some great and dole ful tragedy enacted upon the Seven Hills. Far from it : the curtain is drawn up, and we behold, instead of a tragedy, a burlesque, the title whereof is " The Ten Months' Emperor, or Attalus the ^Esthetic. "
The citizens of Rome saw once more the Gothic army encamped around their walls, Ostia occupied, the large stores of provisions there collected taken possession of by the barba rians. They had no desire to see the experiments of last year as to the possible articles of human diet repeated ; they began to ask themselves, very naturally, "Since Honorius does nothing to protect us, and since he can neither make war nor peace with Alaric, but only shuts himself up behind the ditches of Ravenna, leaving us to bear all the burden of the war, why should we
374 STILICHO AND ALARIC.
suffer any more in his quarrel ? " They explained their feelings to the king of the Goths, and speedily an arrangement was made which seemed likely to satisfy all parties. The Imperial City formally renounced her allegiance to Honorius, and be stowed the purple and the diadem on Attalus, the Prefect of the City, who as Augustus at once concluded the long-desired treaty of peace with Alaric.
[Attalus' head was turned, and he tried to act as a real — and foolish — emperor. ]
The patience of Alaric gave way. He marched back to Rimini, his nearest outpost towards Ravenna, commanded Attalus to wait upon him, and there, in the plain outside the town, in sight of the Gothic army and the Roman inhabitants, he stripped him of his diadem and purple robe, and proclaimed that he was degraded to the condition of a private citizen. The unhappy Greek, so proudly self-inflated and so ignominiously collapsing, had reigned for something less than a year.
Alaric, in order to give Honorius visible tokens of the change in his policy, sent to the court of Ravenna the imperial ensigns which he had stripped from his dethroned client. The officers also who had received their commands from the usurper, restored their military belts to the legitimate Emperor, and humbly implored his forgiveness. "And now, surely," any discriminating observer might have thought "a just and honorable peace will be concluded between Alaric and Hono rius, and Italy will rest from her anguish. " The hindrance to the fulfillment of these hopes came this time from Sarus the Goth. With 300 chosen warriors he entered Ravenna and exerted all his influence to break off the negotiations between Honorius and the Visigoths. He succeeded: Alaric retired from the conferences and marched southwards, this time in deadly earnest, intent upon the Third Siege of Rome.
Of this, the crowning act of the great drama, the real end of old Rome, the real beginning of modern history, it must be confessed that we scarcely know more than we do of the fall of Babylon. Rome, which had described with such eager minute ness the death pangs of a hundred cities which she had taken, has left untold the story of her own overthrow.
Alaric was spared, this time, the necessity of reducing the city by a slow blockade. On the night of the 24th of August, it would seem almost immediately after his appearance before the walls, his troops burst in by the Salarian Gate. The splendid palace of Sallust was set on fire.
STUJCHO AND ALARIC.
375
It was said in a preceding chapter that we must not think of the Visigoths as savages, scarcely even, except in the classi cal sense of the word, as barbarians. Now, however, that they have entered Rome, now that, after years of waiting and march ing and diplomatizing, the prize is at last theirs, the accumu lated treasures of the world at their feet, and few days in which to pick them up, we may have to fall back for a time upon that more popular conception of their character. Though the soldiers of Alaric were ministers of mercy when compared with those of Alva or Tilly, we cannot doubt that brutality and outrage of every kind marked their entrance into the con quered city.
The amount of injury done by the Goths to the city itself it is not easy to determine. Writers who were remote from the scene and declamatory in their style speak as if the whole city had been wrapped in flames, every building shattered, nothing left but ruins. It is easy to see from subsequent descriptions of the appearance of the city that this is a gross exaggeration ; and it is a priori most improbable that the Goths, who only stayed a short time in Rome, and had much plundering to accomplish in that time, should have devoted so large a part of their energies to the destruction of mere buildings. Orosius, writing history as an advocate, and having to maintain the thesis that Rome had not suffered since her conversion to Christianity greater calami ties than befell her in her pagan times, is not, it must be ad mitted, an entirely trustworthy witness on this point. But he, a contemporary writer, distinctly says that " the destruction wrought by fire at the hands of the Gothic conqueror was not to be compared with that caused by accident in the 700th year from the foundation of the city. " This verdict seems a probable one, and may support a conjecture that Rome suffered less, externally, from the barbarians in 410, than Paris from the leaders of the Commune in 1871.
Alaric and his Goths pressed on still southwards into Brut- tii, the modern Calabria. They collected some ships at Reggio — intending to invade Sicily, some historians say ; to pass on thence into Africa, says Jornandes the Goth. There can be lit tle doubt that he is right, that Africa was the present object of Alaric's attack. Not necessarily, however, the ultimate object. His military instinct showed him that there, in the great gran ary of Rome, must the question of dominion over the Eternal City be decided. He was going, then, to Africa, but doubtless with the intention of returning to Rome.
376 STILICHO AND ALARIC.
But whatever might be his intentions, they were frustrated. This wave of Teutonic invasion had reached its extreme limit at Reggio, and was henceforward to recede. " Thou breakest the ships of Tarshish with an east wind " was perhaps the jubi lant cry of the inhabitants of Messina, when they saw a great storm arise, by which Alaric's fleet was dashed to pieces, and a considerable part of his army, already embarked thereon,
The Visigothic king could not bring himself to ac knowledge defeat, even by the elements. He lingered near Reggio, still perhaps dreaming of conquests beyond the seas. Suddenly, in the midst of his warlike schemes, Death surprised him. We are told nothing as to the nature of his malady, ex cept that it was of short duration. It is probable that in his case, as in that of so many other Northern invaders of Italy, climate proved itself mightier than armies, and that Fever was the great avenger.
The well-known story of the burial of Alaric derives some additional interest from the remembrance of his birthplace. He was born, as the reader may remember, on an island at the mouth of one of the greatest rivers of Europe. The flow of the broad but sluggish Danube, the sound of the wind in the pine trees, the distant thunder of the Euxine upon its shore, — these were the sounds most familiar to the ear of the young Visigoth. Now that he had swept with resistless force from the Black Sea to the Straits of Messina, a river must flow over his grave as it had encircled his cradle. Forth from the high pine woods of the Calabrian mountain range of Sila leaps the stream of the Bu- sento, which, meeting the larger river Crati coming from the Apennines, encircles the town of Cosenza, where the great Visi goth met his death. To provide their leader with a tomb which no Italian hand should desecrate, the barbarians compelled a number of their captives to labor at diverting the Busento from its ordinary channel. In the dry bed of the river they dug the grave, in which, amid many of the chosen spoils of Rome, the body of Alaric was laid. The captives were then ordered to turn the river back into its ancient course, and their faithful guardianship of the grim secret was secured by the inviolable seal of death printed upon their lips. So, under the health-bring ing waters of the rapid Busento, sleeps Ala-Reiks the Visigoth, equaled, may it not be said, by only three men in succeeding times as a changer of the course of history. And these three are Mohammed, Columbus, Napoleon.
destroyed.
Upon the Ruins
From the painting by Jean Paul Laurens
THE RUINS OF ROME. 377
THE RUINS OF ROME. By LORD BYRON.
(From "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. ")
[Lord George Noel Gordow Byron : A famous English poet ; born in London, January 22, 1788. At the age of ten he succeeded to the estate and title of his granduncle William, fifth Lord Byron. He was educated at Harrow and Cambridge, and in 1807 published his first volume of poems, " Hours of Idleness. " After a tour through eastern Europe he brought out two cantos of "Childe Harold," which met with instantaneous success, and soon after he married the heiress Miss Millbanke. The union proving unfortunate, Byron left England, and passed several years in Italy. In 1823 he joined the Greek insur gents in Cephalonia, and later at Missolonghi, where he died of a fever April 19, 1824. His chief poetical works"are : "Childe Harold," "Don Juan," "Manfred," "Cain," "Marino Faliero," Sardanapalus," "The Giaour," "Bride of Aby- dos," "The Corsair," "Lara," and "Mazeppa. "]
0 Eome, my country ! city of the soul !
The orphans of the heart must turn to thee,
Lone mother of dead empires ! and control
In their shut breasts their petty misery.
What are our woes and sufferings ? Come and see
The cypress, hear the owl, and plod your way O'er steps of broken thrones and empires, Ye
Whose agonies are creatures of a day !
A world is at our feet as fragile as our clay.
The Niobe of nations ! There she stands, Childless and crownless in her voiceless woe ;
An empty urn within her withered hands, Whose holy dust was scattered long ago : The Scipios' tomb contains no ashes now ;
The very sepulchres lie tenantless
Of their heroic dwellers : dost thou flow,
Old Tiber ! through a marble wilderness ?
Rise, with thy yellow waves, and mantle her distress !
The Goth, the Christian, time, war, flood, and fire, Have dealt upon the seven-hilled city's pride ;
She saw her glories star by star expire,
And up the steep barbarian monarchs ride,
Where the car climbed the Capitol ; far and wide
Temple and tower went down, nor left a site : Chaos of ruins ! who shall trace the void,
O'er the dim fragments cast a lunar light,
And say, " Here was, or is," where all is doubly night ?
378 THE RUINS OF ROME.
' The double night of ages, and of her,
Night's daughter, Ignorance, hath wrapt and wrap
All around us ; we but feel our way to err :
The ocean hath its chart, the stars their map, And Knowledge spreads them on her ample lap :
But Rome is as the desert, where we steer Stumbling o'er recollections : now we clap"
Our hands, and cry, "Eureka ! it is clear — When but some false mirage of ruin rises near.
Alas, the lofty city ! and alas,
The trebly hundred triumphs, and the day
When Brutus made the dagger's edge surpass The conqueror's sword in bearing fame away ! Alas for Tully's voice, and Virgil's lay,
And Livy's pictured page ! but these shall be Her resurrection : all beside, decay.
Alas for earth, for never shall we see
That brightness in her eye she bore when Rome was free! . . .
Cypress and ivy, weed and wall flower grown. Matted and massed together, hillocks heaped
On what were chambers, arch crushed, column strown In fragments, choked up vaults, and frescoes steeped In subterranean damps, where the owl peeped,
Deeming it midnight : — Temples, baths, or halls ? Pronounce who can ; for all that Learning reaped
From her research hath been, that these are walls — Behold the Imperial Mount ! 'tis thus the mighty falls.
There is the moral of all human tales ; 'Tis but the same rehearsal of the past.
First Freedom and then Glory — when that fails, Wealth, vice, corruption, — barbarism at last. And History, with all her volumes vast,
Hath but one page, — 'tis better written here , Where gorgeous Tyranny hath thus amassed
All treasures, all delights, that eye or ear,
Heart, soul could seek, tongue ask — Away with words ! draw near,
Admire, exult — despise — laugh, weep — for here There is such matter for all feeling : — Man !
Thou pendulum betwixt a smile and tear, Ages and realms are crowded in this span,
THE RUINS OF ROME.
This mountain, whose obliterated plan The pyramid of empires pinnacled,
Of Glory's gewgaws shining in the van
Till the sun's rays with added flame were filled !
Where are its golden roofs ! where those who dared to build ?
Tully was not so eloquent as thou,
Thou nameless column with the buried base !
What are the laurels of the Caesars' brow ? Crown me with ivy from his dwelling place. Whose arch or pillar meets me in the face,
Titus' or Trajan's ? No — 'tis that of Time : Triumph, arch, pillar, all he doth displace
Scoffing ; and apostolic statues climb
To crush the imperial urn, whose ashes slept sublime,
Buried in air, the deep blue sky of Rome,
And looking to the stars : they had contained
A spirit which with these would find a home,
The last of those who o'er the whole earth reigned, The Roman globe, for after none sustained,
But yielded back his conquests : — he was more Than a mere Alexander, and, unstained
With household blood and wine, serenely wore
His sovereign virtues — still we Trajan's name adore.
Where is the rock of Triumph, the high place
Where Rome embraced her heroes ? where the steep
Tarpeian ? fittest goal of Treason's race,
The promontory whence the Traitor's Leap Cured all ambition. Did the conquerors heap
Their spoils here ? Yes ; and in yon field below, A thousand years of silenced factions sleep —
The Forum, where the immortal accents glow,
And still the eloquent air breathes — burns with Cicero !
The field of freedom, faction, fame, and blood : Here a proud people's passions were exhaled,
From the first hour of empire in the bud
To that when further worlds to conquer failed ; But long before had Freedom's face been veiled,
And Anarchy assumed her attributes ; Till every lawless soldier who assailed
Trod on the trembling Senate's slavish mutes, Or raised the venal voice of baser prostitutes. . . .
380
THE RUINS OF ROME.
Arches on arches ! as it were that Rome, Collecting the chief trophies of her line,
Would build up all her triumphs in one dome, Her Coliseum stands ; the moonbeams shine As 'twere its natural torches, for divine
Should be the light which streams here, to illume This long-explored but still exhaustless mine
Of contemplation ; and the azure gloom
Of an Italian night, where the deep skies assume
Hues which have words, and speak to ye of heaven, Floats o'er this vast and wonderous monument,
And shadows forth its glory. There is given
Unto the things of earth, which Time hath bent, A spirit's feeling, and where he hath leant
His hand, but broke his scythe, there is a power And magic in the ruined battlement,
For which the palace of the present hour
Must yield its pomp, and wait till ages are its dower. . . .
A ruin — yet what ruin ! from its mass
Walls, palaces, half-cities, have been reared ;
Yet oft the enormous skeleton ye pass,
And marvel where the spoil could have appeared. Hath it indeed been plundered, or but cleared ?
Alas ! developed, opens the decay,
When the colossal fabric's form is neared :
It will not bear the brightness of the day,
Which streams too much on all years, man have reft away.
But when the rising moon begins to climb
Its topmost arch, and gently pauses there ;
When the stars twinkle through the loops of time, And the low night breeze waves along the air. The garland forest, which the gray walls wear,
Like laurels on the bald first Caesar's head;
When the light shines serene but doth not glare,
Then in this magic circle raise the dead :
Heroes have trod this spot — 'tis on their dust ye tread.
" While stands the Coliseum, Eome shall stand ; When falls the Coliseum, Rome shall fall ;
And when Rome falls — the World. " From our own land
Thus spake the pilgrims o'er this mighty wall In Saxon times, which we are wont to call
THE PASSING OF HUMANITY. 881
Ancient ; and these three mortal things are still On their foundations, and unaltered all;
Rome and her Ruin past Redemption's skill,
The World, the same wide den — of thieves, or what ye will.
THE PASSING OF HUMANITY.
Bt PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.
(From " Adonais. ")
[Perot Btsshe Shelley, English poet, was born in Sussex, August 4, 1792, and educated at Eton and at University College, Oxford, whence he was expelled for a tract on the "Necessity of Atheism. " His first notable poem, "Queen Mab," was privately printed in 1813. He succeeded to his father's estate in 1815. " Alastor " was completed in 1816 j "The Revolt of Islam," " Rosalind and Helen," and "Julian and Maddalo," in 1818; "Prometheus Unbound," "The Cenci," "The Coliseum," "Peter Bell the Third," and the "Mask of Anarchy," in 1819 ; " CEdipus Tyrannus " and the " Witch of Atlas," in 1820 ; "Epipsychidion," "The Defense of Poetry," "Adonais," and "Hellas," in 1822. He was drowned at sea July 8, 1822. ]
Go thou to Rome, — at once the paradise, The grave, the city, and the wilderness ;
And where its wrecks like shattered mountains rise, And flowering weeds and fragrant copses dress The bones of Desolation's nakedness,
Pass, till the Spirit of the spot shall lead Thy footsteps to a slope of green access,
Where, like an infant's smile, over the dead
A light of laughing flowers along the grass is spread.
And gray walls molder round, on which dull Time Feeds, like slow fire upon a hoary brand ;
And one keen pyramid with wedge sublime,
Pavilioning the dust of him who planned
This refuge for his memory, doth stand
Like flame transformed to marble ; and beneath
A field is spread, on which a newer band
Have pitched in heaven's smile their camp of death,
Welcoming him we lose with scarce-extinguished breath.
Here pause. These graves are all too young as yet To have outgrown the sorrow which consigned
THE PASSING OF HUMANITY.
Its charge to each ; and, if the seal is set
Here on one fountain of a mourning mind, Break it not thou ! too surely shalt thou find
Thine own well full, if thou returnest home,
Of tears and gall. From the world's bitter wind
Seek shelter in the shadow of the tomb. What Adonais is why fear we to become ?
The One remains, the many change and pass ; Heaven's light forever shines, earth's shadows fly ;
Life, like a dome of many-colored glass,
Stains the white radiance of eternity, — Until Death tramples it to fragments. Die,
If thou wouldst be with that which thou dost seek ! Follow where all is fled ! — Rome's azure sky,
Flowers, ruins, statues, music, words, are weak The glory they transfuse with fitting truth to speak.
Why linger, why turn back, why shrink, my heart ? Thy hopes are gone before ; from all things here
They have departed ; thou shouldst now depart. A. light is past from the revolving year
And man and woman ; and what still is dear
Attracts to crush, repels to make thee wither.
The soft sky smiles, the low wind whispers near :
'Tis Adonais calls ! Oh, hasten thither !
No more let life divide what death can join together.
That light whose smile kindles the universe,
That beauty in which all things work and move,
That benediction which the eclipsing curse
Of birth can quench not, that sustaining Love Which, through the web of being blindly wove
By man and beast and earth and air and sea, Burns bright or dim, as each are mirrors of
The fire for which all thirst, now beams on me, Consuming the last clouds of cold mortality.
The breath whose might I have invoked in song Descends on me ; my spirit's bark is driven
Far from the shore, far from the trembling throng Whose sails were never to the tempest given. The massy earth and sphered skies are riven 1
I am borne darkly, fearfully, afar !
Whilst, burning through the inmost veil of heaven,
The soul of Adonais, like a star,
Beacons from the abode where the Eternal are.
POEMS OF PRUDENTIUS. 383
POEMS OF PRUDENTIUS.
[Marcus Aurelius Clemens Prudentius, the chief of Christian Roman poets, was born in northern Spain, a. d. 348. He was a lawyer, then a civil and criminal judge, finally in high office at the imperial court. The date of his death is unknown. In his later years he became deeply religious, and devoted his remaining years to composing religious poetry. ]
The Martyrdom of St. Eulalia.
(Translated by Thomas Dale. )
Firmly she spoke, unshrinking still, Nor sigh nor tear gave sign of pain,
While from each wound a trickling rill Soiled her pure limbs with crimson stain.
At last the closing torture came ; — Untrembling yet from many a wound,
Strongly she met the cruel flame,
And felt it wrap her round and round.
'Tis sad to see her scented hair,
Its last dark glossy ringlets show ;
And leave that ivory shoulder bare, And o'er her modest bosom flow.
The flame is feeding on her charms —— See o'er her head the waving pyre ;
Oh ! see, she clasps it in her arms,
And drinks, with dying lips, the fire.
'Tis past — she sinks — she moves no more — Why sudden turn surrounding eyes ;
Whence came that dove that flutters o'er, Then seeks on milk-white wing the skies ?
Eulalia — loved one — they who watched Thy body turn to dust again,
Beheld thine innocent spirit snatched To realms beyond the reach of pain.
In vain the flames' red spires may brighten, The tyrant may his rage increase,
Thine ashes round the stake may whiten, But thou, sweet maiden, art at peace.
384
POEMS OF PRUDENTIUS.
— The Tyrant heard the pinion's beat, And when that hovering dove he saw,
He started from his guilty seat, And shrunk away in sudden awe.
— And now the tearful scene is over — Of friend or funeral bereft,
The pure, cold snows have fall'n to cover All that is of Eulalia left.
Beneath the weeping heavens she lies, Sepultured in a whiter shroud
*****
Than falls to those whose obsequies Are followed by a gorgeous crowd.
Years have gone o'er — around her grave A goodly city now hath grown ;
Behold her tomb, where Ana's wave Still strives to kiss the sacred stone.
There is the virgin's marble bust, Encircled oft by dewy eyes ;
Snatched from that spot, the holy dust In many a pilgrim bosom lies.
There, chased in gold, is many a wreath, Engemmed is many a flow'ret fair ; They sparkle still, and incense breathe,
As summer had her palace there.
But 'twas in winter when she died, — And winter hath his flow'ret too,
Oh ! pluck the crocus in his pride, And on her tomb the vi'lets strew.
And virgins weave the bard a wreath
Of simple flowers — for such are meet —
And he a choral strain shall breathe, Fearful, and soft, and low — yet sweet
Then thou, Eulalia, shalt look down, Haply from yon blue heaven the while,
And see the early chaplets strewn, And smile a more angelic smile.
A CREEK SLAVE
FROM THE PAINTING BV NONNENBRUCH
THE GREEK SLAVE.
On a Baptismal Font.
On this sad spot — here, where the conscious ground, Foul with the blood of martyrs oft hath been,
A never-failing stream shall still be found,
Whose stainless wave can cleanse from every sin.
Let him, whose heavy soul yet yearns to mount,
Whose hot breast burns for heaven, still seek this spot,
Let him but wash in this eternal font,
His hands are pure, and all their crimes forgot.
Here, where the lightened sinners' thanks are breathed, Of olden time were fearless martyrs crowned, —
Yea, where the holy warrior's head was wreathed By trembling hearts, is kindly pardon found.
The joyful waters sparkle o'er the brim,
Where martyrs' wounds once poured a crimson flood,
And blest are both — and sacred still to Him, Who shed for us that water and that blood !
Ye who have had, when here, asked-for grace, And found this hallowed spot a heaven afford,
What boots it whether to your resting-place, The way was oped by water or the sword ?
THE GREEK SLAVE.
By ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.
Thbt say Ideal beauty cannot enter
The house of anguish. On the threshold stands An alien Image with enshackled hands,
Called the Greek Slave ! as if the artist meant her (That passionless perfection which he lent her,
Shadowed, not darkened, where the sill expands)
To so confront man's crimes in different lands With man's ideal sense. Pierce to the centre, Art's fiery finger, and break up ere long
The serfdom of this world ; Appeal, fair stone,
From God's pure heights of beauty against man's wrong I
Catch up in thy divine face, not alone
East griefs but west, and strike and shame the strong,
By thunders of white silence, overthrown. vol. vii. — 25
386 POKMS OF CLAUDIAN.
POEMS OF CLAUDIAN.
[Claudius Claudianus, the last Roman poet of any eminence, was not a Roman, but an Egyptian, probably of Alexandria, and did not write in Latin till he went to Rome in 395, probably between thirty and forty years old. He then adopted the profession of court poet, and glorified his inglorious trade by his poetic fertility and variety, his fine taste, and his splendid rhetorical force and glow. He had also the fortune of a subject worthy his panegyrics from first to last, — Stilicho, the great Vandal minister and general of the emperor Hono- rius, in whose fall and death in 408 he may have been involved, though there is no trace of him after 404 ; indirectly, however, it is arguable that he withdrew from the public gaze when Stilicho's power began to wane, and wrote no more for several years. He was certainly dead by 425. ]
The Old Man of Verona.
(Translated by Cowley. )
Happy the man who his whole time doth bound Within th' inclosure of his little ground : Happy the man whom the same humble place (Th' hereditary cottage of his race)
From his first rising infancy has known,
And by degrees sees gently bending down,
With natural propension to that earth
Which both preserved his life and gave him birth ; Him no false distant lights, by Fortune set,
Could ever into foolish wand'rings get ;
He never dangers either saw or feared ;
The dreadful storms at sea he never heard :
He never heard the shrill alarms of war,
Or the worse noises of the lawyer's bar :
No change of Consuls marks to him the year ;
The change of seasons in his calendar :
The cold and heat winter and summer shows, Autumn by fruits, and spring by flow'rs, he knows : He measures time by landmarks, and has found
For the whole day the dial of his ground :
A neighb'ring wood, born with himself, he sees, And loves his old contemporary trees :
He's only heard of near Verona's name,
And knows like the Indies, but by fame
Does with like concernment notice take
Of the Red Sea and of Benacus' lake
Thus health and strength he third age enjoys, And sees long posterity of boys.
About the spacious world let others roam,
The voyage life longest made at home.
•
is
a
it,
t' a
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:
:
POEMS OF CLAUDIAN.
Fesqennine Veeses on the Nuptials of Honoeius.
(Translated by Thomas Dale. ) L
0 Prince ! — more fair than Venus' star Amid the dimmer orbs of night,
Who, deadlier than the Parthian far,
Canst draw the bow with guileful might,
Canst wind the fiery steed at will, With more than a Gelonian skill, How shall the poet praises find
To paint thy body and thy mind ?
Leda had rather suckled thee
Than Castor, star of chivalry ;
Thetis in thee had found more joy Than in her own unconquered boy ; Delos, when thee she once hath seen, Shall worship less her Phoebus' mien, And Lydia deem thee more divine Than e'en her rosy god of wine :
For when in exercise' full pride, Fearless thou thread'st the forest wide, And the wind wantons in thy hair,
And the awed lion leaves his lair,
Yet seems a dying pride to feel
When he hath sunk beneath thy steel, Venus, enslaved, forgets her truth, Pledged to the hapless hunter youth, And Cynthia feels redoubled pain, More pale than for her Virbius slain.
When, the day's heat and labor o'er, Thy languid limbs at rest are laid,
Beneath the arching sycamore,
Or some sequestered cavern's shade ;
And thou hast not forbid to creep
Upon thy lids th' officious sleep, —
How many a watching nymph shall pine, And wish her glance were met by thine ; How many a Naiad steal the bliss
That's hidden in a secret kiss 1
What though, in Scythian realms, afar, The overawed barbarian bow
POEMS OF CLAUDIAN.
And drop his implements of war
At sight of that commanding brow, —
And, on his undefended plains, — Resignedly receive thy chains ;
Go — if thy unslaked courage wills, 'Mid wintry Caucasus' hoar hills, — Go, — where the frozen plains obey The Amazon — more cold than they ; And, careless of her Sire and Name, At length the haughty virgin dame, The proud Hyppolite, shall yield
To thee her yet unconquered shield,
And, sighing — though the trumpet sound — Chop her keen ax upon the ground —
What violence could never move,
Shall melt before the touch of Love ;
— Happy, beyond the tongue of verse,
Could she but match in such a line ; For blest is she, who calls thee hers, —
Thrice blest, when thou shalt call her thine.
ii.
Oh ! let the Spring, that was in haste to go, Fly to return, and gild this happy day ;
In liquid music let the waters flow,
And sweeter cadence ring from every spray :
Smile, ye Ligurian plains — smile, festive Rome ; Ye hills, let sunny wreaths your brows inclose,
Amid your Alpine peaks, let roses bloom, And lend their blushes to the virgin snows.
O'er Adige' wave the coral message floats,
And Mincius, as his winding stream he leads,
Is listening to the joy -rebounding notes,
And scarcely whispers to his trembling reed.
It echoes down the alder-fringed Po ; Old Tiber dances at the joyous sound ;
And at her lordly master's nuptials, lo!
Rome's stately towers with smiling chaplets crowned I
Let the far land, from whence our hero sprung — The fervid skies of wild and distant Spain —
Let that famed hall, with early laurels hung, Hear and reecho the triumphant strain.
POEMS OF CLAUDIAN.
Thence came thy sire — thy sire, when thou hast plighted Thy troth, sweet Bride — thence, Prince, thy mother came
Now, like two streams that meet, long disunited, Your race shall flow in one continued fame.
Ye groves of Boetis, smile a brighter green ; Thou, Tagus, roll in all thy pride of gold ; King of your line — beneath the blue serene,
Let Ocean his paternal orgies hold.
Realms of the West and East — your toils forget; Let wine and mirth your every hour employ ;
Let Phoebus, from his rising till he set, Laugh to see nothing on his way but joy.
And thou, rude North wind, wither not one wreath, Be still thou East — nor thou, 0 South, arise,
But let young Zephyr, only, dare to breathe, In breath as gentle as the lover's sighs.
m.
Yea, Stilicho, thy whitening hair
Is wont the shining casque to wear ;
But lay thy frowning helmet down,
And put thee on a festive crown ;
No longer with the trumpets' sound
Thy palace' blazing arches ring ;
The torch that Hymen loves to bring
Hath sprinkled its bland light around ; Those charms, which erst thou took'st away, Again thou giv'st, this happy day,
— Let malice rage — but vainly still —
Let envy take what hue she will.
What erst Serena was to thee,
Shall Mary to Honorius be.
IV.
Lo ! Hesper, how, to Venus dear
His silvery-shining lamp he rears ; He marks the blushing virgin's fear, And smiles to see her maiden tears.
POEMS OF CLAUDIAN.
Yes ; soothe her, bridegroom. — Well he knows, Though smiles for such an hour were meeter, These tears, like dewdrops to the rose,
Shall make her morning lip the sweeter.
He, of the thorn must take no heed, Who would not let the bud go free ; And he, who would on honey feed, Must never mark the angry bee.
As, when the rain clouds make retreat, The sudden day seems doubly clear, So, there can be no kiss so sweet
As one that's ushered by a tear. —
— "War, I have known thee," shalt thou cry, " The humbled foe — the victor's bliss ;
But never flashed young warrior's eye
For conquest half so blest as this. " —
Love, on thy couch, himself enthrones ; Reveal him — for he made ye one — And hear her tongue respond, in tones That silence' self might dote upon.
Speak him — in many a broken sigh; Breathe all affection's holiest balm ; — Oh ! clasp, with more of constancy Than e'er the ivy clasped the palm.
And when her languid lids shall close,
And in oblivious bliss she lies,
Thy breath — like sleep's — shall shed repose Upon her silken-fringed eyes, —
— At the first peep of blushing morn, The joyous strain shall be renewed,
And gladness on each brow be worn,
And mirth unlaced, and garlands strewed.
Nymphs — grant the smile, extend the hand; Swains — warriors — put on all your pride ; Winds waft the voice, from land to land ;
" Honorius hath brought home his bride. "
ROMAN AND PROVINCIAL LIFE IN FIFTH CENTURY. 391
ROMAN AND PROVINCIAL LIFE IN THE FIFTH CENTURY.
(From the Letters of Apollinaris Sidonlus : translated by Thomas Hodgkin, in " Italy and her Invaders," with his comments. )
Caius Sollius Sidonius Apollinaris, poet, ecclesiastic, courtier, and letter- writer, was born at Lyons about 430. His father-in-law AVitus having become one of Count Ricimer's puppet emperors, he went to Rome in his train, was made governor, patrician, and senator, and by suppleness, effusive panegyrics, and real ability kept high office under Majorian and Anthemius. In 472 he was made bishop of Clermont in Auvergne, and renounced all his civil dignities to devote himself to this charge. He died between 480 and 490. His literary im mortality is based on his letters, and most on those he cared least about — those which give tantalizing glimpses, all too few, of the beginnings of fusion among the barbarian invaders and the Roman provincials into the Burgundian French. ]
The Fortune Hunter.
In the early days of the episcopate of Sidonius, a certain Amantius asked him for letters of introduction to Marseilles. With his usual good nature, Sidonius gave him a letter to Graecus, bishop of that city, describing him as a poor but honest man, who transacted what we should call a commission busi ness in the purchase of cargoes arriving at the seaports of Gaul. He had been lately appointed a reader in the church, — a post which was not incompatible with his transactions in busi ness, — and this gave him an additional claim on the good offices of the two bishops. The letter concluded with the ex pression of a hope that Amantius might meet with splendid success as a merchant, and might not regret exchanging the cold springs of Auvergne for the fountain of wealth flowing at Marseilles.
Not long after, Sidonius discovered that he had been im posed upon by a swindler ; that the modest young man who desired an introduction to Marseilles was in fact too well known at Marseilles already, and that the honest broker was an impu dent and mendacious fortune hunter. Having occasion to write again to Graecus, who had asked him for " one of his long and amusing letters," he thought that he could not do better than send him the history of Amantius, though the bishop of Mar seilles must have been already in good part acquainted with it, and the bishop of Arverni must have been conscious that the part which he had played did not reflect great credit on his
392 ROMAN AND PROVINCIAL LIFE IN FIFTH CENTURY.
shrewdness. —After a complimentary preface, the letter pro ceeds thus :
" His native country is Auvergne ; his parents are persons in a somewhat humble position in life, but free and unencumbered with debt ; their duties have been in connection with the service of the church rather than of the state. The father is a man of extreme frugality, more intent on saving up money for his children than on pleasing them. This lad accordingly left his home and came to your city with a very slender equipment in all respects. Notwithstanding this hindrance to his ambitious projects, he made a fairly successful start among you. St. Eustachius, your predecessor, welcomed him with deeds and words of kindness, and put him in the way of quickly obtaining comfortable quarters. He at once began to cultivate assidu ously the acquaintance of his neighbors, and his civilities were well received. He adapted himself with great tact to their different ages, showing deference to the old, making himself useful to his coevals, and always exhibiting a modesty and sobriety in his moral conduct which are as praiseworthy as they are rare in young men. At length, by well-timed and frequent calls, he became known to and familiar with the lead ing personages of your city, and finally even with the count himself. Thus the assiduous court which he paid to greatness was rewarded with ever-increasing success ; worthy men vied in helping him with their advice and good wishes ; he received presents from the wealthy, favors of one kind or another from all, and thus his fortune and his hopes advanced ' by leaps and bounds. '
"It happened by chance that near the inn where he was lodging there dwelt a lady of some fortune and high character, whose daughter had passed the years of childhood, yet had scarcely reached the marriageable age. He showed himself very kind to this girl, and made, as her youth allowed him to do, trifling presents to her of toys and trash that would divert a girl ; and thus, at a very trifling expense, obtained a firm hold on her affections. Years passed on ; she became old enough to be a bride. To make a long story short, you have on the one side a young man, alone, poorly off, a stranger, a son who had skulked away from home not only without the consent, but even without the knowledge, of his father ; on the other, a girl not inferior to him in birth, and superior to him in fortune ; and this fellow, through the introduction of
ROMAN AND PROVINCIAL LIFE IN FIFTH CENTURY. 393
the bishop because he was a reader, by favor of the count because he had danced attendance in his hall, without any investigation as to his circumstances by the mother-in-law because his person was not displeasing to her daughter, woos and wins and marries that young lady. The marriage articles are signed, and in them some beggarly little plot of ground which he happened to possess near our borough is set forth with truly comic pomposity. When the solemn swindle was accomplished, the poor beloved one carried off his wealthy rpouse, after diligently hunting up all the possessions of his late father-in-law and converting them into money, besides adding to them a handsome gratuity drawn from the easy generosity of his credulous mother-in-law, and then, unrivaled humbug that he was, he beat a retreat to his own native place.
" Some time after he had gone, the girl's mother discovered the fraud, and had to mourn over the dwindling proportions of the estates comprised in her daughter's settlement, at the very time when she should have been rejoicing over the augmented number of her grandchildren. She wanted to institute a suit for recovery of her money, on the ground that he had fraudu lently overstated his property ; and it was in fact in order to soothe her wrath that our new Hippolytus set forth for Mar seilles, when he first brought you my letter of introduction.
" Now, then, you have the whole story of this excellent young man ; a story, I think, worthy of the Milesian Fables or an Attic comedy. It remains for you to show yourself a worthy successor of Bishop Eustachius by discharging the duties of patronage to the dear youth whom he took under his protection. You asked me for a lengthy letter, and therefore if it is rather wordy than eloquent you must not take it amiss. Condescend to keep me in your remembrance, my Lord Pope. "
What was the issue of the quarrel between the amatory Amantius and his mother-in-law we are not informed ; but as he acted twice after this as letter carrier between Sidonius and Graecus, we may conjecture that the affair of the settlement took some time to arrange.
Debtor akd Creditor ; the Courtier Turned Devout.
Sidonius wishes health to his friend Turnus.
Well indeed with your name, and with your present business, harmonizes that passage of the Mantuan poet —
394 ROMAN AND PROVINCIAL LIFE IN FIFTH CENTURY.
Turnus ! what never god would dare To promise to his suppliant's prayer, Lo, here, the lapse of time has brought E'en to your hands, unasked, unsought.
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
368 STILICHO AND ALARIC.
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
STILICHO AND ALARIC. 369
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
STILICHO AND ALARIC. 371
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.
The Senate sent an embassy to the Emperor to represent to him the piteous condition of the Mistress of the World, and implore him to consent to the treaty with Alaric. Honorius tore himself away for a few hours from his poultry, heard ap parently without emotion the sufferings of his people, gave a step in official rank to two of the ambassadors, and declined their request. As soon as the news of this refusal reached Alaric he recommenced the blockade of the city.
372 STILICHO AND ALARIC.
Practically all power centered in Jovius [who had supplanted Olympius] ; and Jovius, as having overthrown the enemy of StUicho, and also as having been of old "guest-friend" of Alaric in Epirus, had peculiar facilities for effecting that accommodation with the Visigothic king which the state imperatively required. With the Emperor's consent he invited Alaric to a conference, which was held at Rimini, about thirty Roman miles from Ravenna. [Terms were fixed for an accommodation . ]
In transmitting these demands to his master, Jovius gave a secret hint that probably if Alaric himself were gratified with some high official position, such as that of Magiiter Utriusque Militice (Captain-General of Horse and Foot), he would be found willing to abate considerably from the stringency of his demands. To this Honorius replied, — and for once we do hear a man's voice, though not a wise man's, — "You have behaved hastily in this matter. Payments of gold and subsi dies of corn belong to your duty as pretorian prefect, and I do not blame you for having arranged these according to your own judgment. But military command it is mine alone to bestow, and I hold it unfitting that such offices as you name should ever be held by Alaric or any of his race. "
This letter arrived when Jovius and Alaric were conversing. Was it pique against the Emperor, was it despair, was it mere folly, that impelled the minister to read it from the beginning to the end in the hearing of the Visigoth ? Alaric listened to all the rest of the letter patiently enough, but when he heard the scornful close he broke off the negotiations abruptly, and declared that he would revenge on Rome herself the insult offered to himself and his race.
Jovius, whose conduct is a perfect mystery of needless vil lainy, — who, in short, behaved exactly like an Italian states man of the sixteenth century who had lost his Machiavel, — rushed back to Ravenna, and induced the Emperor to take an oath that he would conclude no peace with Alaric, but would wage against him perpetual war. When Honorius had taken this oath, Jovius, touching the Emperor's head, repeated the same words, and all who held high office in the state were com pelled to follow his example. And yet every one of these men in his secret heart knew that a just and honorable peace with Alaric was the only chance of rescuing Rome from impending destruction.
STILICHO AND ALARIC. 373
Honorius made some feeble preparations for war, enrolled 10,000 Huns in his armies, imported cattle and sheep from Dalmatia for the provisionment of Ravenna, and sent some scouts to watch the progress of the Gothic army towards Rome.
But again Alaric, though duped and insulted, was seized by one of those strange qualms of awe or compassion which so often might have saved the Imperial City. He offered in fact to abate three provinces, Venetia, Istria, and Dalmatia, from his former demand, and to be satisfied with the two Noricums alone [Austria proper, Styria, and Corinthia], provinces already so wasted by barbarian invasions as to be of very small value to the treasury. He asked for no office or dignity, civil or mili tary, nor even for gold, but only for such a supply of rations to his troops as the Emperor himself should consider reason able ; and in return for these slight concessions he promised friendship and military assistance against any enemy who might arise to trouble the peace of Honorius and his Romans. The moderation of Alaric excited general surprise, for in truth his demands were such as an Augustus might almost have con ceded to an Arminius, or a Trajan to a Decebalus ; but, for some reason hidden from us, Jovius and his creatures did not dare to advise their acceptance. The Visigoth, pale with rage at the tidings of the refusal of his request, set to work without further forbearance to commence the Second Siege of the City.
The second siege of Rome by Alaric is one of the surprises of history. With the remembrance of the terrible famine and pestilence which accompanied the first siege vividly before us, with the knowledge of the repeated insults since then inflicted upon the Visigothic king, we expect to see some great and dole ful tragedy enacted upon the Seven Hills. Far from it : the curtain is drawn up, and we behold, instead of a tragedy, a burlesque, the title whereof is " The Ten Months' Emperor, or Attalus the ^Esthetic. "
The citizens of Rome saw once more the Gothic army encamped around their walls, Ostia occupied, the large stores of provisions there collected taken possession of by the barba rians. They had no desire to see the experiments of last year as to the possible articles of human diet repeated ; they began to ask themselves, very naturally, "Since Honorius does nothing to protect us, and since he can neither make war nor peace with Alaric, but only shuts himself up behind the ditches of Ravenna, leaving us to bear all the burden of the war, why should we
374 STILICHO AND ALARIC.
suffer any more in his quarrel ? " They explained their feelings to the king of the Goths, and speedily an arrangement was made which seemed likely to satisfy all parties. The Imperial City formally renounced her allegiance to Honorius, and be stowed the purple and the diadem on Attalus, the Prefect of the City, who as Augustus at once concluded the long-desired treaty of peace with Alaric.
[Attalus' head was turned, and he tried to act as a real — and foolish — emperor. ]
The patience of Alaric gave way. He marched back to Rimini, his nearest outpost towards Ravenna, commanded Attalus to wait upon him, and there, in the plain outside the town, in sight of the Gothic army and the Roman inhabitants, he stripped him of his diadem and purple robe, and proclaimed that he was degraded to the condition of a private citizen. The unhappy Greek, so proudly self-inflated and so ignominiously collapsing, had reigned for something less than a year.
Alaric, in order to give Honorius visible tokens of the change in his policy, sent to the court of Ravenna the imperial ensigns which he had stripped from his dethroned client. The officers also who had received their commands from the usurper, restored their military belts to the legitimate Emperor, and humbly implored his forgiveness. "And now, surely," any discriminating observer might have thought "a just and honorable peace will be concluded between Alaric and Hono rius, and Italy will rest from her anguish. " The hindrance to the fulfillment of these hopes came this time from Sarus the Goth. With 300 chosen warriors he entered Ravenna and exerted all his influence to break off the negotiations between Honorius and the Visigoths. He succeeded: Alaric retired from the conferences and marched southwards, this time in deadly earnest, intent upon the Third Siege of Rome.
Of this, the crowning act of the great drama, the real end of old Rome, the real beginning of modern history, it must be confessed that we scarcely know more than we do of the fall of Babylon. Rome, which had described with such eager minute ness the death pangs of a hundred cities which she had taken, has left untold the story of her own overthrow.
Alaric was spared, this time, the necessity of reducing the city by a slow blockade. On the night of the 24th of August, it would seem almost immediately after his appearance before the walls, his troops burst in by the Salarian Gate. The splendid palace of Sallust was set on fire.
STUJCHO AND ALARIC.
375
It was said in a preceding chapter that we must not think of the Visigoths as savages, scarcely even, except in the classi cal sense of the word, as barbarians. Now, however, that they have entered Rome, now that, after years of waiting and march ing and diplomatizing, the prize is at last theirs, the accumu lated treasures of the world at their feet, and few days in which to pick them up, we may have to fall back for a time upon that more popular conception of their character. Though the soldiers of Alaric were ministers of mercy when compared with those of Alva or Tilly, we cannot doubt that brutality and outrage of every kind marked their entrance into the con quered city.
The amount of injury done by the Goths to the city itself it is not easy to determine. Writers who were remote from the scene and declamatory in their style speak as if the whole city had been wrapped in flames, every building shattered, nothing left but ruins. It is easy to see from subsequent descriptions of the appearance of the city that this is a gross exaggeration ; and it is a priori most improbable that the Goths, who only stayed a short time in Rome, and had much plundering to accomplish in that time, should have devoted so large a part of their energies to the destruction of mere buildings. Orosius, writing history as an advocate, and having to maintain the thesis that Rome had not suffered since her conversion to Christianity greater calami ties than befell her in her pagan times, is not, it must be ad mitted, an entirely trustworthy witness on this point. But he, a contemporary writer, distinctly says that " the destruction wrought by fire at the hands of the Gothic conqueror was not to be compared with that caused by accident in the 700th year from the foundation of the city. " This verdict seems a probable one, and may support a conjecture that Rome suffered less, externally, from the barbarians in 410, than Paris from the leaders of the Commune in 1871.
Alaric and his Goths pressed on still southwards into Brut- tii, the modern Calabria. They collected some ships at Reggio — intending to invade Sicily, some historians say ; to pass on thence into Africa, says Jornandes the Goth. There can be lit tle doubt that he is right, that Africa was the present object of Alaric's attack. Not necessarily, however, the ultimate object. His military instinct showed him that there, in the great gran ary of Rome, must the question of dominion over the Eternal City be decided. He was going, then, to Africa, but doubtless with the intention of returning to Rome.
376 STILICHO AND ALARIC.
But whatever might be his intentions, they were frustrated. This wave of Teutonic invasion had reached its extreme limit at Reggio, and was henceforward to recede. " Thou breakest the ships of Tarshish with an east wind " was perhaps the jubi lant cry of the inhabitants of Messina, when they saw a great storm arise, by which Alaric's fleet was dashed to pieces, and a considerable part of his army, already embarked thereon,
The Visigothic king could not bring himself to ac knowledge defeat, even by the elements. He lingered near Reggio, still perhaps dreaming of conquests beyond the seas. Suddenly, in the midst of his warlike schemes, Death surprised him. We are told nothing as to the nature of his malady, ex cept that it was of short duration. It is probable that in his case, as in that of so many other Northern invaders of Italy, climate proved itself mightier than armies, and that Fever was the great avenger.
The well-known story of the burial of Alaric derives some additional interest from the remembrance of his birthplace. He was born, as the reader may remember, on an island at the mouth of one of the greatest rivers of Europe. The flow of the broad but sluggish Danube, the sound of the wind in the pine trees, the distant thunder of the Euxine upon its shore, — these were the sounds most familiar to the ear of the young Visigoth. Now that he had swept with resistless force from the Black Sea to the Straits of Messina, a river must flow over his grave as it had encircled his cradle. Forth from the high pine woods of the Calabrian mountain range of Sila leaps the stream of the Bu- sento, which, meeting the larger river Crati coming from the Apennines, encircles the town of Cosenza, where the great Visi goth met his death. To provide their leader with a tomb which no Italian hand should desecrate, the barbarians compelled a number of their captives to labor at diverting the Busento from its ordinary channel. In the dry bed of the river they dug the grave, in which, amid many of the chosen spoils of Rome, the body of Alaric was laid. The captives were then ordered to turn the river back into its ancient course, and their faithful guardianship of the grim secret was secured by the inviolable seal of death printed upon their lips. So, under the health-bring ing waters of the rapid Busento, sleeps Ala-Reiks the Visigoth, equaled, may it not be said, by only three men in succeeding times as a changer of the course of history. And these three are Mohammed, Columbus, Napoleon.
destroyed.
Upon the Ruins
From the painting by Jean Paul Laurens
THE RUINS OF ROME. 377
THE RUINS OF ROME. By LORD BYRON.
(From "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. ")
[Lord George Noel Gordow Byron : A famous English poet ; born in London, January 22, 1788. At the age of ten he succeeded to the estate and title of his granduncle William, fifth Lord Byron. He was educated at Harrow and Cambridge, and in 1807 published his first volume of poems, " Hours of Idleness. " After a tour through eastern Europe he brought out two cantos of "Childe Harold," which met with instantaneous success, and soon after he married the heiress Miss Millbanke. The union proving unfortunate, Byron left England, and passed several years in Italy. In 1823 he joined the Greek insur gents in Cephalonia, and later at Missolonghi, where he died of a fever April 19, 1824. His chief poetical works"are : "Childe Harold," "Don Juan," "Manfred," "Cain," "Marino Faliero," Sardanapalus," "The Giaour," "Bride of Aby- dos," "The Corsair," "Lara," and "Mazeppa. "]
0 Eome, my country ! city of the soul !
The orphans of the heart must turn to thee,
Lone mother of dead empires ! and control
In their shut breasts their petty misery.
What are our woes and sufferings ? Come and see
The cypress, hear the owl, and plod your way O'er steps of broken thrones and empires, Ye
Whose agonies are creatures of a day !
A world is at our feet as fragile as our clay.
The Niobe of nations ! There she stands, Childless and crownless in her voiceless woe ;
An empty urn within her withered hands, Whose holy dust was scattered long ago : The Scipios' tomb contains no ashes now ;
The very sepulchres lie tenantless
Of their heroic dwellers : dost thou flow,
Old Tiber ! through a marble wilderness ?
Rise, with thy yellow waves, and mantle her distress !
The Goth, the Christian, time, war, flood, and fire, Have dealt upon the seven-hilled city's pride ;
She saw her glories star by star expire,
And up the steep barbarian monarchs ride,
Where the car climbed the Capitol ; far and wide
Temple and tower went down, nor left a site : Chaos of ruins ! who shall trace the void,
O'er the dim fragments cast a lunar light,
And say, " Here was, or is," where all is doubly night ?
378 THE RUINS OF ROME.
' The double night of ages, and of her,
Night's daughter, Ignorance, hath wrapt and wrap
All around us ; we but feel our way to err :
The ocean hath its chart, the stars their map, And Knowledge spreads them on her ample lap :
But Rome is as the desert, where we steer Stumbling o'er recollections : now we clap"
Our hands, and cry, "Eureka ! it is clear — When but some false mirage of ruin rises near.
Alas, the lofty city ! and alas,
The trebly hundred triumphs, and the day
When Brutus made the dagger's edge surpass The conqueror's sword in bearing fame away ! Alas for Tully's voice, and Virgil's lay,
And Livy's pictured page ! but these shall be Her resurrection : all beside, decay.
Alas for earth, for never shall we see
That brightness in her eye she bore when Rome was free! . . .
Cypress and ivy, weed and wall flower grown. Matted and massed together, hillocks heaped
On what were chambers, arch crushed, column strown In fragments, choked up vaults, and frescoes steeped In subterranean damps, where the owl peeped,
Deeming it midnight : — Temples, baths, or halls ? Pronounce who can ; for all that Learning reaped
From her research hath been, that these are walls — Behold the Imperial Mount ! 'tis thus the mighty falls.
There is the moral of all human tales ; 'Tis but the same rehearsal of the past.
First Freedom and then Glory — when that fails, Wealth, vice, corruption, — barbarism at last. And History, with all her volumes vast,
Hath but one page, — 'tis better written here , Where gorgeous Tyranny hath thus amassed
All treasures, all delights, that eye or ear,
Heart, soul could seek, tongue ask — Away with words ! draw near,
Admire, exult — despise — laugh, weep — for here There is such matter for all feeling : — Man !
Thou pendulum betwixt a smile and tear, Ages and realms are crowded in this span,
THE RUINS OF ROME.
This mountain, whose obliterated plan The pyramid of empires pinnacled,
Of Glory's gewgaws shining in the van
Till the sun's rays with added flame were filled !
Where are its golden roofs ! where those who dared to build ?
Tully was not so eloquent as thou,
Thou nameless column with the buried base !
What are the laurels of the Caesars' brow ? Crown me with ivy from his dwelling place. Whose arch or pillar meets me in the face,
Titus' or Trajan's ? No — 'tis that of Time : Triumph, arch, pillar, all he doth displace
Scoffing ; and apostolic statues climb
To crush the imperial urn, whose ashes slept sublime,
Buried in air, the deep blue sky of Rome,
And looking to the stars : they had contained
A spirit which with these would find a home,
The last of those who o'er the whole earth reigned, The Roman globe, for after none sustained,
But yielded back his conquests : — he was more Than a mere Alexander, and, unstained
With household blood and wine, serenely wore
His sovereign virtues — still we Trajan's name adore.
Where is the rock of Triumph, the high place
Where Rome embraced her heroes ? where the steep
Tarpeian ? fittest goal of Treason's race,
The promontory whence the Traitor's Leap Cured all ambition. Did the conquerors heap
Their spoils here ? Yes ; and in yon field below, A thousand years of silenced factions sleep —
The Forum, where the immortal accents glow,
And still the eloquent air breathes — burns with Cicero !
The field of freedom, faction, fame, and blood : Here a proud people's passions were exhaled,
From the first hour of empire in the bud
To that when further worlds to conquer failed ; But long before had Freedom's face been veiled,
And Anarchy assumed her attributes ; Till every lawless soldier who assailed
Trod on the trembling Senate's slavish mutes, Or raised the venal voice of baser prostitutes. . . .
380
THE RUINS OF ROME.
Arches on arches ! as it were that Rome, Collecting the chief trophies of her line,
Would build up all her triumphs in one dome, Her Coliseum stands ; the moonbeams shine As 'twere its natural torches, for divine
Should be the light which streams here, to illume This long-explored but still exhaustless mine
Of contemplation ; and the azure gloom
Of an Italian night, where the deep skies assume
Hues which have words, and speak to ye of heaven, Floats o'er this vast and wonderous monument,
And shadows forth its glory. There is given
Unto the things of earth, which Time hath bent, A spirit's feeling, and where he hath leant
His hand, but broke his scythe, there is a power And magic in the ruined battlement,
For which the palace of the present hour
Must yield its pomp, and wait till ages are its dower. . . .
A ruin — yet what ruin ! from its mass
Walls, palaces, half-cities, have been reared ;
Yet oft the enormous skeleton ye pass,
And marvel where the spoil could have appeared. Hath it indeed been plundered, or but cleared ?
Alas ! developed, opens the decay,
When the colossal fabric's form is neared :
It will not bear the brightness of the day,
Which streams too much on all years, man have reft away.
But when the rising moon begins to climb
Its topmost arch, and gently pauses there ;
When the stars twinkle through the loops of time, And the low night breeze waves along the air. The garland forest, which the gray walls wear,
Like laurels on the bald first Caesar's head;
When the light shines serene but doth not glare,
Then in this magic circle raise the dead :
Heroes have trod this spot — 'tis on their dust ye tread.
" While stands the Coliseum, Eome shall stand ; When falls the Coliseum, Rome shall fall ;
And when Rome falls — the World. " From our own land
Thus spake the pilgrims o'er this mighty wall In Saxon times, which we are wont to call
THE PASSING OF HUMANITY. 881
Ancient ; and these three mortal things are still On their foundations, and unaltered all;
Rome and her Ruin past Redemption's skill,
The World, the same wide den — of thieves, or what ye will.
THE PASSING OF HUMANITY.
Bt PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.
(From " Adonais. ")
[Perot Btsshe Shelley, English poet, was born in Sussex, August 4, 1792, and educated at Eton and at University College, Oxford, whence he was expelled for a tract on the "Necessity of Atheism. " His first notable poem, "Queen Mab," was privately printed in 1813. He succeeded to his father's estate in 1815. " Alastor " was completed in 1816 j "The Revolt of Islam," " Rosalind and Helen," and "Julian and Maddalo," in 1818; "Prometheus Unbound," "The Cenci," "The Coliseum," "Peter Bell the Third," and the "Mask of Anarchy," in 1819 ; " CEdipus Tyrannus " and the " Witch of Atlas," in 1820 ; "Epipsychidion," "The Defense of Poetry," "Adonais," and "Hellas," in 1822. He was drowned at sea July 8, 1822. ]
Go thou to Rome, — at once the paradise, The grave, the city, and the wilderness ;
And where its wrecks like shattered mountains rise, And flowering weeds and fragrant copses dress The bones of Desolation's nakedness,
Pass, till the Spirit of the spot shall lead Thy footsteps to a slope of green access,
Where, like an infant's smile, over the dead
A light of laughing flowers along the grass is spread.
And gray walls molder round, on which dull Time Feeds, like slow fire upon a hoary brand ;
And one keen pyramid with wedge sublime,
Pavilioning the dust of him who planned
This refuge for his memory, doth stand
Like flame transformed to marble ; and beneath
A field is spread, on which a newer band
Have pitched in heaven's smile their camp of death,
Welcoming him we lose with scarce-extinguished breath.
Here pause. These graves are all too young as yet To have outgrown the sorrow which consigned
THE PASSING OF HUMANITY.
Its charge to each ; and, if the seal is set
Here on one fountain of a mourning mind, Break it not thou ! too surely shalt thou find
Thine own well full, if thou returnest home,
Of tears and gall. From the world's bitter wind
Seek shelter in the shadow of the tomb. What Adonais is why fear we to become ?
The One remains, the many change and pass ; Heaven's light forever shines, earth's shadows fly ;
Life, like a dome of many-colored glass,
Stains the white radiance of eternity, — Until Death tramples it to fragments. Die,
If thou wouldst be with that which thou dost seek ! Follow where all is fled ! — Rome's azure sky,
Flowers, ruins, statues, music, words, are weak The glory they transfuse with fitting truth to speak.
Why linger, why turn back, why shrink, my heart ? Thy hopes are gone before ; from all things here
They have departed ; thou shouldst now depart. A. light is past from the revolving year
And man and woman ; and what still is dear
Attracts to crush, repels to make thee wither.
The soft sky smiles, the low wind whispers near :
'Tis Adonais calls ! Oh, hasten thither !
No more let life divide what death can join together.
That light whose smile kindles the universe,
That beauty in which all things work and move,
That benediction which the eclipsing curse
Of birth can quench not, that sustaining Love Which, through the web of being blindly wove
By man and beast and earth and air and sea, Burns bright or dim, as each are mirrors of
The fire for which all thirst, now beams on me, Consuming the last clouds of cold mortality.
The breath whose might I have invoked in song Descends on me ; my spirit's bark is driven
Far from the shore, far from the trembling throng Whose sails were never to the tempest given. The massy earth and sphered skies are riven 1
I am borne darkly, fearfully, afar !
Whilst, burning through the inmost veil of heaven,
The soul of Adonais, like a star,
Beacons from the abode where the Eternal are.
POEMS OF PRUDENTIUS. 383
POEMS OF PRUDENTIUS.
[Marcus Aurelius Clemens Prudentius, the chief of Christian Roman poets, was born in northern Spain, a. d. 348. He was a lawyer, then a civil and criminal judge, finally in high office at the imperial court. The date of his death is unknown. In his later years he became deeply religious, and devoted his remaining years to composing religious poetry. ]
The Martyrdom of St. Eulalia.
(Translated by Thomas Dale. )
Firmly she spoke, unshrinking still, Nor sigh nor tear gave sign of pain,
While from each wound a trickling rill Soiled her pure limbs with crimson stain.
At last the closing torture came ; — Untrembling yet from many a wound,
Strongly she met the cruel flame,
And felt it wrap her round and round.
'Tis sad to see her scented hair,
Its last dark glossy ringlets show ;
And leave that ivory shoulder bare, And o'er her modest bosom flow.
The flame is feeding on her charms —— See o'er her head the waving pyre ;
Oh ! see, she clasps it in her arms,
And drinks, with dying lips, the fire.
'Tis past — she sinks — she moves no more — Why sudden turn surrounding eyes ;
Whence came that dove that flutters o'er, Then seeks on milk-white wing the skies ?
Eulalia — loved one — they who watched Thy body turn to dust again,
Beheld thine innocent spirit snatched To realms beyond the reach of pain.
In vain the flames' red spires may brighten, The tyrant may his rage increase,
Thine ashes round the stake may whiten, But thou, sweet maiden, art at peace.
384
POEMS OF PRUDENTIUS.
— The Tyrant heard the pinion's beat, And when that hovering dove he saw,
He started from his guilty seat, And shrunk away in sudden awe.
— And now the tearful scene is over — Of friend or funeral bereft,
The pure, cold snows have fall'n to cover All that is of Eulalia left.
Beneath the weeping heavens she lies, Sepultured in a whiter shroud
*****
Than falls to those whose obsequies Are followed by a gorgeous crowd.
Years have gone o'er — around her grave A goodly city now hath grown ;
Behold her tomb, where Ana's wave Still strives to kiss the sacred stone.
There is the virgin's marble bust, Encircled oft by dewy eyes ;
Snatched from that spot, the holy dust In many a pilgrim bosom lies.
There, chased in gold, is many a wreath, Engemmed is many a flow'ret fair ; They sparkle still, and incense breathe,
As summer had her palace there.
But 'twas in winter when she died, — And winter hath his flow'ret too,
Oh ! pluck the crocus in his pride, And on her tomb the vi'lets strew.
And virgins weave the bard a wreath
Of simple flowers — for such are meet —
And he a choral strain shall breathe, Fearful, and soft, and low — yet sweet
Then thou, Eulalia, shalt look down, Haply from yon blue heaven the while,
And see the early chaplets strewn, And smile a more angelic smile.
A CREEK SLAVE
FROM THE PAINTING BV NONNENBRUCH
THE GREEK SLAVE.
On a Baptismal Font.
On this sad spot — here, where the conscious ground, Foul with the blood of martyrs oft hath been,
A never-failing stream shall still be found,
Whose stainless wave can cleanse from every sin.
Let him, whose heavy soul yet yearns to mount,
Whose hot breast burns for heaven, still seek this spot,
Let him but wash in this eternal font,
His hands are pure, and all their crimes forgot.
Here, where the lightened sinners' thanks are breathed, Of olden time were fearless martyrs crowned, —
Yea, where the holy warrior's head was wreathed By trembling hearts, is kindly pardon found.
The joyful waters sparkle o'er the brim,
Where martyrs' wounds once poured a crimson flood,
And blest are both — and sacred still to Him, Who shed for us that water and that blood !
Ye who have had, when here, asked-for grace, And found this hallowed spot a heaven afford,
What boots it whether to your resting-place, The way was oped by water or the sword ?
THE GREEK SLAVE.
By ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.
Thbt say Ideal beauty cannot enter
The house of anguish. On the threshold stands An alien Image with enshackled hands,
Called the Greek Slave ! as if the artist meant her (That passionless perfection which he lent her,
Shadowed, not darkened, where the sill expands)
To so confront man's crimes in different lands With man's ideal sense. Pierce to the centre, Art's fiery finger, and break up ere long
The serfdom of this world ; Appeal, fair stone,
From God's pure heights of beauty against man's wrong I
Catch up in thy divine face, not alone
East griefs but west, and strike and shame the strong,
By thunders of white silence, overthrown. vol. vii. — 25
386 POKMS OF CLAUDIAN.
POEMS OF CLAUDIAN.
[Claudius Claudianus, the last Roman poet of any eminence, was not a Roman, but an Egyptian, probably of Alexandria, and did not write in Latin till he went to Rome in 395, probably between thirty and forty years old. He then adopted the profession of court poet, and glorified his inglorious trade by his poetic fertility and variety, his fine taste, and his splendid rhetorical force and glow. He had also the fortune of a subject worthy his panegyrics from first to last, — Stilicho, the great Vandal minister and general of the emperor Hono- rius, in whose fall and death in 408 he may have been involved, though there is no trace of him after 404 ; indirectly, however, it is arguable that he withdrew from the public gaze when Stilicho's power began to wane, and wrote no more for several years. He was certainly dead by 425. ]
The Old Man of Verona.
(Translated by Cowley. )
Happy the man who his whole time doth bound Within th' inclosure of his little ground : Happy the man whom the same humble place (Th' hereditary cottage of his race)
From his first rising infancy has known,
And by degrees sees gently bending down,
With natural propension to that earth
Which both preserved his life and gave him birth ; Him no false distant lights, by Fortune set,
Could ever into foolish wand'rings get ;
He never dangers either saw or feared ;
The dreadful storms at sea he never heard :
He never heard the shrill alarms of war,
Or the worse noises of the lawyer's bar :
No change of Consuls marks to him the year ;
The change of seasons in his calendar :
The cold and heat winter and summer shows, Autumn by fruits, and spring by flow'rs, he knows : He measures time by landmarks, and has found
For the whole day the dial of his ground :
A neighb'ring wood, born with himself, he sees, And loves his old contemporary trees :
He's only heard of near Verona's name,
And knows like the Indies, but by fame
Does with like concernment notice take
Of the Red Sea and of Benacus' lake
Thus health and strength he third age enjoys, And sees long posterity of boys.
About the spacious world let others roam,
The voyage life longest made at home.
•
is
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:
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POEMS OF CLAUDIAN.
Fesqennine Veeses on the Nuptials of Honoeius.
(Translated by Thomas Dale. ) L
0 Prince ! — more fair than Venus' star Amid the dimmer orbs of night,
Who, deadlier than the Parthian far,
Canst draw the bow with guileful might,
Canst wind the fiery steed at will, With more than a Gelonian skill, How shall the poet praises find
To paint thy body and thy mind ?
Leda had rather suckled thee
Than Castor, star of chivalry ;
Thetis in thee had found more joy Than in her own unconquered boy ; Delos, when thee she once hath seen, Shall worship less her Phoebus' mien, And Lydia deem thee more divine Than e'en her rosy god of wine :
For when in exercise' full pride, Fearless thou thread'st the forest wide, And the wind wantons in thy hair,
And the awed lion leaves his lair,
Yet seems a dying pride to feel
When he hath sunk beneath thy steel, Venus, enslaved, forgets her truth, Pledged to the hapless hunter youth, And Cynthia feels redoubled pain, More pale than for her Virbius slain.
When, the day's heat and labor o'er, Thy languid limbs at rest are laid,
Beneath the arching sycamore,
Or some sequestered cavern's shade ;
And thou hast not forbid to creep
Upon thy lids th' officious sleep, —
How many a watching nymph shall pine, And wish her glance were met by thine ; How many a Naiad steal the bliss
That's hidden in a secret kiss 1
What though, in Scythian realms, afar, The overawed barbarian bow
POEMS OF CLAUDIAN.
And drop his implements of war
At sight of that commanding brow, —
And, on his undefended plains, — Resignedly receive thy chains ;
Go — if thy unslaked courage wills, 'Mid wintry Caucasus' hoar hills, — Go, — where the frozen plains obey The Amazon — more cold than they ; And, careless of her Sire and Name, At length the haughty virgin dame, The proud Hyppolite, shall yield
To thee her yet unconquered shield,
And, sighing — though the trumpet sound — Chop her keen ax upon the ground —
What violence could never move,
Shall melt before the touch of Love ;
— Happy, beyond the tongue of verse,
Could she but match in such a line ; For blest is she, who calls thee hers, —
Thrice blest, when thou shalt call her thine.
ii.
Oh ! let the Spring, that was in haste to go, Fly to return, and gild this happy day ;
In liquid music let the waters flow,
And sweeter cadence ring from every spray :
Smile, ye Ligurian plains — smile, festive Rome ; Ye hills, let sunny wreaths your brows inclose,
Amid your Alpine peaks, let roses bloom, And lend their blushes to the virgin snows.
O'er Adige' wave the coral message floats,
And Mincius, as his winding stream he leads,
Is listening to the joy -rebounding notes,
And scarcely whispers to his trembling reed.
It echoes down the alder-fringed Po ; Old Tiber dances at the joyous sound ;
And at her lordly master's nuptials, lo!
Rome's stately towers with smiling chaplets crowned I
Let the far land, from whence our hero sprung — The fervid skies of wild and distant Spain —
Let that famed hall, with early laurels hung, Hear and reecho the triumphant strain.
POEMS OF CLAUDIAN.
Thence came thy sire — thy sire, when thou hast plighted Thy troth, sweet Bride — thence, Prince, thy mother came
Now, like two streams that meet, long disunited, Your race shall flow in one continued fame.
Ye groves of Boetis, smile a brighter green ; Thou, Tagus, roll in all thy pride of gold ; King of your line — beneath the blue serene,
Let Ocean his paternal orgies hold.
Realms of the West and East — your toils forget; Let wine and mirth your every hour employ ;
Let Phoebus, from his rising till he set, Laugh to see nothing on his way but joy.
And thou, rude North wind, wither not one wreath, Be still thou East — nor thou, 0 South, arise,
But let young Zephyr, only, dare to breathe, In breath as gentle as the lover's sighs.
m.
Yea, Stilicho, thy whitening hair
Is wont the shining casque to wear ;
But lay thy frowning helmet down,
And put thee on a festive crown ;
No longer with the trumpets' sound
Thy palace' blazing arches ring ;
The torch that Hymen loves to bring
Hath sprinkled its bland light around ; Those charms, which erst thou took'st away, Again thou giv'st, this happy day,
— Let malice rage — but vainly still —
Let envy take what hue she will.
What erst Serena was to thee,
Shall Mary to Honorius be.
IV.
Lo ! Hesper, how, to Venus dear
His silvery-shining lamp he rears ; He marks the blushing virgin's fear, And smiles to see her maiden tears.
POEMS OF CLAUDIAN.
Yes ; soothe her, bridegroom. — Well he knows, Though smiles for such an hour were meeter, These tears, like dewdrops to the rose,
Shall make her morning lip the sweeter.
He, of the thorn must take no heed, Who would not let the bud go free ; And he, who would on honey feed, Must never mark the angry bee.
As, when the rain clouds make retreat, The sudden day seems doubly clear, So, there can be no kiss so sweet
As one that's ushered by a tear. —
— "War, I have known thee," shalt thou cry, " The humbled foe — the victor's bliss ;
But never flashed young warrior's eye
For conquest half so blest as this. " —
Love, on thy couch, himself enthrones ; Reveal him — for he made ye one — And hear her tongue respond, in tones That silence' self might dote upon.
Speak him — in many a broken sigh; Breathe all affection's holiest balm ; — Oh ! clasp, with more of constancy Than e'er the ivy clasped the palm.
And when her languid lids shall close,
And in oblivious bliss she lies,
Thy breath — like sleep's — shall shed repose Upon her silken-fringed eyes, —
— At the first peep of blushing morn, The joyous strain shall be renewed,
And gladness on each brow be worn,
And mirth unlaced, and garlands strewed.
Nymphs — grant the smile, extend the hand; Swains — warriors — put on all your pride ; Winds waft the voice, from land to land ;
" Honorius hath brought home his bride. "
ROMAN AND PROVINCIAL LIFE IN FIFTH CENTURY. 391
ROMAN AND PROVINCIAL LIFE IN THE FIFTH CENTURY.
(From the Letters of Apollinaris Sidonlus : translated by Thomas Hodgkin, in " Italy and her Invaders," with his comments. )
Caius Sollius Sidonius Apollinaris, poet, ecclesiastic, courtier, and letter- writer, was born at Lyons about 430. His father-in-law AVitus having become one of Count Ricimer's puppet emperors, he went to Rome in his train, was made governor, patrician, and senator, and by suppleness, effusive panegyrics, and real ability kept high office under Majorian and Anthemius. In 472 he was made bishop of Clermont in Auvergne, and renounced all his civil dignities to devote himself to this charge. He died between 480 and 490. His literary im mortality is based on his letters, and most on those he cared least about — those which give tantalizing glimpses, all too few, of the beginnings of fusion among the barbarian invaders and the Roman provincials into the Burgundian French. ]
The Fortune Hunter.
In the early days of the episcopate of Sidonius, a certain Amantius asked him for letters of introduction to Marseilles. With his usual good nature, Sidonius gave him a letter to Graecus, bishop of that city, describing him as a poor but honest man, who transacted what we should call a commission busi ness in the purchase of cargoes arriving at the seaports of Gaul. He had been lately appointed a reader in the church, — a post which was not incompatible with his transactions in busi ness, — and this gave him an additional claim on the good offices of the two bishops. The letter concluded with the ex pression of a hope that Amantius might meet with splendid success as a merchant, and might not regret exchanging the cold springs of Auvergne for the fountain of wealth flowing at Marseilles.
Not long after, Sidonius discovered that he had been im posed upon by a swindler ; that the modest young man who desired an introduction to Marseilles was in fact too well known at Marseilles already, and that the honest broker was an impu dent and mendacious fortune hunter. Having occasion to write again to Graecus, who had asked him for " one of his long and amusing letters," he thought that he could not do better than send him the history of Amantius, though the bishop of Mar seilles must have been already in good part acquainted with it, and the bishop of Arverni must have been conscious that the part which he had played did not reflect great credit on his
392 ROMAN AND PROVINCIAL LIFE IN FIFTH CENTURY.
shrewdness. —After a complimentary preface, the letter pro ceeds thus :
" His native country is Auvergne ; his parents are persons in a somewhat humble position in life, but free and unencumbered with debt ; their duties have been in connection with the service of the church rather than of the state. The father is a man of extreme frugality, more intent on saving up money for his children than on pleasing them. This lad accordingly left his home and came to your city with a very slender equipment in all respects. Notwithstanding this hindrance to his ambitious projects, he made a fairly successful start among you. St. Eustachius, your predecessor, welcomed him with deeds and words of kindness, and put him in the way of quickly obtaining comfortable quarters. He at once began to cultivate assidu ously the acquaintance of his neighbors, and his civilities were well received. He adapted himself with great tact to their different ages, showing deference to the old, making himself useful to his coevals, and always exhibiting a modesty and sobriety in his moral conduct which are as praiseworthy as they are rare in young men. At length, by well-timed and frequent calls, he became known to and familiar with the lead ing personages of your city, and finally even with the count himself. Thus the assiduous court which he paid to greatness was rewarded with ever-increasing success ; worthy men vied in helping him with their advice and good wishes ; he received presents from the wealthy, favors of one kind or another from all, and thus his fortune and his hopes advanced ' by leaps and bounds. '
"It happened by chance that near the inn where he was lodging there dwelt a lady of some fortune and high character, whose daughter had passed the years of childhood, yet had scarcely reached the marriageable age. He showed himself very kind to this girl, and made, as her youth allowed him to do, trifling presents to her of toys and trash that would divert a girl ; and thus, at a very trifling expense, obtained a firm hold on her affections. Years passed on ; she became old enough to be a bride. To make a long story short, you have on the one side a young man, alone, poorly off, a stranger, a son who had skulked away from home not only without the consent, but even without the knowledge, of his father ; on the other, a girl not inferior to him in birth, and superior to him in fortune ; and this fellow, through the introduction of
ROMAN AND PROVINCIAL LIFE IN FIFTH CENTURY. 393
the bishop because he was a reader, by favor of the count because he had danced attendance in his hall, without any investigation as to his circumstances by the mother-in-law because his person was not displeasing to her daughter, woos and wins and marries that young lady. The marriage articles are signed, and in them some beggarly little plot of ground which he happened to possess near our borough is set forth with truly comic pomposity. When the solemn swindle was accomplished, the poor beloved one carried off his wealthy rpouse, after diligently hunting up all the possessions of his late father-in-law and converting them into money, besides adding to them a handsome gratuity drawn from the easy generosity of his credulous mother-in-law, and then, unrivaled humbug that he was, he beat a retreat to his own native place.
" Some time after he had gone, the girl's mother discovered the fraud, and had to mourn over the dwindling proportions of the estates comprised in her daughter's settlement, at the very time when she should have been rejoicing over the augmented number of her grandchildren. She wanted to institute a suit for recovery of her money, on the ground that he had fraudu lently overstated his property ; and it was in fact in order to soothe her wrath that our new Hippolytus set forth for Mar seilles, when he first brought you my letter of introduction.
" Now, then, you have the whole story of this excellent young man ; a story, I think, worthy of the Milesian Fables or an Attic comedy. It remains for you to show yourself a worthy successor of Bishop Eustachius by discharging the duties of patronage to the dear youth whom he took under his protection. You asked me for a lengthy letter, and therefore if it is rather wordy than eloquent you must not take it amiss. Condescend to keep me in your remembrance, my Lord Pope. "
What was the issue of the quarrel between the amatory Amantius and his mother-in-law we are not informed ; but as he acted twice after this as letter carrier between Sidonius and Graecus, we may conjecture that the affair of the settlement took some time to arrange.
Debtor akd Creditor ; the Courtier Turned Devout.
Sidonius wishes health to his friend Turnus.
Well indeed with your name, and with your present business, harmonizes that passage of the Mantuan poet —
394 ROMAN AND PROVINCIAL LIFE IN FIFTH CENTURY.
Turnus ! what never god would dare To promise to his suppliant's prayer, Lo, here, the lapse of time has brought E'en to your hands, unasked, unsought.
