# The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (Bury)/XXXVI

THE HISTORY
of the
DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE
CHAPTER XXXVI
The loss or desolation of the provinces, from the ocean to the Alps, impaired the glory and greatness of Rome; her internal prosperity was irretrievably destroyed by the separation of Africa. The rapacious Vandals confiscated the patrimonial estates of the senators, and intercepted the regular subsidies which relieved the poverty, and encouraged the idleness, of the plebeians. The distress of the Romans was soon aggravated by an unexpected attack; and the province, so long cultivated for their use by industrious and obedient subjects, was armed against them by an ambitious Barbarian. The Vandals and Alani, who followed the successful standard of Genseric, had acquired a rich and fertile territory, which stretched along the coast above ninety days' journey from Tangier to Tripoli; but their narrow limits were pressed and confined, on either side, by the sandy desert and the Mediterranean. The discovery and conquest of the Black nations, that might dwell beneath the torrid zone, could not tempt the rational ambition of Genseric; but he cast his eyes towards the sea; he resolved to create a naval power; and his bold resolution was executed with steady and active perseverance. The woods of Mount Atlas afforded an inexhaustible nursery of timber; his new subjects were skilled in the arts of navigation and shipbuilding; he animated his daring Vandals to embrace a mode of warfare which would render every ​maritime country accessible to their arms; the Moors and Africans were allured by the hopes of plunder; and, after an interval of six centuries, the fleets that issued from the port of Carthage again claimed the empire of the Mediterranean. The success of the Vandals, the conquest of Sicily, the sack of Palermo, and tlie frequent descents on the coast of Lucania, awakened and alarmed the mother of Valentinian and the sister of Theodosius. Alliances were formed; and armaments, expensive and in effectual, were prepared, for the destruction of the common enemy, who reserved his courage to encounter those dangers which his policy could not prevent or elude. The designs of the Roman government were repeatedly baffled by his artful delays, ambiguous promises, and apparent concessions; and the interposition of his formidable confederate, the king of the Huns, recalled the emperors from the conquest of Africa to the care of their domestic safety. The revolutions of the palace, which left the Western empire without a defender and without a lawful prince, dispelled the apprehensions, and stimulated the avarice, of Genseric. He immediately equipped a numerous fleet of Vandals and Moors, and cast anchor at the mouth of the Tiber, about three months after the death of Valentinian and the elevation of Maximus to the Imperial throne.
The private life of the senator Petronius Maximus was often alleged as a rare example of human felicity. His birth was noble and illustrious, since he descended from the Anician family; his dignity was supported by an adequate patrimony in land and money; and these advantages of fortune were accompanied Avith liberal arts and decent manners, which adorn or imitate the inestimable gifts of genius and virtue. The luxury of his palace and table was hospitable and elegant. Whenever Maximus appeared in public, he was surrounded by a train of grateful and obsequious clients; and it is possible that among these clients he might deserve and possess some real friends. His merit was rewarded by the favour of the prince and senate; he thrice exercised the office of Praetorian praefect of Italy; he ​was twice invested with the consulship, and he obtained the rank of patrician. These civil honours were not incompatible with the enjoyment of leisure and tranquillity; his hours, according to the demands of pleasure or reason, were accurately distributed by a water-clock; and this avarice of time may be allowed to prove the sense which Maximus entertained of his own happiness. The injury which he received from the emperor Valentinian appears to excuse the most bloody revenge. Yet a philosopher might have reflected that, if the resistance of his wife had been sincere, her chastity was still inviolate, and that it could never be restored if she had consented to the will of the adulterer. A patriot would have hesitated before he plunged himself and his country into those inevitable calamities which must follow the extinction of the royal house of Theodosius. The imprudent Maximus disregarded these salutary considerations he gratified his resentment and ambition; he saw the bleeding corpse of Valentinian at his feet; and he heard himself saluted emperor by the unanimous voice of the senate and people. But the day of his inauguration was the last day of his happiness. He was imprisoned (such is the lively expression of Sidonius) in the palace; and, after passing a sleepless night, he sighed that he had attained the summit of his wishes, and aspired only to descend from the dangerous elevation. Oppressed by the weight of the diadem, he communicated his anxious thoughts to his friend and quæstor Fulgentius; and, when he looked back with unavailing regret on the secure pleasures of his former life, the emperor exclaimed, "O fortunate Damocles, thy reign began and ended with the same dinner": a well-known allusion, which Fulgentius afterwards repeated as an instructive lesson for princes and subjects.
His death.A.D. 153, June 12 [May 31] The reign of Maximus continued about three months. His hours, of which he had lost the command, were disturbed by remorse, or guilt, or terror; and his throne was shaken by the seditions of the soldiers, the people, and the confederate Barbarians. The marriage of his son Palladius with the eldest ​4 THE DECLINE AND FALL daughter of the late emperor might tend to estabhsh the here- ditary succession of his family ; but the violence which he offered to the empress Eudoxia could proceed only from the blind impulse of lust or revenge. His own wife, the cause of these tragic events, had been seasonably removed by death ; and the widow of V^alentinian was compelled to violate her decent mourning, perhaps her real grief, and to submit to the embraces of a presumptuous usurper, whom she suspected as the assassin of her deceased husband. These suspicions were soon justified by the indiscreet confession of Maximus himself; and he wantonly provoked the hatred of his reluctant bride, who was still conscious that she descended from a line of emperors. From the East, however, Eudoxia could not hope to obtain any effectual assistance ; her father and her aunt Pulcheria were dead ; her mother languished at Jerusalem in disgrace and exile ; and the sceptre of Constantinople was in the hands of a stranger. She directed her eyes towards Carthage ; secretly implored the aid of the king of the Vandals ; and persuaded Genseric to improve the fair opportunity of disguising his rapacious designs by the specious names of honour, justice, and compassion.*' Whatever abilities Maximus might have shown in a subordinate station, he was found incapable of administering an empire ; and, though he might easily have been informed of the naval pre- parations which were made on the opposite shores of Africa, he expected with supine indifference the approach of the enemy, without adopting any measures of defence, of negotiation, or of a timely retreat. When the Vandals disembarked at the mouth of the Tiber, the emperor was suddenly roused from his lethargy by the clamours of a trembling and exasperated multitude. The only hope which presented itself to his astonished mind was that of a precipitate flight, and he exhorted the senators to imitate the example of their prince. But no sooner did Maxi- mus appear in the streets than he was assaulted by a shower of stones ; a Roman, or a Burgundian, soldier claimed the honour of the first wound ; his mangled body was ignominiously cast into the Tiber ; the Roman people rejoiced in the punishment which they had inflicted on the author of the public calamities ; 'J Notwithstanding the evidence of Procopius, Evagrius, Idatius, Marcellinus, &c. , the learned Muratori (Annali d'ltalia, torn. iv. p. 249) doubts the reality of this invitation, and observes, with great truth, " Xon si pu6 dir quanto sia facile il popolo a sognare e spacciar voci false". But his argument, from the interval of time and place, is extremely feeble. The figs which grew near Carthage were produced to the senate of Rome on the tliird day. [John Malalas places the invitation in the reign of Theodosius.] ​OF THE EOMAN EMPIRE 5 and the domestics of Eudoxia signalized their zeal in the service of their mistress." On the third day after the tumult^ Genseric boldly advanced sack of Rome from the port of Ostia to the gates of the defenceless city. In- dlis. a.d^455, stead of a sally of the Roman youth, there issued from the gates °°* an unarmed and venerable procession of the bishop at the head of his clergy.^ The fearless spirit of Leo, his authority and eloquence, again mitigated the fierceness of a Barbarian con- queror: the king of the Vandals promised to spare the unresisting multitude, to protect the buildings from fire, and to exempt the captives from torture ; and, although such orders were neither seriously given nor strictly obeyed, the mediation of Leo was glorious to himself and in some degree beneficial to his country. But Rome and its inhabitants were delivered to the licentiousness of the V^andals and Moors, Avhose blind passions revenged the injuries of Carthage. The pillage lasted fourteen days and nights ; •' and all that yet remained of public or private wealth, of sacred or profane treasure, was diligently transported to the vessels of Genseric. Among the spoils, the splendid relics of two temples, or rather of two religions, exhibited a memorable example of the vicissitude of human and divine things. Since the abolition of Paganism, the Capitol had been violated and abandoned ; yet the statues of the gods and heroes were still respected, and the curious roof of gilt bronze was reserved for the rapacious hands of Genseric.^" The holy instruments of the "> . . . Inficloi|ue tibi Burgundio ductu Extorquet trepidas mactandi principis iras. Sidon. in Panegyr. ,^vit. 442. A remarkable line, which insinuates that Rome and Maximus'were betrayed by their Burgundian mercenaries. [Binding, Gesch. des burgundisch-romanischen Konigr. p. 49, conjectures that there had been a recent Burgundian incursion into Italy.] s The apparent success of pope Leo may be justified by Prosper and the Hisforia Miscella; but the improbable notion of Baronius (A.D. 455, No. 13) that Genseric spared the three apostolical churches is not countenanced even by the doubtful testimony of the Liher Pontificalis. "^ [The phrase of Prosper is noteworthy : per xiv. dies secura et libera scrutatione omnibus opibus suis Roma vacuata est. There was not an indiscriminate pillage, but the treasures were ransacked in a methodical and leisurely way. There is no reason to assume that there was any wanton destruction.] 10 The profusion of Catulus, the first who gilt the roof of the Capitol, was not universally approved (Plin. Hist. Natur. xxxiii. 18) ; but it was far exceeded by the emperor's, and the external gilding of the temple cost Domitian 12,000 talents (2,400,0001.). The expressions of Claudian and Rutilius (/^tv /wt^/f?//;' (7<?/«i/ /a . . . Jiuiii^ia astris, and cotifunduntque vagos delubra micantia visits) manifestly prove that this splendid covering was not removed either by the Christians or the Goths (sec Donatus, Roma Antiqua, 1. ii. c. p. 125). It should seem that the roof of the Cajiitol was decorated with gilt btatucs andV-hariots drawn by four horses. ​Jewish worship, the gold table, and the gold candlestick with seven branches, originally framed according to the particular instructions of God himself, and which were placed in the sanctuary of his temple, had been ostentatiously displayed to the Roman people in the triumph of Titus. They were afterwards deposited in the temple of Peace; and at the end of four hundred years the spoils of Jerusalem were transferred from Rome to Carthage, by a Barbarian who derived his origin from the shores of the Baltic. These ancient monuments might attract the notice of curiosity, as well as of avarice. But the Christian churches, enriched and adorned by the prevailing superstition of the times, afforded more plentiful materials for sacrilege; and the pious liberality of pope Leo, who melted six silver vases, the gift of Constantine, each of an hundred pounds weight, is an evidence of the damage which he attempted to repair. In the forty-five years that had elapsed since the Gothic invasion the pomp and luxury of Rome were in some measure restored; and it was difficult either to escape or to satisfy the avarice of a conqueror who possessed leisure to collect, and ships to transport, the wealth of the capital. The Imperial ornaments of the palace, the magnificent furniture and wardrobe, the sideboards of massy plate, were accumulated with disorderly rapine; the gold and silver amounted to several thousand talents; yet even the brass and copper were laboriously removed. Eudoxia herself, who advanced to meet her friend and deliverer, soon bewailed the imprudence of her own conduct. She was rudely stripped of her jewels: and the unfortunate empress, with her two daughters, the only surviving remains of the great Theodosius, was compelled, as a captive, to follow the haughty Vandal; who immediately hoisted sail, and returned with a prosperous navigation to the port of Carthage. Many thousand Romans of both sexes, chosen for some useful or agreeable qualifications, reluctantly embarked on board the fleet of Genseric; and their distress was aggravated by the unfeeling Barbarians, who, in the division of the booty, separated the wives from their husbands, and the children from their parents. ​The charity of Deogratias, bishop of Carthage, was their only consolation and support. He generously sold the gold and silver plate of the church to purchase the freedom of some, to alleviate the slavery of others, and to assist the wants and infirmities of a captive multitude, whose health was impaired by the hardships which they had suffered in their passage from Italy to Africa. By his order, two spacious churches were converted into hospitals; the sick were distributed in convenient beds, and liberally supplied with food and medicines; and the aged prelate repeated his visits both in the day and night, with an assiduity that surpassed his strength, and a tender sympathy which enhanced the value of his services. Compare this scene with the field of Cannæ; and judge between Hannibal and the successor of St. Cyprian.
The emperor Avitus. A.D. 455, July 10th The deaths of Aetius and Valentinian had relaxed the ties which held the Barbarians of Gaul in peace and subordination. The sea-coast was infested by the Saxons; the Alemanni and the Franks advanced from the Rhine to the Seine; and the ambition of the Goths seemed to meditate more extensive and permanent conquests. The emperor Maximus relieved himself, by a judicious choice, from the weight of these distant cares; he silenced the solicitations of his friends, listened to the voice of fame, and promoted a stranger to the general command of the forces in Gaul. Avitus, the stranger whose merit was so nobly rewarded, descended from a wealthy and honourable family in the diocese of Auvergne. The convulsions of the times urged him to embrace, with the same ardour, the civil and military professions; and the indefatigable youth blended the studies of literature and jurisprudence with the exercise of arms and hunting. Thirty years of his life were laudably spent in the public service; he alternately displayed his talents in war and negotiation; and the soldier of Aetius, after executing the most important embassies, was [c. 439 A.D.]raised to the station of Prætorian præfect of Gaul. Either ​8 THE DECLINE AND FALL the merit of Avitus excited envy, or his moderation was desirous of repose, since he cahiily retired to an estate which he possessed in the neighbourhood of Clermont. A copious stream, issuing from the mountain, and falhng headlong in many a loud and foaming cascade, discharged its waters into a lake about two miles in length, and the villa was pleas- antly seated on the margin of the lake. The baths, the porticoes, the summer and winter apartments, were adapted to the purposes of luxury and use ; and the adjacent country afforded the various prospects of woods, pastures, and meadows.^'^ In this retreat, where Avitus amused his leisure with books, rural sports, the practice of husbandry, and the society of his friends,!' he received the Imperial diploma, which constituted him master-general of the cavalry and infantry of Gaul. He assumed the military command ; the Barbarians suspended their fury ; and, whatever means he might employ, whatever concessions he might be forced to make, the people enjoyed the benefits of actual tranquillity. But the fate of Gaul depended on the Visigoths ; and the Roman general, less attentive to his dignity than to the public interest, did not disdain to visit Toulouse in the character of an ambassador. He was received with courteous hospitality by Theodoric, the king of the Goths ; but, while Avitus laid the foundation of a solid alliance with that powerful nation, he was astonished by the intelligence that the emperor Maximus was slain and that Rome had been pillaged by the Vandals. A vacant throne, which he might ascend without guilt or danger, tempted his ambition ; i*^ and the Visigoths were easily persuaded to support his claim by their irresistible suffrage. They loved the person of Avitus ; they respected his virtues ; and they were not insensible of the advantage, as well as honour, of giving an emperor to the West. The season was 16 After the example of the younger Pliny, Sidonius (1. ii. c. 2) has laboured the florid, prolix, and obscure description of his villa, which bore the name [Avitaci/7>i), and had been the property, of Avitus. The precise situation is not ascertained. Consult, however, the notes of Savaron and Sirmond. 1 Sidonius (1. ii. epist. 9) has described the country life of the Gallic nobles, in a visit which he made to his friends, whose estates were in the neighbourhood of Nismes. The morning hours were spent in the sphacris/erium, or tennis-court ; or in the library, which was furnished with Latin authors, profane and religious : the former for the men, the latter for the ladies. The table was twice served, at dinner and supper, with hot meat (boiled and roast) and wine. During the intermediate time, the company slept, took the air on horseback, and used the vrarm bath. 1** Seventy lines of Panegyric (505-578) which describe the importunity of Theodoric and of Gaul, struggling to overcome the modest reluctance of Axitus, are blown away by three words of an honest historian : Romanum amlnsset im- perium (Greg. Turon. 1. ii. c. 11, in torn. ii. p. 168). ​now approaching in which the annual assembly of the seven provinces was held at Arles; their deliberations might perhaps be influenced by the presence of Theodoric and his martial brothers; but their choice would naturally incline to the most illustrious of their countrymen. Avitus, after a decent resistance, accepted the Imperial diadem from the representatives of Gaul; and his election was ratified by the acclamations of the Barbarians and provincials. The formal consent of Marcian, emperor of the East, was solicited and obtained; but the senate, Rome, and Italy, though humbled by their recent calamities, submitted with a secret murmur to the presumption of the Gallic usurper.
Character of Theodoric, king of the Visigoths. A.D. 453-456 Theodoric, to whom Avitus was indebted for the purple, had acquired the Gothic sceptre by the murder of his elder brother Torismond; and he justified this atrocious deed by the design which his predecessor had formed of violating his alliance with the empire. Such a crime might not be incompatible with the virtues of a Barbarian; but the manners of Theodoric were gentle and humane; and posterity may contemplate without terror the original picture of a Gothic king, whom Sidonius had intimately observed in the hours of peace and of social intercourse. In an epistle, dated from the court of Toulouse, the orator satisfies the curiosity of one of his friends, in the following description: "By the majesty of his appearance, Theodoric would command the respect of those who are ignorant of his merit; and, although he is born a prince, his merit would dignify a private station. He is of a middle stature, his body appears rather plump than fat, and in his well-proportioned limbs agility is united with muscular strength. If you ​examine his countenance, you will distinguish a high forehead, large shaggy eyebrows, an aquiline nose, thin lips, a regular set of white teeth, and a fair complexion that blushes more frequently from modesty than from anger. The ordinary distribution of his time, as far as it is exposed to the public view, may be concisely represented. Before daybreak, he repairs, with a small train, to his domestic chapel, where the service is performed by the Arian clergy; but those who presume to interpret his secret sentiments consider this assiduous devotion as the effect of habit and policy. The rest of the morning is employed in the administration of his kingdom. His chair is surrounded by some military officers of decent aspect and behaviour; the noisy crowd of his Barbarian guards occupies the hall of audience; but they are not permitted to stand within the veils or curtains that conceal the council-chamber from vulgar eyes. The ambassadors of the nations are successively introduced: Theodoric listens with attention, answers them with discreet brevity, and either announces or delays, according to the nature of their business, his final resolution. About eight (the second hour) he rises from his throne, and visits either his treasury or his stables. If he chooses to hunt, or at least to exercise himself on horseback, his bow is carried by a favourite youth; but, when the game is marked, he bends it with his own hand, and seldom misses the object of his aim: as a king, he disdains to bear arms in such ignoble warfare; but, as a soldier, he would blush to accept any military service which he could perform himself On common days his dinner is not different from the repast of a private citizen; but every Saturday many honourable guests are invited to the royal table, which, on these occasions, is served with the elegance of Greece, the plenty of Gaul, and the order and diligence of Italy. The gold or silver plate is less remarkable for its weight than for the brightness and curious workmanship; the taste is gratified without the help of foreign and costly luxury; the size and number of the cups of wine are regulated with a strict regard to the laws of temperance; and the respectful silence that prevails is interrupted only by grave and instructive conversation. After dinner, Theodoric sometimes indulges himself in a short slumber; and, as soon as he wakes, he calls for the dice and tables, encourages his friends to forget the royal majesty, and is delighted when they freely express the passions which are excited by the incidents of play. ​At this game, which he loves as the image of war, he alternately displays his eagerness, his skill, his patience, and his cheerful temper. If he loses, he laughs; he is modest and silent if he wins. Yet, notwithstanding this seeming indifference, his courtiers choose to solicit any favour in the moments of victory; and I myself, in my applications to the king, have derived some benefit from my losses. About the ninth hour (three o'clock) the tide of business again returns, and flows incessantly till after sunset, when the signal of the royal supper dismisses the weary crowd of suppliants and pleaders. At the supper, a more familiar repast, buffoons and pantomimes are sometimes introduced, to divert, not to offend, the company by their ridiculous wit; but female singers and the soft effeminate modes of music are severely banished, and such martial tunes as animate the soul to deeds of valour are alone grateful to the ear of Theodoric. He retires from table; and the nocturnal guards are immediately posted at the entrance of the treasury, the palace, and the private apartments."
His expedition into Spain. A.D. 456 When the king of the Visigoths encouraged Avitus to assume the purple, he offered his person and his forces, as a faithful soldier of the republic. The exploits of Theodoric soon convinced the world that he had not degenerated from the warlike virtues of his ancestors. After the establishment of the Goths in Aquitain and the passage of the Vandals into Africa, the Suevi, who had fixed their kingdom in Gallicia, aspired to the conquest of Spain, and threatened to extinguish the feeble remains of the Roman dominion. The provincials of Carthagena and Tarragona, afflicted by an hostile invasion, represented their injuries and their apprehensions. Count Fronto was dispatched, in the name of the emperor Avitus, with advantageous offers of peace and alliance; and Theodoric interposed his weighty mediation, to declare that, unless his brother-in-law, the king of the Suevi, immediately retired, he should be obliged to arm in the cause of justice and of Rome. "Tell him," replied the haughty Rechiarius, "that I despise his friendship and his arms; but that I shall soon try whether he will dare to expect my arrival under the walls of Toulouse." Such a
26 Theodoric himself had given a solemn and voluntary promise of fidelity, which was understood both in Gaul and Spain. Romæ sum, te duce, amicus, Principe te, Miles. Sidon. Panegyr. Avit. 511. ​challenge urged Theodoric to prevent the bold designs of his enemy: he passed the Pyrenees at the head of the Visigoths; the Franks and Burgundians served under his standard; and, though he professed himself the dutiful servant of Avitus, he privately stipulated, for himself and his successors, the absolute possession of his Spanish conquests. The two armies, or rather the two nations, [Oct. 5] encountered each other on the banks of the river Urbicus, about twelve miles from [Asturica] Astorga; and the decisive victory of the Goths appeared for a while to have extirpated the name and kingdom of the Suevi. From the field of battle Tiieodoric advanced to [Bracara]Braga, their metropolis, which still retained the splendid vestiges of its ancient commerce and dignity. His entrance was not polluted with blood, and the Goths respected the chastity of their female captives, more especially of the consecrated virgins; but the greatest part of the clergy and people were made slaves, and even the churches and altars were confounded in the universal pillage. The unfortunate king of the Suevi had escaped to [Portucale = Oporto] one of the ports of the ocean; but the obstinacy of the winds opposed his flight; he was delivered to his implacable rival; and Rechiarius, who neither desired nor expected mercy, received, with manly constancy, the death which he would probably have inflicted. After this bloody sacrifice to policy or resentment, Theodoric carried his victorious arms as far as [Emerita] Merida, the principal town of Lusitania, without meeting any resistance, except from the miraculous powers of St. Eulalia; but he was stopped in the full career of success, and recalled from Spain, before he could provide for the security of his conquests. In his retreat towards the Pyrenees, he revenged his disappointment on the country through which he passed; and, in the sack of Pollentia and Astorga, he shewed himself a faithless ally, as well as a cruel enemy. Whilst the king of the Visigoths fought and vanquished in the name of Avitus, the reign of Avitus had expired; and both the honour and the interest of Theodoric were deeply wounded by the disgrace of a friend, whom he had seated on the throne of the Western empire.
27 Quæque sinu pelagi jactat se Bracara dives. Auson. de Claris Urbibus, p. 245.
From the design of the king of the Suevi, it is evident that the navigation from the ports of Gallicia to the Mediterranean was known and practised. The ships of Bracara, or Braga, cautiously steered along the coast, without daring to lose themselves in the Atlantic.
​Avitus is deposed. A.D. 456, Oct. 16 The pressing solicitations of the senate and people persuaded the emperor Avitus to fix his residence at Rome and to accept the consulship for the ensuing year. On the first day of January, his son-in-law, Sidonius Apollinaris, celebrated his praises in a panegyric of six hundred verses; but this composition, though it was rewarded with a brass statue, seems to contain a very moderate proportion either of genius or of truth. The poet, if we may degrade that sacred name, exaggerates the merit of a sovereign and a father; and his prophecy of a long and glorious reign was soon contradicted by the event. Avitus, at a time when the Imperial dignity was reduced to a pre-eminence of toil and danger, indulged himself in the pleasures of Italian luxury; age had not extinguished his amorous inclinations; and he is accused of insulting, with indiscreet and ungenerous raillery, the husbands whose wives he had seduced or violated. But the Romans were not inclined either to excuse his faults or to acknowledge his virtues. The several parts of the empire became every day more alienated from each other; and the stranger of Gaul was the object of popular hatred and contempt. The senate asserted their legitimate claim in the election of an emperor; and their authority, which had been originally derived from the old constitution, was again fortified by the actual weakness of a declining monarchy. Yet even such a monarchy might have resisted the votes of an unarmed senate, if their discontent had not been supported, or perhaps inflamed, by Count Ricimer, one of the principal commanders of the Barbarian troops, who formed the military defence of Italy. The daughter of Wallia, king of the Visigoths, was the mother of Ricimer; but he was descended, on the father's side, from the nation of the Suevi; his pride, or patriotism, might be exasperated by the misfortunes of his countrymen; and he obeyed, with reluctance, an emperor in whose elevation he had not been consulted. His faithful ​[A.D. 456] and important services against the common enemy rendered him still more formidable; and, after destroying, on the coast of Corsica, a fleet of Vandals, which consisted of sixty galleys, Ricimer returned in triumph with the appellation of the Deliverer of Italy. He chose that moment to signify to Avitus that his reign was at an end; and the feeble emperor, at a distance from his Gothic allies, [Sept., Oct.] was compelled, after a short and unavailing struggle, to abdicate the purple. By the clemency, however, or the contempt, of Ricimer, he was permitted to descend from the throne to the more desirable station of bishop of Placentia; but the resentment of the senate was still unsatisfied, and their inflexible severity pronounced the sentence of his death. He fled towards the Alps, with the humble hope, not of arming the Visigoths in his cause, but of securing his person and treasures in the sanctuary of Julian, one of the tutelar saints of Auvergne. Disease, or the hand of the executioner, arrested him on the road; yet his remains were decently transported to Brivas, or Brioude, in his native province, and he reposed at the feet of his holy patron. Avitus left only [Papianilla] one daughter, the wife of Sidonius Apollinaris, who inherited the patrimony of his father-in-law; lamenting, at the same time, the disappointment of his public and private expectations. His resentment prompted him to join, or at least to countenance, the measures of a rebellious faction in Gaul; and the poet had contracted some guilt, which it was incumbent ​on him to expiate by a new tribute of flattery to the succeeding emperor.
Character and elevation of Majorian A.D. 457 [Julius Valerius Majorianus] The successor of Avitus presents the welcome discovery of a great and heroic character, such as sometimes arise in a degenerate age, to vindicate the honour of the human species. The emperor Majorian has deserved the praises of his contemporaries, and of posterity; and these praises may be strongly expressed in the words of a judicious and disinterested historian: "That he was gentle to his subjects; that he was terrible to his enemies; and that he excelled in every virtue all his predecessors who had reigned over the Romans". Such a testimony may justify at least the panegyric of Sidonius; and we may acquiesce in the assurance that, although the obsequious orator would have flattered, with equal zeal, the most worthless of princes, the extraordinary merit of his object confined him, on this occasion, within the bounds of truth. Majorian derived his name from [A.D. 379] his maternal grandfather, who in the reign of the great Theodosius had commanded the troops of the Illyrian frontier. [quæstor] He gave his daughter in marriage to the father of Majorian, a respectable officer, who administered the revenues of Gaul with skill and integrity, and generously preferred the friendship of Aetius to the tempting offers of an insidious court. His son, the future emperor, who was educated in the profession of arms, displayed, from his early youth, intrepid courage, premature wisdom, and unbounded liberality in a scanty fortune. He followed the standard of Aetius, contributed to his success, shared and sometimes eclipsed his glory, and at last excited the jealousy of the patrician, or rather of his wife, who forced him to ​16 THE DECLINE AND FALL retire from the service."**^ Majorian^ after the death of Aetius, was recalled, and promoted ; and his intimate connexion with count Ricimer was the immediate step by which he ascended the throne of the Western empire. During the vacancy that succeeded the abdication of Avitus, the ambitious Barbarian, whose birth excluded him from the Imperial dignity, governed Italy, with the title of Patrician ; resigned, to his friend, the conspicuous station of master-general of the cavalry and infantry ; and, after an interval of some months, consented to the unani- mous wish of the Romans, whose favour Majorian had solicited by a recent victory over the Alemanni."'^ He was invested with the purple at Ravenna, and the epistle which he addressed to the senate will best describe his situation and his sentiments. " Your election, Conscript Fathers ! and the ordinance of the most valiant army, have made me your emperor.^' May the propitious Deity direct and prosper the consuls and events of my administration, to your advantage, and to the public welfare ! For my own part, I did not aspire, I have submitted, to reign ; nor should I have discharged the obligations of a citizen, if I had refused, with base and selfish ingratitude, to support the weight of those labours which were imposed by the republic. Assist, therefore, the prince whom you have made ; partake the duties which you have enjoined ; and may our common endeavours promote the happiness of an empire which I have accepted from your hands. Be assured that, in our times, justice shall resume her ancient vigour, and that virtue shall become not only inno- cent but meritorious. Let none, except the authors themselves, be apprehensive of delations,^^ which, as a subject, I have always ^ She pressed his immediate death, and was scarcely satisfied with his disgrace. It should seem that Aetius, like Belisarius and Marlborough, was governed by his wife; whose fervent piety, though it might work miracles (Gregor. Turon. 1. ii. c. 7, p. 162), was not incompatible with base and sanguinary counsels. ■" The Alemanni had passed the Rhaetian Alps, and were defeated in the Campi Canini or Valley of Bellinzone, through which the Tesin flows, in its descent from Mount Adula to the Lago Maggiore (Cluver. Italia Antiq. torn. i. p. 100, loi). This boasted victory over nine hundred Barbarians (Panegyr. Majorian. 373, &c.) betrays the extreme weakness of Italy. ■*'- Imperatorem me factum, P. C. , electionis vestrae arbitrio, at fortissimi e.xer- citus ordinatione agnoscite (Novell. Majorian. tit. iii. p. 34, ad Calcem Cod. Theodos.). Sidonius proclaims the unanimous voice of the empire. Postquam ordine vobis Ordo omnis regnum dederat ; plebs, curia, miles, Et collega simul. — [Carm. 5] 386. This language is ancient and constitutional ; and we may observe that the clergy were not yet considered as a distinct order of the state. ^* Either d/lationes or ddationes would afford a tolerable reading ; but there is much more sense and spirit in the latter, to which I have therefore given the pre- ference. ​condemned, and, as a prince, will severely punish. Our own vigilance, and that of our father, the patrician Ricimer, shall regulate all military affairs, and provide for the safety of the Roman world, which we have saved from foreign and domestic enemies. You now understand the maxims of my government: you may confide in the faithful love and sincere assurances of a prince who has formerly been the companion of your life and dangers, who still glories in the name of senator, and who is anxious that you should never repent of the judgment which you have pronounced in his favour." The emperor, who, amidst the ruins of the Roman world, revived the ancient language of law and liberty which Trajan would not have disclaimed, must have derived those generous sentiments from his own heart; since they were not suggested to his imitation by the customs of his age, or the example of his predecessors.
The private and public actions of Majorian are very imperfectly known; but his laws, remarkable for an original cast of thought and expression, faithfully represent the character of a sovereign who loved his people, who sympathized in their distress, who had studied the causes of the decline of the empire, His salutary laws. A.D. 457-461 and who was capable of applying (as far as such reformation was practicable) judicious and effectual remedies to the public disorders. His regulations concerning the finances manifestly tended to remove, or at least to mitigate, the most intolerable grievances. I. From the first hour of his own reign, he was solicitous (I translate his own words) to relieve the weary fortunes of the provincials, oppressed by the accumulated weight of indictions and superindictions. With this view he granted [Tit. 2] an universal amnesty, a final and absolute discharge of all arrears of tribute, of all debts, which, under any pretence, the fiscal ​officers might demand from the people. This wise dereliction of obsolete, vexatious, and unprofitable claims improved and purified the sources of the public revenue; and the subject who could now look back without despair might labour with hope and gratitude for himself and for his country. II. In the assessment and collection of taxes Majorian restored the ordinary jurisdiction of the provincial magistrates, and suppressed the extraordinary commissions which had been introduced in the name of the emperor himself or of the Prætorian præfects. The favourite servants, who obtained such irregular powers, were insolent in their behaviour and arbitrary in their demands; they affected to despise the subordinate tribunals, and they were discontented if their fees and profits did not twice exceed the sum which they condescended to pay into the treasury. One instance [Tit. 7] of their extortion would appear incredible, were it not authenticated by the legislator himself They exacted the whole payment in gold; but they refused the current coin of the empire, and would accept only such ancient pieces as were stamped with the names of Faustina or the Antonines. The subject who was unprovided with these curious medals had recourse to the expedient of compounding with their rapacious demands; or, if he succeeded in the research, his imposition was doubled, according to the weight and value of the money [Tit. 7] of former times. III. "The municipal corporations (says the emperor), the lesser senates (so antiquity has justly styled them), deserve to be considered as the heart of the cities and the sinews of the republic. And yet so low are they now reduced, by the injustice of magistrates and the venality of collectors, that many of their members, renouncing their dignity and their country, have taken refuge in distant and obscure exile." He urges, and even compels, their return to their respective cities; but he removes the grievance which had forced them to desert the exercise of their municipal functions. They are directed, under the authority of the provincial magistrates, to resume their office of levying the tribute; but, instead of being made responsible for the whole sum assessed on their district, they are only required to produce a regular account of the payments which they have actually received, and of the ​defaulters who are still indebted to the public. [Tit. 3] IV. But Majorian was not ignorant that these corporate bodies were too much inclined to retaliate the injustice and oppression which they had suffered; and he therefore revives the useful office of the defenders of cities. He exhorts the people to elect, in a full and free assembly, some man of discretion and integrity, who would dare to assert their privileges, to represent their grievances, to protect the poor from the tyranny of the rich, and to inform the emperor of the abuses that were committed under the sanction of his name and authority.
The edifices of Rome The spectator, who casts a mournful view over the ruins of ancient Rome, is tempted to accuse the memory of the Goths and Vandals, for the mischief which they had neither leisure, nor power, nor perhaps inclination, to perpetrate. The tempest of war might strike some lofty turrets to the ground; but the destruction which undermined the foundations of those massy fabrics was prosecuted, slowly and silently, during a period of ten centuries; and the motives of interest that afterwards operated without shame or control were severely checked by the taste and spirit of the emperor Majorian. The decay of the city had gradually impaired the value of the public works. The circus and theatres might still excite, but they seldom gratified, the desires of the people; the temples, which had escaped the zeal of the Christians, were no longer inhabited either by gods or men; the diminished crowds of the Romans were lost in the immense space of their baths and porticoes; and the stately libraries and halls of justice became useless to an indolent generation, whose repose was seldom disturbed either by study or business. The monuments of consular, or Imperial, greatness were no longer revered as the immortal glory of the capital; they were only esteemed as an inexhaustible mine of materials, cheaper and more convenient than the distant quarry. Specious petitions were continually addressed to the easy magistrates of Rome, which stated the want of stones or bricks for some necessary service the fairest forms of architecture were rudely defaced for the sake of some paltry, or pretended, repairs; and the degenerate Romans, who converted the spoil to their own emolument, demolished with sacrilegious hands the labours of their ancestors. [Tit. 4] Majorian, who had often sighed over the desolation of the city, applied a severe remedy to the growing evil. He reserved to the prince and senate the sole cognisance ​of the extreme cases which might justify the destruction of an ancient edifice; imposed a fine of fifty pounds of gold (two thousand pounds sterling) on every magistrate who should presume to grant such illegal and scandalous licence; and threatened to chastise the criminal obedience of their subordinate officers, by a severe whipping and the amputation of both their hands. In the last instance, the legislature might seem to forget the proportion of guilt and punishment; but his zeal arose from a generous principle, and Majorian was anxious to protect the monuments of those ages in which he would have desired and deserved to live. The emperor conceived that it was his interest to increase the number of his subjects; that it was his duty to guard the purity of the marriage-bed; but the means which he employed to accomplish these salutary purposes are of an ambiguous, and perhaps exceptionable, kind. [Tit. 6] The pious maids, who consecrated their virginity to Christ, were restrained from taking the veil till they had reached their fortieth year. Widows under that age were compelled to form a second alliance within the term of five years, by the forfeiture of half their wealth to their nearest relations or to the state. Unequal marriages were condemned or annulled. The punishment of confiscation and exile was deemed so inadequate to the guilt of adultery, that, if the criminal returned to Italy, he might, by the express declaration of Majorian, be slain with impunity.
Majorian prepares to invade Africa. A.D. 457 While the emperor Majorian assiduously laboured to restore the happiness and virtue of the Romans, he encountered the arms of Genseric, from his character and situation, their most formidable enemy. A fleet of Vandals and Moors landed at the mouth of the Liris, or Garigliano; but the Imperial troops surprised and attacked the disorderly Barbarians, who were encumbered with the spoils of Campania; they were chased with slaughter to their ships, and their leader, the king's brother-in-law, was found in the number of the slain. Such ​OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 21 vigilance might announce the character of the new reign ; but the strictest vigilance and the most numerous forces were in- sufficient to protect the long-extended coast of Italy from the depredations of a naval war. The public opinion had imposed a nobler and more arduous task on the genius of Majorian. Rome expected from him alone the restitution of Africa ; and the design which he formed, of attacking the Vandals in their new settlements, was the result of bold and judicious policy. If the intrepid emperor could have infused his own spirit into the youth of Italy ; if he could have revived, in the field of Mars, the manly exercises in which he had always surpassed his equals ; he might have marched against Genseric at the head of a Rovian army. Such a reformation of national manners might be embraced by the rising generation ; but it is the misfortune of those princes who laboriously sustain a declining monarchy that, to obtain some immediate advantage, or to avert some impending danger, they are forced to countenance, and even to multiply, the most pernicious abuses. Majorian, like the weakest of his predecessors, was reduced to the dis- graceful expedient of substituting Barbarian auxiliaries in the place of his un warlike subjects ; and his superior abilities could only be displayed in the vigour and dexterity with which he wielded a dangerous instrument, so apt to recoil on the hand that used it. Besides the confederates, who were already engaged in the service of the empire, the fame of his liberality and valour attracted the nations of the Danube, the Borysthenes, and perhaps of the Tanais. Many thousands of the bravest subjects of Attila, the Gepidae, the Ostrogoths, the Rugians, the Bur- gundians, the Suevi, the Alani, assembled in the plains of Liguria ; and their formidable strength was balanced by their mutual animosities. ^ They passed the Alps in a severe winter. The emperor led the way on foot, and in complete armour ; sounding, with his long staff, the depth of the ice, or snow, and encouraging the Scythians, who complained of the extreme cold, by the cheerful assurance that they should be satisfied with the heat of Africa. The citizens of Lyons had presumed to shut [a d their gates : they soon implored, and experienced, the clemency of Majorian. He vanquished Theodoric in the field ; and ■■■'^The review of the army, and passage of the Alps, contain the most tolerable passages of the Panegyric (470-552). M. de Buat (Hist des Peiiples, etc., torn, viii. p. 49-55) is a more satisfactory commentator than either Savaron or Sirmond. [The Gepids are not mentioned in the list. Hut in this passage Sidonius is re- ferring to a campaign in Pannonia, not to the e.xpedition to Africa, which was not organisetj till A,D. 460, after Majorian's successful war with the Visigoths.] ​22 THE DEC!LINE AND FALL admitted to his friendship and alhance a king whom he had found not unworthy of his arms. The beneficial, though pre- carious, reunion of the greatest part of Gaul and Spain was the eftect of persuasion, as well as of force ; °^ and the independent Bagaudae, who had escaped, or resisted, the oppression of former reigns, were disposed to confide in the virtues of Majorian. His camp was filled with Barbarian allies ; his throne was supported by the zeal of an affectionate people ; but the emperor had fore- seen that it was impossible, without a maritime power, to achieve the conquest of Africa. In the first Punic war, the republic had exerted such incredible diligence that, within sixty days after the first stroke of the axe had been given in the forest, a fleet of one hundred and sixty galleys proudly rode at anchor in the sea.^^ Under circumstances much less favourable, Majorian equalled the spirit and perseverance of the ancient Romans. The woods of the Apennine were felled ; the arsenals and manufactures of Ravenna and Misenum were restored ; Italy and Gaul vied with each other in liberal contributions to the public service ; and the Imperial navy, of three hundred large galleys, with an adequate propor- tion of transports and smaller vessels, was collected in the secure and capacious harbour of Carthagena in Spain.^'^ The intrepid countenance of Majorian animated his troops with a confidence of victory ; and, if we might credit the historian Procopius, his courage sometimes hurried him beyond the bounds of prudence. Anxious to explore, with his own eyes, the state of the Vandals he ventured, after disguising the colour of his hair, to visit Carthage in the character of his own ambassador ; and Genseric was afterwards mortified by the discovery that he had enter- tained and dismissed the einperor of the Romans. Such an anecdote may be rejected as an improbable fiction ; but it is a 54Ta (xef ottXoi?, TOL 6« Ad-yois, is the just and forcible distinction of Priscus (Excerpt. Legat. p. 42 [fr. 27]) in a short fragment, which throws much light on the history of Majorian. Jornandes has suppressed the defeat and alliance of the Visigoths, which were solemnly proclaimed in Gallicia, and are marked in the Chronicle of Idatius [§ 197, p. 31, ed. Mommsen]. 55 Floras, 1. ii. c. 2. He amuses himself with the poetical fancy that the trees had been transformed into ships ; and indeed the whole transaction, as it is related in the first book of Polybius, deviates too much from the probable course of human events. ^ Interea duplici te.xis dum littore classem Inferno superoque mari, cadit omnis in aequor Silva tibi, &c. Sidon. Panegyr. Majorian. 441-461. The numter of ships which Priscus fixes at 300 is magnified by an indefinite coni- parisorj with the fleets of Agamemrjon, Xer.xes, and Augustus. ​OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 23 fiction which would not have been imagined, unless in the life of a hero.^" Without the help of a personal interview, Genseric was '^^°f °^ sufficiently acquainted with the genius and designs of his adversary. He practised his customary arts of fi-aud and delay, but he practised them without success. His applications for peace became each hour more submissive, and perhaps more sincere ; but the inflexible Majorian had adopted the ancient maxim that Rome could not be safe as long as Carthage existed in a hostile state. The king of the Vandals distrusted the valour of his native subjects, who were enervated by the luxury of the South ; ^^ he suspected the fidelity of the vanquished people, who abhorred him as an Arian tyrant ; and the desperate measure, which he executed, of reducing Mauritania into a desert,^ could not defeat the operations of the Roman emperor, who was at liberty to land his troops on any part of the African coast. But Genseric was saved from impending and inevitable ruin by the treachery of some powerful subjects, envious, or apprehensive, of their master's success. Guided by their secret intelligence, he surprised the unguarded fleet in the bay of Carthagena ; many of the ships were sunk, or taken, or burnt ; and the preparations of three years were destroyed in a single day.'^ After this event, the behaviour of the two antagonists shewed them superior to their fortune. The ^^andal, instead of being elated by this accidental victory, immediately renewed his solicitations for peace. The emperor of the West, who was capable of forming great designs, and of supporting heavy disappointments, consented to a treaty, or rather to a suspension of arms ; in the full assurance that, before he could •'■' Procopius de Bell. Vandal. 1. i. c. 8, p. 194. When Genseric conducted his unknown guest into the arsenal of Carthage, the arms clashed of their own accord. Majorian had tinged his yellow locks with a black colour. 58 • Spoliisque potitus Immensis, robur luxCi jam perdidit omne, Quo valuit dum pauper erat. Panegy-r. Majorian. 330. He afterwards applies to Genseric, unjustly as it should seem, the vices of his subjects. '^ He burnt the villages, and poisoned the springs (Priscus, p. 42). Dubos (Hist. Critique, torn. i. p. 475) observes that the magazines which the Moors buried in the earth might escape his destructive search. Two or three hundred pits arc sometimes dug in the same place, and each pit contains at least 400 bushels of corn. Shaw's Travels, p. 139. '"' Idatius, who was safe in Gallicia from the power of Ricimer, boldly and honestly declares, Vandali, per proditores admoniti, &c. ; he disscnibU's, however, tht; name of the traitor. ​restore his navy, he should be supplied with provocations to justify a second war. Majorian returned to Italy, to prosecute his labours for the public happiness; and, as he was conscious of his own integrity, he might long remain ignorant of the dark conspiracy which threatened his throne and his life. The recent misfortune of Carthagena sullied the glory which had dazzled the eyes of the multitude; almost every description of civil and military officers were exasperated against the Reformer, since they all derived some advantage from the abuses which he endeavoured to suppress; and the patrician Ricimer impelled the inconstant passions of the Barbarians against a prince whom he esteemed and hated. The virtues of Majorian could not protect him from the impetuous sedition which broke out in the camp near Tortona, at the foot of the Alps. [Aug. 2] He was compelled to abdicate the Imperial purple: His death. A.D. 461, August 7 five days after his abdication, it was reported that he died of a dysentery; and the humble tomb, which covered his remains, was consecrated by the respect and gratitude of succeeding generations. The private character of Majorian inspired love and respect. Malicious calumny and satire excited his indignation, or, if he himself were the object, his contempt; but he protected the freedom of wit, and, in the hours which the emperor gave to the familiar society of his friends, he could indulge his taste for pleasantry, without degrading the majesty of his rank.
Ricimer reigns under the name of Severus. A.D. 461-467 It was not perhaps without some regret that Ricimer sacrificed his friend to the interest of his ambition; but he resolved, in a second choice, to avoid the imprudent preference of superior virtue and merit. At his command the obsequious senate of Rome bestowed the Imperial title on Libius Severus, [Proclaimed at Ravenna. Nov. 19, A.D. 461] who ascended the throne of the West without emerging from ​the obscurity of a private condition. History has scarcely deigned to notice his birth, his elevation, his character, or [Aug. 15, A.D 465] his death. Severus expired, as soon as his life became inconvenient to his patron; and it would be useless to discriminate his nominal reign in the vacant interval of six years, between the death of Majorian and the elevation of Anthemius. During that period, the government was in the hands of Ricimer alone; and, although the modest Barbarian disclaimed the name of king, he accumulated treasures, formed a separate army, negotiated private alliances, and ruled Italy with the same independent and despotic authority which was afterwards exercised by Odoacer and Theodoric. Revolt of Marcellinus in Dalmatia But his dominions were bounded by the Alps; and two Roman generals, Marcellinus and Ægidius, maintained their allegiance to the republic, by rejecting, with disdain, the phantom which he styled an emperor. Marcellinus still adhered to the old religion; and the devout Pagans, who secretly disobeyed the laws of the church and state, applauded his profound skill in the science of divination. But he possessed the more valuable qualifications of learning, virtue, and courage; the study of the Latin literature had improved his taste; and his military talents had recommended him to the esteem and confidence of the great Aetius, in whose ruin he was involved. By a timely flight, Marcellinus escaped the rage of Valentinian, and boldly asserted his liberty amidst the convulsions of the Western empire. His voluntary, or reluctant, submission to the authority of Majorian was rewarded by the government of Sicily and the command of an army, stationed in that island to oppose, or to attack, the Vandals; but his Barbarian mercenaries, after the emperor's death, were tempted to revolt by the artful liberality of Ricimer. At the head of a band of faithful followers, the intrepid Marcellinus occupied the province of Dalmatia, assumed the title of Patrician of the West, secured the love of his subjects by a mild and equitable reign, built a fleet which claimed the dominion of the Hadriatic, and
64 Sidonius (Paneg. Anth. 317) dismisses him to heaven. Auxerat Augustus naturæ lege Severus Divorum numerum
And an old list of the emperors, composed about the time of Justinian, praises his piety, and fixes his residence at Rome (Sirmond, Not. ad Sidon. p. 111, 112). [He was a native of Lucania.] ​alternately alarmed the coasts of Italy and of Africa. Ægidius, the master-general of Gaul, who equalled, or at least who imitated, the heroes of ancient Rome, and of Ægidius in Gaul proclaimed his immortal resentment against the assassins of his beloved master. A brave and numerous army was attached to his standard; and, though he was prevented by the arts of Ricimer, and the arms of the Visigoths, from marching to the gates of Rome, he maintained his independent sovereignty beyond the Alps, and rendered the name of Ægidius respectable both in peace and war. The Franks, who had punished with exile the youthful follies of Childeric, elected the Roman general for their king; his vanity, rather than his ambition, was gratified by that singular honour; and, when the nation, at the end of four years, repented of the injury which they had offered to the Merovingian family, he patiently acquiesced in the restoration of the lawful prince. [A.D. 464-5] The authority of Ægidius ended only with his life; and the suspicions of poison and secret violence, which derived some countenance from the character of Ricimer, were eagerly entertained by the passionate credulity of the Gauls.
Naval war of the Vandals. A.D 461-467 The kingdom of Italy, a name to which the Western empire was gradually reduced, was afflicted, under the reign of Ricimer, by the incessant depredations of the Vandal pirates. In the ​spring of each year they equipped a formidable navy in the port of Carthage; and Genseric himself, though in a very advanced age, still commanded in person the most important expeditions. His designs were concealed with impenetrable secrecy, till the moment that he hoisted sad. When he was asked by his pilot, what course he should steer; "Leave the determination to the winds (replied the Barbarian with pious arrogance); they will transport us to the guilty coast, whose inhabitants have provoked the divine justice;" but, if Genseric himself deigned to issue more precise orders, he judged the most wealthy to be the most criminal. The Vandals repeatedly visited the coasts of Spain, Liguria, Tuscany, Campania, Lucania, Bruttium, Apulia, Calabria, Venetia, Dalmatia, Epirus, Greece, and Sicily; they were tempted to subdue the island of Sardinia, so advantageously placed in the centre of the Mediterranean; and their arms spread desolation, or terror, from the columns of Hercules to the mouth of the Nile. As they were more ambitious of spoil than of glory, they seldom attacked any fortified cities or engaged any regular troops in the open field. But the celerity of their motions enabled them, almost at the same time, to threaten and to attack the most distant objects which attracted their desires; and, as they always embarked a sufficient number of horses, they had no sooner landed than they swept the dismayed country with a body of light cavalry. Yet, notwithstanding the example of their king, the native Vandals and Alani insensibly declined this toilsome and perilous warfare; the hardy generation of the first conquerors was almost extinguished, and their sons, who were born in Africa, enjoyed the delicious baths and gardens which had been acquired by the valour of their fathers. Their place was readily supplied by a various multitude of Moors and Romans, of captives and outlaws; and those desperate wretches who had already violated the laws of their country were the most eager to promote the atrocious acts which disgrace the victories of Genseric. In the treatment of his unhappy prisoners, he sometimes consulted his avarice, and sometimes indulged his cruelty; and the massacre of five hundred noble citizens of Zant or Zacynthus, whose mangled
​bodies he cast into the Ionian sea, was imputed, by the public indignation, to his latest posterity.
Negotiations with the Eastern empire. A.D. 462, &c. Such crimes could not be excused by any provocations; but the war which the king of the Vandals prosecuted against the Roman empire was justified by a specious and reasonable motive. The widow of Valentinian, Eudoxia, whom he had led captive from Rome to Carthage, was the sole heiress of the Theodosian house; her elder daughter, Eudocia, became the reluctant wife of Hunneric, his eldest son; and the stern father, asserting a legal claim, which could not easily be refuted or satisfied, demanded a just proportion of the Imperial patrimony. An adequate, or at least a valuable, compensation was offered by the {{left sidenote|[AD. 462] Eastern emperor, to purchase a necessary peace. Eudoxia and her younger daughter, Placidia, were honourably restored, and the fury of the Vandals was confined to the limits of the Western empire. The Italians, destitute of a naval force, which alone was capable of protecting their coasts, implored the aid of the more fortunate nations of the East; who had formerly acknowledged, in peace and war, the supremacy of Rome. But the perpetual division of the two empires had alienated their interest and their inclinations; the faith of a recent treaty was alleged; and the Western Romans, instead of arms and ships, could only obtain the assistance of a cold and ineffectual mediation. The haughty Ricimer, who had long struggled with the difficulties of his situation, was at length reduced to address the throne of Constantinople, in the humble language of a subject; and Italy submitted, as the price and security of the alliance, to accept a master from the choice of the emperor of the East. It is not the purpose of the present chapter [or even of the present volume] to continue the distinct series of the Byzantine history; but a concise view of the reign and character of the Emperor Leo may explain the last efforts that were attempted to save the falling empire of the West.
​Leo, emperor of the East. A.D. 457-474 Since the death of the younger Theodosius, the domestic repose of Constantinople had never been interrupted by war or faction. Pulcheria had bestowed her hand, and the sceptre of the East, on the modest virtue of Marcian; he gratefully reverenced her august rank and virgin chastity; and, after her death, he gave his people the example of the religious worship that was due to the memory of the Imperial saint. Attentive to the prosperity of his own dominions, Marcian seemed to behold with indifference the misfortunes of Rome; and the obstinate refusal of a brave and active prince to draw his sword against the Vandals was ascribed to a secret promise, which had formerly been exacted from him when he was a captive in the power of Genseric. [A.D. 457]The death of Marcian, after a reign of seven years, would have exposed the East to the danger of a popular election, if the superior weight of a single family had not been able to incline the balance in favour of the candidate whose interest they supported. The patrician Aspar might have placed the diadem on his own head, if he would have subscribed the Nicene creed. During three generations the armies of the East were successively commanded by his father, by himself, and by his son Ardaburius; his Barbarian guards formed a military force that overawed the palace and the capital; and the liberal distribution of his immense treasures rendered Aspar as popular as he was powerful. He recommended the obscure name of Leo of Thrace, a military tribune, and the principal steward of his household. His nomination was unanimously ratified by the senate; and the servant of Aspar received the Imperial crown from the hands of the patriarch or bishop, who was permitted to express, by this unusual ceremony, the suffrage of the Deity. This emperor, the first of the name of Leo, has been distinguished by the title of the Great, from a succession of princes, who gradually fixed, in the opinion of ​the Greeks, a very humble standard of heroic, or at least of royal, perfection. Yet the temperate firmness with which Leo resisted the oppression of his benefactor shewed that he was conscious of his duty and of his prerogative. Aspar was astonished to find that his influence could no longer appoint a præfect of Constantinople: he presumed to reproach his sovereign with a breach of promise, and, insolently shaking his purple, "It is not proper (said he) that the man who is invested with this garment should be guilty of lying". "Nor is it proper (replied Leo) that a prince should be compelled to resign his own judgment, and the public interest, to the will of a subject." After this extraordinary scene, it was impossible that the reconciliation of the emperor and the patrician could be sincere; or, at least, that it could be solid and permanent. An army of Isaurians was secretly levied, and introduced into Constantinople; and, while Leo undermined the authority, and prepared the disgrace, of the family of Aspar, his mild and cautious behaviour restrained them from any rash and desperate attempts, which might have been fatal to themselves or their enemies. The measures of peace and war were affected by this internal revolution. As long as Aspar degraded the majesty of the throne, the secret correspondence of religion and interest engaged him to favour the cause of Genseric. When Leo had delivered himself from that ignominious servitude, he listened to the complaints of the Italians; resolved to extirpate the tyranny of the Vandals; and declared his alliance with his colleague, Anthemius, whom he solemnly invested with the diadem and purple of the West.
Anthemius, emperor of the West. A.D. 467-472 The virtues of Anthemius have perhaps been magnified, since the Imperial descent, which he could only deduce from the usurper Procopius, has been swelled into a line of emperors. But the merit of his immediate parents, their honours, and their riches, rendered Anthemius one of the most illustrious
76 Cedrenus (p. 345, 346 [leg. p. 346, 347; ed. Bonn. i. p. 607]), who was conversant with the writers of better days, has preserved the remarkable words of Aspar, Βασιλεῦ, τὸν ταύτην τὴν ἁλουργίδα περιβεβλημένον οὐ χρὴ διαψεύδεσθαι.
77 The power of the Isaurians agitated the Eastern empire in the two succeeding reigns of Zeno and Anastasius; but it ended in the destruction of those Barbarians who maintained their fierce independence about two hundred and thirty years.
78 Tali tu civis ab urbe Procopio genitore micas; cui prisca propago Augustis venit a proavis.
The poet (Sidon. Panegyr. Anthem. 67-306) then proceeds to relate the private life and fortunes of the future emperor, with which he must have been very imperfectly acquainted. ​subjects of the East. His father Procopius obtained, after his Persian embassy, the rank of general and patrician; and the name of Anthemius was derived from his maternal grandfather, the celebrated præfect, who protected, with so much ability and success, the infant reign of Theodosius. The grandson of the præfect was raised above the condition of a private subject, by his marriage with Euphemia, the daughter of the emperor Marcian. This splendid alliance, which might supersede the necessity of merit, hastened the promotion of Anthemius to the successive dignities of count, of master-general, of consul, and of patrician; and his merit or fortune claimed the honours of a victory which was obtained on the banks of the Danube over the Huns. Without indulging an extravagant ambition, the son-in-law of Marcian might hope to be his successor; but Anthemius supported the disappointment with courage and patience; and his subsequent elevation was universally approved by the public, who esteemed him worthy to reign, till he ascended the throne. The emperor of the West marched from Constantinople, attended by several counts of high distinction, and a body of guards, almost equal to the strength and numbers of a regular army; A.D. 467, April 12 he entered Rome in triumph, and the choice of Leo was confirmed by the senate, the people, and the Barbarian confederates of Italy. The solemn inauguration of Anthemius was followed by the nuptials of his daughter and the patrician Ricimer: a fortunate event which was considered as the firmest security of the union and happiness of the state. The wealth of two empires was ostentatiously displayed; and many senators completed their ruin by an expensive effort to disguise their poverty. All serious business was suspended during this festival; the courts of justice were shut; the streets of Rome, the theatres, the places of public and private resort, resounded with hymenæal songs and dances; and the [Alypia] royal bride, clothed in silken robes, with a crown on her head, was conducted to the palace of Ricimer, who had changed his military dress for the habit of a consul and a senator. On this memorable occasion, Sidonius, whose early ambition had been so fatally blasted, appeared as the orator of Auvergne, among the provincial deputies who addressed the throne with ​congratulations or complaints. A.D. 468, January 1 The calends of January were now approaching: and the venal poet, who had loved Avitus and esteemed Majorian, was persuaded by his friends to celebrate, in heroic verse, the merit, the felicity, the second consulship and the future triumphs of the emperor Anthemius. Sidonius pronounced, with assurance and success, a panegyric which is still extant; and, whatever might be the imperfections either of the subject or of the composition, the welcome flatterer was immediately rewarded with the præfecture of Rome; a dignity which placed him among the illustrious personages of the empire, till he wisely preferred the more respectable character of a bishop and a saint.
The festival of Lupercalia The Greeks ambitiously commend the piety and catholic faith of the emperor whom they gave to the West; nor do they forget to observe that, when he left Constantinople, he converted his palace into the pious foundation of a public bath, a church, and an hospital for old men. Yet some suspicious appearances are found to sully the theological fame of Anthemius. From the conversation of Philotheus, a Macedonian sectary, he had imbibed the spirit of religious toleration; and the heretics of Rome would have assembled with impunity, if the bold and vehement censure which pope Hilary pronounced in the church of St. Peter had not obliged him to abjure the unpopular indulgence. Even the Pagans, a feeble and obscure remnant, conceived some vain hopes from the indifference or partiality of Anthemius; and his singular friendship for the philosopher Severus, whom he promoted to the consulship, was ascribed ​to a secret project of reviving the ancient worship of the gods. These idols were crumbled into dust, and the mythology which had once been the creed of nations was so universally disbelieved that it might be employed without scandal, or at least without suspicion, by Christian poets. Yet the vestiges of superstition were not absolutely obliterated, and the festival of the Lupercalia, whose origin had preceded the foundation of Rome, was still celebrated under the reign of Anthemius. The savage and simple rites were expressive of an early state of society before the invention of arts and agriculture. The rustic deities who presided over the toils and pleasures of the pastoral life. Pan, Fannus, and their train of satyrs, were such as the fancy of shepherds might create, sportive, petulant, and lascivious; whose power was limited, and whose malice was inoffensive. A goat was the offering the best adapted to their character and attributes; the flesh of the victim was roasted on willow spits; and the riotous youths who crowded to the feast ran naked about the fields, with leather thongs in their hands, communicating, as it was supposed, the blessing of fecundity to the women whom they touched. The altar of Pan was erected, perhaps by Evander the Arcadian, in a dark recess in the side of the Palatine hill, watered by a perpetual fountain, and shaded by an hanging grove. A tradition that, in the same place, Romulus and Remus were suckled by the wolf rendered it still more sacred and venerable in the eyes of the Romans; and this sylvan spot was gradually surrounded by the stately edifices of the Forum. After the conversion of the Imperial city, the Christians still continued, in the month of February, the annual celebration of the Lupercalia; to which they ascribed a secret and mysterious influence on the genial powers of the animal and vegetable world. The bishops of Rome were solicitous to ​abolish a profane custom, so repugnant to the spirit of Christianity; but their zeal was not supported by the authority of the civil magistrate: the inveterate abuse subsisted till the end of the fifth century, and pope Gelasius, who purified the capital from the last stain of idolatry, appeased, by a formal apology, the murmurs of the senate and people.
Preparations against the Vandals of Africa. A.D. 468 In all his public declarations, the emperor Leo assumes the authority, and professes the affection, of a father for his son Anthemius, with whom he had divided the administration of the universe. The situation, and perhaps the character, of Leo dissuaded him from exposing his person to the toils and dangers of an African war. But the powers of the Eastern empire were strenuously exerted to deliver Italy and the Mediterranean from the Vandals; and Genseric, who had so long oppressed both the land and the sea, was threatened from every side with a formidable invasion. The campaign was opened by a bold and successful enterprise of the præfect Heraclius. The troops of Egypt, Thebais, and Libya were embarked under his command; and the Arabs, with a train of horses and camels, opened the roads of the desert. Heraclius landed on the coast of Tripoli, surprised and subdued the cities of that province, and prepared, by a laborious march, which Cato had formerly executed, to join the Imperial ariny under the walls of Carthage. The intelligence of this loss extorted from Genseric some ​insidious and ineffectual propositions of peace; but he was still more seriously alarmed by the reconciliation of Marcellinus with the two empires. The independent patrician had been persuaded to acknowledge the legitimate title of Anthemius, whom he accompanied in his journey to Rome; the Dalmatian fleet was received into the harbours of Italy; the active valour of Marcellinus expelled the Vandals from the island of Sardinia; and the languid efforts of the West added some weight to the immense preparations of the Eastern Romans. The expense of the naval armament, which Leo sent against the Vandals, has been distinctly ascertained; and the curious and instructive account displays the wealth of the declining empire. The royal demesnes, or private patrimony of the prince, supplied seventeen thousand pounds of gold; forty-seven thousand pounds of gold, and seven hundred thousand of silver, were levied and paid into the treasury by the Prætorian præfects. But the cities were reduced to extreme poverty; and the diligent calculation of fines and forfeitures, as a valuable object of the revenue, does not suggest the idea of a just or merciful administration. The whole expense, by whatever means it was defrayed, of the African campaign amounted to the sum of one hundred and thirty thousand pounds of gold, about five millions two hundred thousand pounds sterling, at a time when the value of money appears, from the comparative price of corn, to have been somewhat higher than in the present age. The fleet that sailed from Constantinople to Carthage, consisted of eleven hundred and thirteen ships, and the number of soldiers and mariners exceeded one hundred thousand men. Basiliscus, the brother of the empress Verina, was entrusted with this important command. His sister, the wife of Leo, had exaggerated the merit of his former exploits against the Scythians. But the discovery of his guilt, or incapacity, was reserved for the African war; and his friends could only save his military reputation by asserting that he had conspired with Aspar to spare Genseric and to betray the last hope of the Western empire.
Failure of the expedition Experience has shewn that the success of an invader most ​commonly depends on the vigour and celerity of his operations. The strength and sharpness of the first impression are blunted by delay; the health and spirit of the troops insensibly languish in a distant climate; the naval and military force, a mighty effort which perhaps can never be repeated, is silently consumed; and every hour that is wasted in negotiation accustoms the enemy to contemplate and examine those hostile terrors which, on their first appearance, he deemed irresistible. The formidable navy of Basiliscus pursued its prosperous navigation from the Thracian Bosphorus to the coast of Africa. He landed his troops at Cape Bona, or the promontory of Mercury, about forty miles from Carthage. The army of Heraclius and the fleet of Marcellinus either joined or seconded the Imperial lieutenant; and the Vandals, who opposed his progress by sea or land, were successively vanquished. If Basiliscus had seized the moment of consternation and boldly advanced to the capital, Carthage must have surrendered, and the kingdom of the Vandals was extinguished. Genseric beheld the danger with firmness, and eluded it with his veteran dexterity. He protested, in the most respectful language, that he was ready to submit his person and his dominions to the will of the emperor; but he requested a truce of five days to regulate the terms of his submission; and it was universally believed that his secret liberality contributed to the success of this public negotiation. Instead of obstinately refusing whatever indulgence his enemy so earnestly solicited, the guilty, or the credulous, Basiliscus consented to the fatal truce; and his imprudent security seemed to proclaim that he already considered himself as the conqueror of Africa. During this short interval, the wind became favourable to the designs of Genseric. He manned his largest ships of war with the bravest of the Moors and Vandals, and they towed after them many large barques filled with combustible materials. In the obscurity of the night these destructive vessels were impelled against the unguarded and unsuspecting fleet of the Romans, who were awakened by the sense of their instant danger. Their close and crowded order assisted the progress of the fire, which was communicated with rapid and irresistible violence; and the noise ​of the wind, the crackling of the flames, the dissonant cries of the soldiers and mariners, who could neither command nor obey, increased the horror of the nocturnal tumult. Whilst they laboured to extricate themselves from the fire-ships, and to save at least a part of the navy, the galleys of Genseric assaulted them with temperate and disciplined valour; and many of the Romans, who escaped the fury of the flames, were destroyed or taken by the victorious Vandals. Among the events of that disastrous night the heroic, or rather desperate, courage of John, one of the principal officers of Basiliscus, has rescued his name from oblivion. When the ship, which he had bravely defended, was almost consumed, he threw himself in his armour into the sea, disdainfully rejected the esteem and pity of Genso, the son of Genseric, who pressed him to accept honourable quarter, and sunk under the waves; exclaiming, with his last breath, that he would never fall alive into the hands of those impious dogs. Actuated by a far different spirit, Basiliscus, whose station was the most remote from danger, disgracefully fled in the beginning of the engagement, returned to Constantinople with the loss of more than half of his fleet and army, and sheltered his guilty head in the sanctuary of St. Sophia, till his sister, by her tears and entreaties, could obtain his pardon from the indignant emperor. Heraclius effected his retreat through the desert; Marcellinus retired to Sicily, where [Aug., A.D. 468] he was assassinated, perhaps at the instigation of Ricimer, by one of his own captains; and the king of the Vandals expressed his surprise and satisfaction that the Romans themselves should remove from the world his most formidable antagonists. After the failure of this great expedition, Genseric again became the tyrant of the sea: the coasts of Italy, Greece and Asia were again exposed to his revenge and avarice; Tripoli and Sardinia returned to his obedience; he added Sicily to the number of his provinces; and, before A.D. 477 he died, in the fulness of years and of glory, he beheld the final extinction of the empire of the West.
Conquests of the Visigoths in Spain and Gaul. A.D. 462-477 During his long and active reign, the African monarch had studiously cultivated the friendship of the Barbarians of Europe, ​whose arms he might employ in a seasonable and effectual diversion against the two empires. After the death of Attila, he renewed his alliance with the Visigoths of Gaul; and the sons of the elder Theodoric, who successively reigned over that warlike nation, were easily persuaded, by the sense of interest, to forget the cruel affront which Genseric had inflicted on their sister. The death of the emperor Majorian delivered Theodoric the second from the restraint of fear, and perhaps of honour; he violated his recent treaty with the Romans; and the ample territory of Narbonne, which he firmly united to his dominions, became the immediate reward of his perfidy. The selfish policy of Ricimer encouraged him to invade the provinces which were in the possession of Ægidius, his rival; but the active count, by the defence of Arles and the victory of Orleans, saved Gaul, and checked, during his lifetime, the progress of the Visigoths. Their ambition was soon rekindled; and the design of extinguishing the Roman empire in Spain and Gaul was conceived, and almost completed, in the reign of Euric, who assassinated his brother Theodoric, and displayed, with a more savage temper, superior abilities both in peace and war. He passed the Pyrenees at the head of a numerous army, subdued the cities of Saragossa and Pampeluna, vanquished in battle the martial nobles of the Tarragonese province, carried his victorious arms into the heart of Lusitania, and permitted the Suevi to hold the kingdom of Gallicia under the Gothic monarchy of Spain. The efforts of Euric were not less vigorous or less successful in Gaul; and, throughout the country that extends from the Pyrenees to the Rhone and the Loire, Berry and Auvergne were the only cities, or dioceses, which refused to acknowledge him as their master. In the defence of Clermont, their principal town, the inhabitants of Auvergne sustained with inflexible resolution the miseries of war, pestilence and famine; and the Visigoths, relinquishing the fruitless siege, suspended the hopes of that important conquest. The youth of the province were animated by the heroic and almost incredible valour of Ecdicius, ​the son of the emperor Avitus, who made a desperate sally with only eighteen horsemen, boldly attacked the Gothic army, and, after maintaining a flying skirmish, retired safe and victorious within the walls of Clermont. His charity was equal to his courage: in a time of extreme scarcity four thousand poor were fed at his expense, and his private influence levied an army of Burgundians for the deliverance of Auvergne. From his virtues alone the faithful citizens of Gaul derived any hopes of safety or freedom; and even such virtues were insufficient to avert the impending ruin of their country, since they were anxious to learn from his authority and example, whether they should prefer the alternative of exile or servitude. The public confidence was lost; the resources of the state were exhausted; and the Gauls had too much reason to believe that Anthemius, who reigned in Italy, was incapable of protecting his distressed subjects beyond the Alps. The feeble emperor could only procure for their defence the service of twelve thousand British auxiliaries. Riothamus, one of the independent kings, or chieftains, of the island, was persuaded to transport his troops to the continent of Gaul; he sailed up the Loire, and established his quarters in Berry, where the people complained of these oppressive allies, till they were destroyed, or dispersed, by the arms of the Visigoths.
Trial of Arvandus. A.D. 468 [469] One of the last acts of jurisdiction, which the Roman senate exercised over their subjects of Gaul, was the trial and condemnation of Arvandus the Prætorian præfect. Sidonius, who rejoices that he lived under a reign in which he might pity and assist a state criminal, has expressed with tenderness and freedom, the faults of his indiscreet and unfortunate friend. From the perils which he had escaped, Arvandus imbibed ​40 THE DECLINE AND FALL confidence rather than wisdom ; and such was the various, though uniform, imprudence of his behaviour that his prosperity must appear much more surprising than his downfall. The second praefecture, which he obtained within the term of five years, abolished the merit and popularity of his preceding administration. His easy temper was corrupted by flattery and exasperated by opposition ; he was forced to satisfy his importunate creditors with the spoils of the province ; his capricious insolence offended the nobles of Gaul, and he sunk under the weight of the public hatred. The mandate of his disgrace summoned him to justify his conduct before the senate ; and he passed the sea of Tuscany with a favourable wind, the presage, as he vainly imagined, of his future fortunes. A decent respect was still observed for the Pra-fecturian rank ; and, on his arrival at Rome, Arvandus was committed to the hospitality, rather than to the custody, of Flavius Asellus, the count of the sacred largesses, who resided in the Capitol. ^'^'^ He was eagerly pursued by his accusers, the four deputies of Gaul, who were all distinguished by their birth, their dignities, or their eloquence. In the name of a great province, and accord- ing to the forms of Roman jurisprudence, they instituted a civil and criminal action, requiring such a restitution as might com- pensate the losses of individuals, and such punishment as might satisfy the justice of the state. Their charges of corrupt oppres- sion were numerous and weight)' ; but they placed their secret dependence on a letter, which they had intercepted, and which they could prove, by the evidence of his secretary, to have been dictated by Arvandus himself. The author of this letter seemed to dissuade the king of the Goths from a peace with the Greek emperor ; he suggested the attack of the Britons on the Loire : and he recommended a division of Gaul, according to the law of nations, between the 'isigoths and the Burgun- dians.i"'^ These pernicious schemes, which a friend could only palliate by the reproaches of vanity and indiscretion, were susceptible of a treasonable interpretation ; and the deputies had artfully resolved not to produce their most formidable weapons till the decisive moment of the contest. But their 105 When the Capitol ceased to be a temple, it was appropriated to the use of the civil magistrate ; and it is still the residence of the Roman senator. The jewellers, &c. might be allowed to expose their precious wares in the porticoes. lOGHaec ad regem Gothorum charta videbattir emitti, pacem cum Graeco Im- peratore dissuadens, Britannos super Ligerim sitos irapugnari oportere demonstrans, cum Burgiindionibus jure gentium Gallias dividi debere confirmans. ​intentions were discovered by the zeal of Sidonius. He immediately apprized the unsuspecting criminal of his danger; and sincerely lamented, without any mixture of anger, the haughty presumption of Arvandus, who rejected, and even resented, the salutary advice of his friends. Ignorant of his real situation, Arvandus shewed himself in the Capitol in the white robe of a candidate, accepted indiscriminate salutations and offers of service, examined the shops of the merchants, the silks and gems, sometimes with the indifference of a spectator, and sometimes with the attention of a purchaser; and complained of the times, of the senate, of the prince, and of the delays of justice. His complaints were soon removed. An early day was fixed for his trial; and Arvandus appeared, with his accusers, before a numerous assembly of the Roman senate. The mournful garb which they affected excited the compassion of the judges, who were scandalized by the gay and splendid dress of their adversary; and, when the præfect Arvandus, with the first of the Gallic deputies, were directed to take their places on the senatorial benches, the same contrast of pride and modesty was observed in their behaviour. In this memorable judgment, which presented a lively image of the old republic, the Gauls exposed, with force and freedom, the grievances of the province; and, as soon as the minds of the audience were sufficiently inflamed, they recited the fatal epistle. The obstinacy of Arvandus was founded on the strange supposition that a subject could not be convicted of treason, unless he had actually conspired to assume the purple. As the paper was read, he repeatedly, and with a loud voice, acknowledged it for his genuine composition; and his astonishment was equal to his dismay, when the unanimous voice of the senate declared him guilty of a capital offence. By their decree, he was degraded from the rank of a præfect to the obscure condition of a plebeian, and ignominiously dragged by servile hands to the public prison. After a fortnight's adjournment, the senate was again convened to pronounce the sentence of his death; but, while he expected, in the island of Æsculapius, the expiration of the thirty days allowed by an ancient law to the vilest malefactors, his friends interposed, the emperor Anthemius relented, and the præfect of Gaul obtained the milder punishment of exile and confiscation. The faults of Arvandus might deserve ​compassion; but the impunity of Seronatus accused the justice of the republic, till he was condemned, and executed, on the complaint of the people of Auvergne. That flagitious minister, the Catiline of his age and country, held a secret correspondence with the Visigoths, to betray the province which he oppressed; his industry was continually exercised in the discovery of new taxes and obsolete offences; and his extravagant vices would have inspired contempt, if they had not excited fear and abhorrence.
Discord of Anthemius and Ricimer. A.D. 471 Such criminals were not beyond the reach of justice; but whatever might be the guilt of Ricimer, that powerful Barbarian was able to contend or to negotiate with the prince whose alliance he had condescended to accept. The peaceful and prosperous reign which Anthemius had promised to the West was soon clouded by misfortune and discord. Ricimer, apprehensive, or impatient, of a superior, retired from Rome, and fixed his residence at Milan, an advantageous situation either to invite or to repel the warlike tribes that were seated between the Alps and the Danube. Italy was gradually divided into two independent and hostile kingdoms; and the nobles of Liguria, who trembled at the near approach of a civil war, fell prostrate at the feet of the patrician, and conjured him to spare their unhappy country. "For my own part," replied Ricimer in a tone of insolent moderation, "I am still inclined to embrace the friendship of the Galatian; but who will undertake to appease his anger, or to mitigate the pride which always rises in proportion to our submission?" They informed him that Epiphanius, bishop of [Ticinum] Pavia, united the wisdom of the serpent with the ​innocence of the dove; and appeared confident that the eloquence of such an ambassador must prevail against the strongest opposition either of interest or passion. Their recommendation was approved; and Epiphanius, assuming the benevolent office of mediation, proceeded without delay to Rome, where he was received with the honours due to his merit and reputation. The oration of a bishop in favour of peace may be easily supposed: he argued, that in all possible circumstances the forgiveness of injuries must be an act of mercy, or magnanimity, or prudence; and he seriously admonished the emperor to avoid a contest with a fierce Barbarian, which might be fatal to himself, and must be ruinous to his dominions. Anthemius acknowledged the truth of his maxims; but he deeply felt, with grief and indignation, the behaviour of Ricimer, and his passion gave eloquence and energy to his discourse. "What favours," he warmly exclaimed, "have we refused to this ungrateful man? What provocations have we not endured? Regardless of the majesty of the purple, I gave my daughter to a Goth; I sacrificed my own blood to the safety of the republic. The liberality which ought to have secured the eternal attachment of Ricimer has exasperated him against his benefactor. What wars has he not excited against the empire? How often has he instigated and assisted the fury of hostile nations? Shall I now accept his perfidious friendship? Can I hope that he will respect the engagements of a treaty, who has already violated the duties of a son?" But the anger of Anthemius evaporated in these passionate exclamations; he insensibly yielded to the proposals of Epiphanius; and the bishop returned to his diocese with the satisfaction of restoring the peace of Italy, by a reconciliation, of which the sincerity and continuance might be reasonably suspected. The clemency of the emperor was extorted from his weakness; and Ricimer suspended his ambitious designs, till he had secretly prepared the engines with which he resolved to subvert the throne of Anthemius. The mask of peace and moderation was then thrown aside. The army of Ricimer was fortified by a numerous reinforcement of Burgundians and Oriental Suevi; he disclaimed all allegiance to the Greek emperor, marched from Milan to the gates of Rome, and, fixing his camp on the banks of the Anio, impatiently expected the arrival of Olybrius, his Imperial candidate.
​Olybrius emperor of the West. A.D. 472, March 23 The senator Olybrius, of the Anieian family, might esteem himself the lawful heir of the Western empire. He had married Placidia, the younger daughter of Valentinian, after she was restored by Genseric; who still detained her sister Eudoxia, as the wife, or rather as the captive, of his son. The king of the Vandals supported, by threats and solicitations, the fair pretensions of his Roman ally; and assigned, as one of the motives of the war, the refusal of the senate and people to acknowledge their lawful prince, and the unworthy preference which they had given to a stranger. The friendship of the public enemy might render Olybrius still more unpopular to the Italians; but, when Ricimer meditated the ruin of the emperor Anthemius, he tempted with the offer of a diadem the candidate who could justify his rebellion by an illustrious name and a royal alliance. The husband of Placidia, who, like most of his ancestors, had been invested with the consular dignity, might have continued to enjoy a secure and splendid fortune in the peaceful residence of Constantinople; nor does he appear to have been tormented by such a genius as cannot be amused or occupied unless by the administration of an empire. Yet Olybrius yielded to the importunities of his friends, perhaps of his wife; rashly plunged into the dangers and calamities of a civil war; and, with the secret connivance of the emperor Leo, accepted the Italian purple, which was bestowed and resumed at the capricious will of a Barbarian. He landed without obstacle (for Genseric was master of the sea) either at Ravenna or the port of Ostia, and immediately proceeded to the camp of Ricimer, where he was received as the sovereign of the Western world.
Sack of Rome, and death of Anthemius. A.D. 472, July 11 The patrician, who had extended his posts from the Anio to the Milvian bridge, already possessed two quarters of Rome, the Vatican and the Janiculum, which are separated by the Tiber from the rest of the city; and it may be conjectured that an ​OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 45 assembly of seceding senators imitated^ in the choice of Olybrius, the forms of a legal election. But the body of the senate and people firmly adhered to the cause of Anthemius ; and the more effectual support of a Gothic army enabled hiin to prolong his reign, and the public distress, by a resistance of three months, which produced the concomitant evils of famine and pestilence. At length Ricimer made a furious assault on the bridge of Hadrian, or St. Angelo ; and the narrov*^ pass was defended with equal valour by the Goths, till the death of Gilimer their leader. The victorious troops, breaking down every barrier, rushed with irresistible violence into the heart of the city, and Rome (if we may use the language of a contemporary Pope) was subverted by the civil fury of Anthemius and Ricimer.^^*' The unfortunate Anthemius was dragged from his concealment and inhumanly massacred by the command of his son-in-law ; who thus added a third, or perhaps a fourth, emperor to the number of his victims. The soldiers, who united the rage of factious citizens with the savage manners of Barbarians, were indulged, without control, in the licence of rapine and murder ; the crowd of slaves and plebeians, who were unconcerned in the event, could only gain by the indiscriminate pillage ; and the face of the city exhibited the strange contrast of stern cruelty and dissolute intemper- ance. i^' Forty days after this calamitous event, the subject Death of Rici- not of glory but of guilt, Italy was delivered, by a painful ["sf "^ disease, from the tyrant Ricimer, who bequeathed the command of his army to his nephew (nnidobald, one of the princes of the [Gundobad] Burgundians. In the same year, all the principal actors in this great revolution were removed from the stage ; and the whole reign of Olybrius, whose death does not betray any symptoms and of of violence, is included within the term of seven months. He oct. 23"' siastical distribution, which had been recently made by Simphcius, the reigning pope, huo of the seven regions, or parishes, of Rome depended on the church of St. Peter. See Nardini Roma Antica, p. 67. It would require a tedious dissertation to mark the circumstances, in which 1 am inclined to depart from the topography of that learned Roman. ii" Nuper Anthemii et Ricimeris civili furore subversaest. Gelasius (in Epist. ad .^ndroiiiach. apud Baron. A.u. 496, No. 42), .Sigonius (tom. i. 1. xiv. de Occidentali Imperio, p. 542, 543), and Muratori (Ann. d'ltalia, tom. iv. p. 308, 309), with the aid of a less imperfect Ms. of the Historia Miscella, have illustrated this dark and bloody transaction. [Hilimer (not Gilimer) was the name of the defender of the bridge. He is described (Hist. Misc., 15, 3) as ruler uf the Gauls ; but this floes not take us far. Gibbon has followed a guess of Sigonius.] I'^Such had been the sneva ac deformis urbe tota facies, when Rome was assaulted and stormed by the troops of V'espasian (see Tacit. Hist. iii. 82, 83) ; and every cause of mischief had since acquired much additional energy. The revolu- tion of ages may bring round the same calamities ; but ages may revolve without producing a Tacitus to describe them. ​left one daughter, the offspring of his marriage with Placidia; and the family of the great Theodosius, transplanted from Spain to Constantinople, was propagated in the female line as far as the eighth generation.
Julius Nepos and Glycerius, emperors of the West. A.D. 472-475 Whilst the vacant throne of Italy was abandoned to lawless Barbarians, the election of a new colleague was seriously agitated in the council of Leo. The empress of Verina, studious to promote the greatness of her own family, had married one of her nieces to Julius Nepos, who succeeded his uncle Marcellinus in the sovereignty of Dalmatia, a more solid possession than the title which he was persuaded to accept, of Emperor of the West. But the measures of the Byzantine court were so languid and irresolute that many months elapsed after the death of Anthemius, and even of Olybrius, before their destined successor could shew himself, with a respectable force, to his Italian subjects. During that interval. Glycerius, an obscure soldier, [A.D. 473, March 5] was invested with the purple by his patron Gundobald; but the Burgundian prince was unable, or unwilling, to support his nomination by a civil war: the pursuits of domestic ambition recalled him beyond the Alps, and his client was permitted to exchange the Roman sceptre for the bishopric of Salona. After extinguishing such a competitor, the emperor Nepos was acknowledged by the senate, by the Italians, and by the provincials of Gaul; his moral virtues and military talents were loudly celebrated; and those who derived any private benefit from his government announced, in prophetic strains, the restoration of the public felicity. Their hopes (if such hopes had been entertained) were confounded within the term of a single year; and the treaty of peace, which ceded Auvergne to ​the Visigoths, is the only event of his short and inglorious reign. The most faithful subjects of Gaul were sacrificed by the Italian emperor to the hope of domestic security; but his repose was soon invaded by a furious sedition of the Barbarian confederates, who, under the command of Orestes, their general, were in full march from Rome to Ravenna. Nepos trembled at their approach; and, instead of placing a just confidence in the strength of Ravenna, he hastily escaped to his ships, and retired to his Dalmatian principality, on the opposite coast of the Hadriatic. By this shameful abdication, he protracted his life about five years, in a very ambiguous state, between an emperor and an exile, till he was assassinated at Salona by the ungrateful Glycerius, who was translated, perhaps as the reward of his crime, to the archbishopric of Milan.
The patrician Orestes. A.D. 475 The nations who had asserted their independence after the death of Attila were established, by the right of possession or conquest, in the boundless countries to the north of the Danube, or in the Roman provinces between the river and the Alps. But the bravest of their youth enlisted in the army of confederates, who formed the defence and the terror of Italy; and in this promiscuous multitude, the names of the Heruli, the Scyri, the Alani, the Turcilingi, and the Rugians, appear to have predominated. The example of these warriors was imitated by Orestes, the son of Tatullus, and the father of the last Roman emperor of the West. Orestes, who has been already mentioned in this history, had never deserted his country. His birth and fortunes rendered him one of the most illustrious subjects of Pannonia, When that province was ceded to the Huns, he entered into the service of Attila, his lawful sovereign, obtained the office of his secretary, and was repeatedly sent ambassador to Constantinople, to represent the person, and signify the commands of the ​imperious monarch. The death of that conqueror restored him to his freedom; and Orestes might honourably refuse either to follow the sons of Attila into the Scythian desert or to obey the Ostrogoths, who had usurped the dominion of Pannonia. He preferred the service of the Italian princes, the successors of Valentinian; and, as he possessed the qualifications of courage, industry, and experience, he advanced with rapid steps in the military profession, till he was elevated, by the favour of Nepos himself, to the dignities of patrician and master-general of the troops. These troops had been long accustomed to reverence the character and authority of Orestes, who affected their manners, conversed with them in their own language, and was intimately connected with their national chieftains, by long habits of familiarity and friendship. At his solicitation they rose in arms against the obscure Greek, who presumed to claim their obedience; and, when Orestes, from some secret motive, declined the purple, they consented, with the same facility, to acknowledge His son Augustulus, the last emperor of the West. A.D. 476 his son Augustulus as the emperor of the West. By the abdication of Nepos, Orestes had now attained the summit of his ambitious hopes; but he soon discovered, before the end of the first year, that the lessons of perjury and ingratitude, which a rebel must inculcate, will be retorted against himself; and that the precarious sovereign of Italy was only permitted to choose whether he would be the slave or the victim of his Barbarian mercenaries. The dangerous alliance of these strangers had oppressed and insulted the last remains of Roman freedom and dignity. At each revolution, their pay and privileges were augmented; but their insolence increased in a still more extravagant degree; they envied the fortune of their brethren in Gaul, Spain, and Africa, whose victorious arms had acquired an independent and perpetual inheritance; and they insisted on their peremptory demand that a third part of the lands of Italy should be immediately divided among them. Orestes, with a spirit which, in another situation, might be entitled to our esteem, chose rather to encounter the rage of an armed multitude than to subscribe the ruin of an innocent people. He rejected the audacious demand; and his refusal was favourable to the ambition of Odoacer; a bold Barbarian, who assured his fellow soldiers that, if they dared to associate under his command, they might soon extort the justice which had been denied to their dutiful petitions. From all the camps and garrisons of Italy, the confederates, actuated by the same resentment and the same hopes, impatiently flocked to the standard of this popular leader; and the unfortunate patrician, overwhelmed by the ​torrent, hastily retreated to the strong city of Pavia, the episcopal seat of the holy Epiphanius. Pavia was immediately besieged, the fortifications were stormed, the town was pillaged; and, although the bishop might labour, with much zeal and some success, to save the property of the church and the chastity of female captives, the tumult could only be appeased by the execution of Orestes. His brother Paul was slain in an action near Ravenna; and the helpless Augustulus, who could no longer command the respect, was reduced to implore the clemency, of Odoacer.
Odoacer king of Italy. A.D. 476-490 That successful Barbarian was the son of Edecon: who, in some remarkable transactions, particularly described in a preceding chapter, had been the colleague of Orestes himself. The honour of an ambassador should be exempt from suspicion; and Edecon had listened to a conspiracy against the life of his sovereign. But this apparent guilt was expiated by his merit or repentance; his rank was eminent and conspicuous; he enjoyed the favour of Attila; and the troops under his command, who guarded in their turn the royal village, consisted in a tribe of Scyrri, his immediate and hereditary subjects. In the revolt of the nations, they still adhered to the Huns; and, more than twelve years afterwards, the name of Edecon is honourably mentioned, in their unequal contest with the Ostrogoths; which was terminated, after two bloody battles, by the defeat and dispersion of the Scyrri. Their gallant leader, who did not survive this national calamity, left two sons, Onulf and Odoacer, to struggle with adversity, and to maintain as they might, by rapine or service, the faithful followers of their exile. Onulf directed his steps towards Constantinople, where he sullied, by the assassination of a generous benefactor, the fame which he had acquired in arms. His brother Odoacer led a wandering life among the Barbarians of Noricum, with a mind and a fortune suited to the most desperate adventures; and, when he had fixed his choice, he piously visited the cell of Severinus, the ​popular saint of the country, to solicit his approbation and blessing. The lowness of the door would not admit the lofty stature of Odoacer: he was obliged to stoop: but in that humble attitude the saint could discern the symptoms of his future greatness; and, addressing him in a prophetic tone, "Pursue" (said he) "your design; proceed to Italy; you will soon cast away this coarse garment of skins; and your wealth will be adequate to the liberality of your mind". The Barbarian, whose daring spirit accepted and ratified the prediction, was admitted into the service of the Western empire, and soon obtained an honourable rank in the guards. His manners were gradually polished, his military skill was improved, and the confederates of Italy would not have elected him for their general, unless the exploits of Odoacer had established a high opinion of his courage and capacity. Their military acclamations saluted him with the title of King; but he abstained, during his whole reign, from the use of the purple and diadem, lest he should offend those princes whose subjects, by their accidental mixture, had formed the victorious army which time and policy might insensibly unite into a great nation.
Extinction of the Western empire. A.D. 476, or A.D. 479 Royalty was familiar to the Barbarians, and the submissive people of Italy was prepared to obey, without a murmur, the authority which he should condescend to exercise as the vice-gerent of the emperor of the West. But Odoacer had resolved to abolish that useless and expensive office; and such is the weight of antique prejudice that it required some boldness and penetration to discover the extreme facility of the enterprise. The unfortunate Augustulus was made the instrument of his own disgrace; he signified his resignation to the senate; and that assembly, in their last act of obedience to a Roman prince, still affected the spirit of freedom and the forms of the constitution. An epistle was addressed, by their unanimous decree, to ​the emperor Zeno, the son-in-law and successor of Leo; who had lately been restored, after a short rebellion, to the Byzantine throne. They solemnly "disclaim the necessity, or even the wish, of continuing any longer the Imperial succession in Italy; since, in their opinion, the majesty of a sole monarch is sufficient to pervade and protect, at the same time, both the East and the West. In their own name, and in the name of the people, they consent that the seat of universal empire shall be transferred from Rome to Constantinople; and they basely renounce the right of choosing their master, the only vestige that yet remained of the authority which had given laws to the world. The republic (they repeat that name without a blush) might safely confide in the civil and military virtues of Odoacer; and they humbly request that the emperor would invest him with the title of Patrician and the administration of the diocese of Italy." The deputies of the senate were received at Constantinople with some marks of displeasure and indignation; and, when they were admitted to the audience of Zeno, he sternly reproached them with their treatment of the two emperors, Anthemius and Nepos, whom the East had successively granted to the prayers of Italy. "The first" (continued he) "you have murdered; the second you have expelled; but the second is still alive, and whilst he lives he is your lawful sovereign." But the prudent Zeno soon deserted the hopeless cause of his abdicated colleague. His vanity was gratified by the title of sole emperor and by the statues erected to his honour in the several quarters of Rome; he entertained a friendly, though ambiguous, correspondence with the patrician Odoacer; and he gratefully accepted the Imperial ensigns, the sacred ornaments of the throne and palace, which the Barbarian was not unwilling to remove from the sight of the people.
Augustulus is banished to the Lucullan villa In the space of twenty years since the death of Valentinian, nine emperors had successively disappeared; and the son of Orestes, a youth recommended only by his beauty, would be the least entitled to the notice of posterity, if his reign, which was marked by the extinction of the Roman empire in the West, did not leave a memorable æra in the history of mankind. ​The patrician Orestes had married the daughter of Count Romulus, of Petovio, in Noricum; the name of Augualus, notwithstanding the jealousy of power, was known at Aquileia as a familiar surname; and the appellations of the two great founders, of the city and of the monarchy, were thus strangely united in the last of their successors. The son of Orestes assumed and disgraced the names of Romulus Augustus; but the first was corrupted into Momyllus, by the Greeks, and the second has been changed by the Latins into the contemptible diminutive Augustulus. The life of this inoffensive youth was spared by the generous clemency of Odoacer; who dismissed him, with his whole family, from the Imperial palace, fixed his annual allowance at [£3600] six thousand pieces of gold, and assigned the castle of Lucullus, in Campania, for the place of his exile or retirement. As soon as the Romans breathed from the toils of the Punic war, they were attracted by the beauties and the pleasures of Campania; and the country house of the elder Scipio at Liternum exhibited a lasting model of their rustic simplicity. The delicious shores of the bay of Naples were crowded with villas; and Sylla applauded the masterly skill of his rival, who had seated himself on the lofty promontory of Misenum, that commands, on every side, the sea and land, as far as the boundaries of the horizon. The villa of Marius was purchased, ​within a few years, by Lucullus, and the price had increased from two thousand five hundred to more than fourscore thousand pounds sterling. It was adorned by the new proprietor with Grecian arts, and Asiatic treasures; and the houses and gardens of Lucullus obtained a distinguished rank in the list of Imperial palaces. When the Vandals became formidable to the sea-coast, the Lucullan villa, on the promontory of Misenum, gradually assumed the strength and appellation of a strong castle, the obscure retreat of the last emperor of the West. About twenty years after that great revolution it was converted into a church and monastery, to receive the bones of St. Severinus. They securely reposed, amidst the broken trophies of Cimbric and Armenian victories, till the beginning of the tenth century; when the fortifications, which might afford a dangerous shelter to the Saracens, were demolished by the people of Naples.
Decay of the Roman spirit Odoacer was the first Barbarian who reigned in Italy, over a people who had once asserted their just superiority above the rest of mankind. The disgrace of the Romans still excites our respectful compassion, and we fondly sympathize with the imaginary grief and indignation of their degenerate posterity. But the calamities of Italy had gradually subdued the proud consciousness of freedom and glory. In the age of Roman virtue, the provinces were subject to the arms, and the citizens to the laws, of the republic; till those laws were subverted by civil discord, and both the city and the provinces became the servile property of a tyrant. The forms of the constitution, which alleviated or disguised their abject slavery, were abolished by time and violence; the Italians alternately lamented the presence or the absence of the sovereigns, whom they detested or despised; and the succession of five centuries inflicted the various evils of military licence, capricious despotism, and ​elaborate oppression. During the same period, the Barbarians had emerged from obscurity and contempt, and the warriors of Germany and Scythia were introduced into the provinces, as the servants, the allies, and at length the masters, of the Romans, whom they insulted or protected. The hatred of the people was suppressed by fear; they respected the spirit and splendour of the martial chiefs who were invested with the honours of the empire; and the fate of Rome had long depended on the sword of those formidable strangers. The stern Ricimer, who trampled on the ruins of Italy, had exercised the power, without assuming the title, of a king; and the patient Romans were insensibly prepared to acknowledge the royalty of Odoacer and his Barbaric successors.
Character and reign of Odoacer. A.D. 476-490 The King of Italy was not unworthy of the high station to which his valour and fortune had exalted him; his savage manners were polished by the habits of conversation; and he respected, though a conqueror and a Barbarian, the institutions, and even the prejudices, of his subjects. After an interval of seven years, Odoacer restored the consulship of the West. For himself, he modestly, or proudly, declined an honour which was still accepted by the emperors of the East; but the curule chair was successively filled by eleven of the most illustrious senators; and the list is adorned by the respectable name of Basilius, whose virtues claimed the friendship and grateful applause of Sidonius, his client, The laws of the emperors were strictly enforced, and the civil administration of Italy was still exercised by the Prætorian præfect and his subordinate officers. Odoacer devolved on the Roman magistrates the odious and oppressive task of collecting the public revenue; but he reserved for himself the merit of seasonable and popular indulgence. Like the rest of the Barbarians, he had been instructed in the Arian heresy; but he revered the monastic and episcopal characters; and the silence of the Catholics attests the toleration which they enjoyed. The peace of the ​city required the interposition of his praæect Basilius in the choice of a Roman pontiff; the decree which restrained the clergy from alienating the lands was ultimately designed for the benefit of the people, whose devotion would have been taxed to repair the dilapidations of the church. Italy was protected by the arms of its conqueror; and its frontiers were respected by the Barbarians of Gaul and Germany, who had so long insulted the feeble race of Theodosius. Odoacer passed the Hadriatic, to chastise the assassins of the emperor Nepos, and to acquire the maritime province of Dalmatia. He [A.D. 481] passed the Alps, to rescue the remains of Noricum from Fava, or [A.D. 487] Feletheus, king of the Rugians, who held his residence beyond the Danube. The king was vanquished in battle, and led away prisoner; a numerous colony of captives and subjects was transplanted into Italy; and Rome, after a long period of defeat and disgrace, might claim the triumph of her Barbarian master.
Miserable state of Italy Notwithstanding the prudence and success of Odoacer, his kingdom exhibited the sad prospect of misery and desolation. Since the age of Tiberius, the decay of agriculture had been felt in Italy; and it was a subject of complaint that the life of the Roman people depended on the accidents of the winds and waves. In the division and the decline of the empire, the tributary harvests of Egypt and Africa were withdrawn; the numbers of the inhabitants continually diminished with the means of subsistence; and the country was exhausted by the irretrievable losses of war, famine, and pestilence. St. Ambrose has deplored the ruin of a populous district, which had been once adorned with the flourishing cities of Bologna, Modena, Regium, and Placentia. Pope Gelasius was a subject ​of Odoacer, and he affirms, with strong exaggeration, that in Æmilia, Tuscany, and the adjacent provinces, the human species was almost extirpated. The plebeians of Rome, who were fed by the hand of their master, perished or disappeared, as soon as his liberality was suppressed; the decline of the arts reduced the industrious mechanic to idleness and want; and the senators, who might support with patience the ruin of their country, bewailed their private loss of wealth and luxury. One third of those ample estates, to which the ruin of Italy is originally imputed, was extorted for the use of the conquerors. Injuries were aggravated by insults; the sense of actual sufferings was embittered by the fear of more dreadful evils; and, as new lands were allotted to new swarms of Barbarians, each senator was apprehensive lest the arbitrary surveyors should approach his favourite villa or his most profitable farm. The least unfortunate were those who submitted without a murmur to the power which it was impossible to resist. Since they desired to live, they owed some gratitude to the tyrant who had spared their lives; and, since he was the absolute master of their fortunes, the portion which he left must be accepted as his pure and voluntary gift. The distress of Italy was mitigated by the prudence and humanity of Odoacer, who had bound himself, as the price of his elevation, to satisfy the demands of a licentious and turbulent multitude. The kings of the Barbarians were frequently resisted, deposed, or murdered, by their native subjects; and the various bands of Italian mercenaries, who associated under the standard of an elective general, claimed a larger privilege of freedom and rapine. A monarchy destitute of national union, and hereditary right, hastened to its dissolution. After a reign of fourteen years, Odoacer was oppressed by the superior genius of Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths, a hero alike excellent in the arts of war and of government, who restored an age of peace and prosperity, and whose name still excites and deserves the attention of mankind.
* ↑ Sidonius Apollinaris composed the thirteenth epistle of the second book to refute the paradox of his friend Serranus, who entertained a singular, though generous, enthusiasm for the deceased emperor. This epistle, with some indulgence, may claim the praise of an elegant composition; and it throws much light on the character of Maximus.
* ↑ Clientum prævia, pedisequa, circumfusa populositas, is the train which Sidonius himself (1. i. epist. 9 [§ 3]) assigns to another senator of consular rank.
* ↑ [Rather, twice Præt. Præf. of Italy, once Præf. of Rome. See Tillemont, v. 257.]
* ↑ Districtus ensis cui super impia Cervice pendet, non Siculae dapes Dulcem elaborabunt saporem: Non avium citharæque cantus Somnum reducent. Horat. Carm. iii. 1. Sidonius concludes his letter with the story of Damocles, which Cicero (Tusculan. v. 20, 21) had so inimitably told.
* ↑ [Paulo amplius quam bimestris principatus, Sidonius, ib. The date of the death of Maximus is May 31 (Prosper); June 12 is given by Anon. Cuspiniani.]
* ↑ The curious reader may consult the learned and accurate treatise of Hadrian Reland, de Spoliis Templi Hierosolymitani in Arcu Titiano Romæ conspicuis, in 12mo. Trajecti ad Rhenum, 1716.
* ↑ The vessel which transported the relics of the Capitol was the only one of the whole fleet that suffered shipwreck. If a bigoted sophist, a Pagan bigot, had mentioned the accident, he might have rejoiced that this cargo of sacrilege was lost in the sea.
* ↑ See Victor Vitensis, de Persecut. Vandal. l. i. c. 8, p. 11, 12, edit. Ruinart. Deogratias governed the church of Carthage only three years. If he had not been privately buried, his corpse would have been torn piecemeal by the mad devotion of the people.
* ↑ The general evidence for the death of Maximus and the sack of Rome by the Vandals is comprised in Sidonius (Panegyr. Avit. 441-450), Procopius (de Bell. Vandal. l. i. c. 4, 5, p. 188, 189, and l. ii. c. 9, p. 255), Evagrius (l. ii. c. 7), Jornandes (de Reb. Geticis, c. 45, p. 677), and the Chronicles of Idatius, Prosper, Marcellinus, and Theophanes under the proper year.
* ↑ The private life and elevation of Avitus must be deduced, with becoming suspicion, from the panegyric pronounced by Sidonius Apollinaris, his subject and his son-in-law.
* ↑ [The assembly was held at Ugernum (Beaucaire) near Arles (Sidon. Carm. 7, 572. Cp. Longnon, Géogr. de la Gaule, p. 437). But it cannot have been the annual assembly of the seven provinces.]
* ↑ [There is no clear evidence that Marcian acknowledged Avitus. Tillemont conjectured that he refused to do so, and that for this reason the name of Avitus, consul for 456, does not appear in the Consular Fasti.]
* ↑ Isidore, archbishop of Seville, who was himself of the blood-royal of the Goths, acknowledges and almost justifies (Hist. Goth. p. 718 [p. 279, ed. Mommsen, in Chron. Min. ii.]) the crime which their slave Jornandes had basely dissembled (c. 43, p. 673).
* ↑ This elaborate description (l. i. ep. ii. p. 2-7) was dictated by some political motive. It was designed for the public eye, and had been shewn by the friends of Sidonius, before it was inserted in the collection of his epistles. The first book was published separately. See Tillemont, Mémoires Eccles. tom. xvi. p. 264.
* ↑ I have suppressed in this portrait of Theodoric several minute circumstances and technical phrases, which could be tolerable, or indeed intelligible, to those only who, like the contemporaries of Sidonius, had frequented the markets where naked slaves were exposed to sale (Dubos, Hist. Critique, tom. i. p. 404).
* ↑ Videas ibi elegantiam Græcam, abundantiam Gallicanam, celeritatem Italam; publicam pompam, privatam diligentiam, regiam disciplinam.
* ↑ Tunc etiam ego aliquid obsecraturus feliciter vincor, et mihi [leg. quando mihi ad hoc] tabula perit ut causa salvetur. Sidonius of Auvergne was not a subject of Theodoric; but he might be compelled to solicit either justice or favour at the court of Toulouse.
* ↑ 26
* ↑ 27
* ↑ The Suevic war is the most authentic part of the Chronicle of Idatius, who, as bishop of Iria Flavia, was himself a spectator and a sufferer. Jornandes (c. 44, p. 675, 676, 677) has expatiated with pleasure on the Gothic victory.
* ↑ In one of the porticoes or galleries belonging to Trajan's library, among the statues of famous writers and orators. Sidon. Apoll. l. ix. epist. i6, p. 284. Carm. viii. p. 350.
* ↑ Luxuriose agere volens a senatoribus projectus est, is the concise expression of Gregory of Tours (l. ii. c. xi. in tom. ii. p. 168). An old Chronicle (in tom. ii. p. 649) mentions an indecent jest of Avitus, which seems more applicable to Rome than to Treves. [There is no other evidence against the moral character of Avitus, and Gibbon does not show his usual judiciousness in accepting it. See Holder-Egger, Neues Archiv, ii. p. 274; Hodgkin, ii. 393-5.]
* ↑ Sidonius (Panegyr. Anthem. 362, &c.) praises the royal birth of Ricimer, the lawful heir, as he chooses to insinuate, both of the Gothic and Suevic kingdoms.
* ↑ See the Chronicle of Idatius. Jornandes (c. 44, p. 676) styles him, with some truth, virum egregium, et pene tunc in Italiâ ad exercitum singularem.
* ↑ Parcens innocentiæ Aviti, is the compassionate but contemptuous language of Victor Tunnunensis (in Chron. apud. Scaliger Euseb.). In another place, he calls him, vir totius simplicitatis. This commendation is more humble, but it is more solid and sincere, than the praises of Sidonius. [Some further details as to the fall of Avitus are derived from John of Antioch (Müller, F. H. G. 4, fr. 202, — a "Constantinian" fragment; see Appendix 1). The Roman populace blamed him for a famine, which broke out in the city; he was compelled to disband his Visigothic bodyguard; to pay whom, having no money, he stripped public edifices of their copper.]
* ↑ He suffered, as it is supposed, in the persecution of Diocletian (Tillemont, Mém. Ecclés. tom. v. p. 279, 696). Gregory of Tours, his peculiar votary, has dedicated to the glory of Julian the Martyr an entire book (de Gloriâ Martyrum, l. ii. in Max. Bibliot. Patrum, tom. xi. p. 861-871), in which he relates about fifty foolish miracles performed by his relics.
* ↑ Gregory of Tours (l. ii. c. xi. p. 168) is concise, but correct, in the reign of his countryman. The words of Idatius, "caret imperio, caret et vitâ," seem to imply that the death of Avitus was violent; but it must have been secret, since Evagrius (l. ii. c. 7) could suppose that he died of the plague.
* ↑ [He had also a son Ecdicius, who subsequently distinguished himself in the defence of Auvergne in A.D. 474.]
* ↑ After a modest appeal to the examples of his brethren, Virgil and Horace, Sidonius honestly confesses the debt, and promises payment. Sic mihi diverso nuper sub Marte cadenti Jussisti placido [Leo reads erecto] victor ut essem animo. Serviat ergo tibi servati lingua poetæ, Atque meæ vitæ laus tua sit pretium. Sidon. Apoll. carm. iv. p. 308. See Dubos, Hist. Critique, tom. i. p. 448, &c.
* ↑ The words of Procopius deserve to be transcribed; ον̂̔τος γὰρ ὸ Μαιορɩ̂νος ξύμπαντας τοὺς πώποτε Ῥωμαίων· βεβασιλευκότας ὑπεραίρων ἀρετῃ̑ πάσῃ; and afterwards, ἀνὴρ τὰ μὲν εἰν τοὺς ὑπηκόους μέτριος γεγονὼς, ϕοβερὸς δὲ τὰ ἐς τοὺς πολεμίους (de Bell. Vandal. 1. i. c. 7, p. 194): a concise but comprehensive definition of royal virtue.
* ↑ The panegyric was pronounced at Lyons before the end of the year 458, while the emperor was still consul. It has more art than genius and more labour than art. The ornaments are false or trivial; the expression is feeble and prolix; and Sidonius wants the skill to exhibit the principal figure in a strong and distinct light. The private life of Majorian occupies about two hundred lines, 107-305.
* ↑ Ab externo hoste et a domesticâ clade liberavimus; by the latter, Majorian must understand the tyranny of Avitus; whose death he consequently avowed as a meritorious act. On this occasion, Sidonius is fearful and obscure; he describes the twelve Cæsars, the nations of Africa, &c. , that he may escape the dangerous name of Avitus (305-369).
* ↑ See the whole edict or epistle of Majorian to the senate (Novell. tit. iv. p. 34). Yet the expression, regnum nostrum, bears some taint of the age, and does not mix kindly with the word respublica, which he frequently repeats.
* ↑ See the laws of Majorian (they are only nine, but very long and various) at the end of the Theodosian Code, Novell. l. iv. p. 32-37. Godefroy has not given any commentary on these additional pieces.
* ↑ Fessas provincialium variâ atque multiplici tributorum exactione fortunas, et extraordinariis fiscalium solutionum oneribus attritas, &c. Novell. Majorian. tit. iv. p. 34.
* ↑ [Of more than eleven years' standing.]
* ↑ The learned Greaves (vol. i. p. 329, 330, 331) has found, by a diligent enquiry, that aurei of the Antonines weighed one hundred and eighteen, and those of the fifth century only sixty-eight, English grains. Majorian gives currency to all gold coin, excepting only the Gallic solidus, from its deficiency, not in the weight, but in the standard.
* ↑ The whole edict (Novell. Majorian. tit. vi. p. 35) is curious. "Antiquarum ædium dissipatur speciosa constructio; et ut [earum] aliquid reparetur, magna diruuntur. Hinc jam occasio nascitur, ut etiam unusquisque privatum ædificium construens, per gratiam judicum ... præsumere de publicis locis necessaria, et transferre non dubitet," &c. With equal zeal, but with less power, Petrarch, in the fourteenth century, repeated the same complaints (Vie de Petrarque, tom. i. p. 326, 327). If I prosecute this History, I shall not be unmindful of the decline and fall of the city of Rome; an interesting object, to which my plan was originally confined. [See chap. lxxi.]
* ↑ The emperor chides the lenity of Rogatian, consular of Tuscany, in a style of acrimonious reproof, which sounds almost like personal resentment (Novell. tit. ix. p. 47). The law of Majorian, which punished obstinate widows, was soon afterwards repealed by his successor Severus (Novell. Sever, tit. i. p. 37).
* ↑ Sidon. Panegyr. Majorian. 385-440.
* ↑ Procop. de Bell. Vandal. l. i. c. 8, p. 194. The testimony of Idatius is fair and impartial; "Majorianum de Galliis Romam redeuntem et Romano imperio vel nomini res necessarias ordinantem, Richimer livore percitus, et individorum consilio ultus, fraude interficit circumventum". Some read Suevorum, and I am unwilling to efface either of the words, as they express the different accomplices who united in the conspiracy of Majorian. [For date of his deposition and death see Fasti Vindob. Priores, in Chron. Minora, i. p. 305. Cp. Appendix 1.]
* ↑ See the Epigrams of Ennodius, No. CXXXV. inter Sirmond. Opera, tom. i. p. 1903. It is flat and obscure; but Ennodius was made bishop of Pavia fifty years after the death of Majorian, and his praise deserves credit and regard [CCCLIV., p. 256, ed. Vogel].
* ↑ Sidonius gives a tedious account (l. i. epist. xi. p. 25-31) of a supper at Arles, to which he was invited by Majorian, a short time before his death. He had no intention of praising a deceased emperor, but a casual disinterested remark [§ 12], "Subrisit Augustus; ut erat, auctoritate servatâ, cum se communioni dedisset, joci plenus," outweighs the six hundred lines of his venal panegyric.
* ↑ 64
* ↑ Tillemont, who is always scandalized by the virtues of Infidels, attributes this advantageous portrait of Marcellinus (which Suidas has preserved) to the partial zeal of some Pagan historian (Hist. des Empereurs, tom. vi. p. 330).
* ↑ Procopius de Bell Vandal. l. i. c. 6, p. 191. In various circumstances of the life of Marcellinus, it is not easy to reconcile the Greek historian with the Latin Chronicles of the times.
* ↑ I must apply to Ægidius the praises which Sidonius (Panegyr. Majorian. 553) bestows on a nameless master-general, who commanded the rear guard of Majorian. Idatius, from public report, commends his Christian piety; and Priscus mentions (p. 42 [fr. 30]) his military virtues.
* ↑ Greg. Turon. l. ii. c. 12 in tom. ii. p. 168. The Père Daniel, whose ideas were superficial and modern, has started some objections against the story of Childeric (Hist. de France, tom. i. Préface Historique, p. lxxviii. &c.); but they have been fairly satisfied by Dubos (Hist. Critique, tom. i. p. 460-510) and by two authors who disputed the prize of the Academy of Soissons (p. 131-177,310-339). With regard to the term of Childeric's exile, it is necessary either to prolong the life of Ægidius beyond the date assigned by the Chronicle of Idatius, or to correct the text ot Gregory, by reading quarto anno, instead of octavo.
* ↑ The naval war of Genseric is described by Priscus (Excerpta Legation. p. 42 [fr. 29], Procopius (de Bell. Vandal. l. i. c. 5, p. 189, 190, and c. 22, p. 228), Victor Vitensis (de Persecut. Vandal. l. i. c. 17, and Ruin. p. 467-481), and in the three panegyrics of Sidonius, whose chronological order is absurdly transposed in the editions both of Savaron and Sirmond. (Avit. Carm. vii. 441-451, Majorian. Carm. v. 327-350, 385-440. Anthem. Carm. ii. 348-386.) In one passage the poet seems inspired by his subject, and expresses a strong idea by a lively image [Carm. 2, 348, sqq.]: — — Hinc Vandalus hostis Urget; et in nostrum numerosâ classe quotannis Militat excidium; conversoque ordine Fati Torrida Caucaseos infert mihi Byrsa furores. [Italy was also attacked on another side in the year 464 by an invasion of Alani, repulsed by Ricimer near Bergamo ad Pedem Montis (a phrase which, as Mr. Hodgkin observes, suggests Piedmont). Anon. Cuspin. ad ann.]
* ↑ The poet himself is compelled to acknowledge the distress of Ricimer [ii. 352]: Præterea invictus Ricimer, quem publica fata Respiciunt, propria solus vix Marte repellit Piratam per rura vagum ——— Italy addresses her complaint to the Tiber, and Rome, at the solicitation of the river-god, transports herself to Constantinople, renounces her ancient claims, and implores the friendship of Aurora, the goddess of the East. This fabulous machinery, which the genius of Claudian had used and abused, is the constant and miserable resource of the muse of Sidonius.
* ↑ [Vol. 3 of the quarto ed. ended with the Fall of the Western Empire: below, p. 169.]
* ↑ The original authors of the reigns of Marcian, Leo, and Zeno are reduced to some imperfect fragments, whose deficiencies must be supplied from the more recent compilations of Theophanes, Zonaras, and Cedrenus.
* ↑ St. Pulcheria died A.D. 453, four years before her nominal husband, and her festival is celebrated on the 10th of September by the modern Greeks; she bequeathed an immense patrimony to pious, or at least to ecclesiastical, uses. See Tillemont, Mémoires Ecclés. tom. xv. p. 181-184.
* ↑ See Procopius de],Bell. Vandal. l. i. c. 4, p. 185.
* ↑ From this disability of Aspar to ascend the throne, it may be inferred that the stain of Heresy was perpetual and indelible, while that of Barbarism disappeared in the second generation. [Aspar, son of Ardaburius, was of Alanic race. He was consul in A.D. 434.]
* ↑ Theophanes, p. 95. This appears to be the first origin of a ceremony which all the Christian princes of the world have since adopted, and from which the clergy have deduced the most formidable consequences.
* ↑ 76
* ↑ 77
* ↑ 78
* ↑ Sidonius discovers, with tolerable ingenuity, that this disappointment added new lustre to the virtues of Anthemius (210, &c.), who declined one sceptre and reluctantly accepted another (22, &c.).
* ↑ The poet again celebrates the unanimity of all orders of the state (15-22); and the Chronicle of Idatius mentions the forces which attended his march.
* ↑ Interveni autem [leg. etenim] nuptiis Patricii Ricimeris, cui filia perennis Augusti in spem publicæ securitatis copulabatur [Epp. i. 5, 10]. The journey of Sidonius from Lyons, and the festival of Rome, are described with some spirit. L. i. epist. 5, p. 9-13. Epist. 9, p. 21. [The name of the daughter of Anthemius is given by John of Antioch, F. H. G. iv. frag. 209.]
* ↑ Sidonius (l. i. epist. 9, 23, 24) very fairly states his motive, his labour, and his reward. "Hic ipse Panegyricus, si [leg. etsi] non judicium, certe eventum, boni operis, accepit." He was made bishop of Clermont, A.D. 471 [or 472], Tillemont, Mém. Ecclés. tom. xvi. p. 750.
* ↑ The palace of Anthemius stood on the banks of the Propontis. In the ninth century, Alexius, the son-in-law of the emperor Theophilus, obtained permission to purchase the ground; and ended his days in a monastery which he founded on that delightful spot. Ducange, Constantinopolis Christiana, pp. 117, 152.
* ↑ Papa Hilarus ... apud beatum Petrum Apostolum, palam ne id fieret, clarâ voce constrinxit, in tantum ut non ea facienda cum interpositione juramenti idem promitteret Imperator. Gelasius, Epistol. ad Andronicum, apud Baron. A..D. 467, No. 2. The cardinal observes, with some complacency, that it was much easier to plant heretics at Constantinople than at Rome.
* ↑ Damascius, in the life of the philosopher Isidore, apud Photium, p. 1049 [340]. Damascius, who lived under Justinian, composed another work, consisting of 570 præternatural stories of souls, dæmons, apparitions, the dotage of Platonic Paganism.
* ↑ In the poetical works of Sidonius, which he afterwards condemned (l. ix. epist. 16, p. 285), the fabulous deities are the principal actors. If Jerom was scourged by the angels for only reading Virgil, the bishop of Clermont, for such a vile imitation, deserved an additional whipping from the Muses.
* ↑ Ovid (Fast. l. ii. 267-452) has given an amusing description of the follies of antiquity, which still inspired so much respect that a grave magistrate, running naked through the streets, was not an object of astonishment or laughter.
* ↑ See Dionys. Halicarn. l. i. p. 25, 65, edit. Hudson [79]. The Roman antiquaries, Donatus (l. ii. c. 18, p. 173, 174) and Nardini (p. 386, 387), have laboured to ascertain the true situation of the Lupercal.
* ↑ Baronius published, from the Mss. of the Vatican, this epistle of pope Gelasius (A.D. 496, No. 28-45), which is entitled Adversus Andromachum Senatorem, cæterosque Romanos, qui Lupercalia secundum morem pristinum colenda constituebant. Gelasius always supposes that his adversaries are nominal Christians, and, that he may not yield to them in absurd prejudice, he imputes to this harmless festival all the calamities of the age.
* ↑ Itaque nos quibus totius mundi regimen commisit superna provisio. ... Pius et triumphator semper Augustus filius noster Anthemius, licet Divina Majestas et nostra creatio pietati ejus plenam Imperii commiserit potestatem, etc. ... Such is the dignified style of Leo, whom Anthemius respectfully names Dominus et Pater meus Princeps sacratissimus Leo. See Novell. Anthem. tit. ii. iii. p. 38, ad calcem Cod. Theod.
* ↑ The expedition of Heraclius is clouded with difficulties (Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. vi. p. 640), and it requires some dexterity to use the circumstances afforded by Theophanes without injury to the more respectable evidence of Procopius.
* ↑ The march of Cato from Berenice, in the province of Cyrene, was much longer than that of Heraclius from Tripoli. He passed the deep sandy desert in thirty days, and it was found necessary to provide, besides the ordinary supplies, a great number of skins filled with water, and several Psylli, who were supposed to possess the art of sucking the wounds which had been made by the serpents of their native country. See Plutarch in Caton. Uticens. tom. iv. p. 275 (c. 56). Strabon. Geograph. l. xvii. p. 1193. [Cp. Lucan, Pharsalia, Bk. ix.]
* ↑ The principal sum is clearly expressed by Procopius (de Bell. Vandal. l. i. c. 6, p. 191); the smaller constituent parts, which Tillemont (Hist. des Empereurs, tom. vi. p. 396) has laboriously collected from the Byzantine writers [Candidus, F. H. G. iv. p. 137], are less certain, and less important. The historian Malchus laments the public misery (Excerpt, ex Suida in Corp. Hist. Byzant. p. 58 [fr. 2a]), but he is surely unjust when he charges Leo with hoarding the treasures which he extorted from the people. [John Lydus, de Mag. 3, 43, computes the cost at 65,000 pounds of gold and 700,000 of silver; which approaches the sum given by Procopius.]
* ↑ This promontory is forty miles from Carthage (Procop. l. i. c. 6, p. 192) and twenty leagues from Sicily (Shaw's Travels, p. 89). Scipio landed further in the bay, at the fair promontory; see the animated description of Livy, xxix. 26, 27.
* ↑ Theophanes (p. 100) affirms that many ships of the Vandals were sunk. The assertion of Jornandes (de Successione Regn.) that Basiliscus attacked Carthage must be understood in a very qualified sense.
* ↑ Damascius in Vit. Isidor. apud Phot. p. 1048 [342]. It will appear, by comparing the three short chronicles of the times, that Marcellinus had fought near Carthage and was killed in Sicily. [The date of his death is given in Anon. Cusp.]
* ↑ For the African war, see Procopius (de Bell. Vandal. l. i. c. 6, p. 191,192, 193), Theophanes (p. 99, 100, 101), Cedrenus (p. 349, 350 [i. 613, ed. Bonn]), and Zonaras (tom. ii. l. xiv. p. 50, 51 [c. 1]). Montesquieu (Considérations sur la Grandeur, &c., c. xx. tom. iii. p. 497) has made a judicious observation on the failure of these great naval armaments.
* ↑ Jornandes is our best guide through the reigns of Theodoric II. and Euric (de Rebus Geticis, c. 44, 45, 46, 47, p. 675-681). Idatius ends too soon, and Isidore is too sparing of the information which he might have given on the affairs of Spain. The events that relate to Gaul are laboriously illustrated in the third book of the Abbé Dubos, Hist. Critique, tom. i. p. 424-620.
* ↑ See Mariana, Hist. Hispan. tom. i. l. v. c. 5, p. 162.
* ↑ An imperfect, but original, picture of Gaul, more especially of Auvergne, is shewn by Sidonius; who, as a senator, and afterwards as a bishop, was deeply interested in the fate of his country. See l. v. [leg. vii.] epist. i. 5, 9, &c.
* ↑ Sidonius, l. iii. epist. 3, p. 65-68. Greg. Turon. l. ii. c. 24, in tom. ii. p. 174. Jornandes, c. 45, p. 675. Perhaps Ecdicius was only the son-in-law of Avitus, his wife's son by another husband. [He was the brother of Papianilla, the wife of Sidonius, and daughter of Avitus; see Sidon. ep. v. 16.]
* ↑ Si nullæ a republicâ vires, nulla præsidia, si nullæ, quantum rumor est, Anthemii principis opes, statuit, te auctore, nobilitas seu patriam dimittere seu capillos (Sidon. l. ii. epist. 1, p. 33). The last words (Sirmond, Not. p. 25) may likewise denote the clerical tonsure, which was indeed the choice of Sidonius himself.
* ↑ The history of these Britons may be traced in Jornandes (c. [44 and] 45, p. 678), Sidonius (l. iii. epistol. 9 [ad Riothamum], p. 73, 74), and Gregory of Tours (l. ii. c. 18, in tom. ii. p. 170). Sidonius (who styles these mercenary troops argutos, armatos, tumultuosos, virtute, numero, contubernio contumaces) addresses their general in a tone of friendship and familiarity.
* ↑ See Sidonius, l. i. epist. 7, p. 15-20, with Sirmond's notes. This letter does honour to his heart, as well as to his understanding. The prose of Sidonius, however vitiated by a false and affected taste, is much superior to his insipid verses.
* ↑ Senatus consultum Tiberianum (Sirmond, Not. p. 17), but that law allowed only ten days between the sentence and execution: the remaining twenty were added in the reign of Theodosius.
* ↑ Catilina seculi nostri. Sidonius, l. ii. epist. 1, p. 33; l. v. epist. 13, p. 143; l. vii. epist. 7, p. 185. He execrates the crimes, and applauds the punishment, of Seronatus, perhaps with the indignation of a virtuous citizen, perhaps with the resentment of a personal enemy.
* ↑ Ricimer, under the reign of Anthemius, defeated and slew in battle Beorgor, king of the Alani (Jornandes, c. 45, p. 678). His sister had married the king of the Burgundians, and he maintained an intimate connexion with the Suevic colony established in Pannonia and Noricum.
* ↑ Galatam concitatum. Sirmond (in his notes to Ennodius) applies this application to Anthemius himself. The emperor was probably born in the province of Galatia, whose inhabitants, the Gallo-Grecians, were supposed to unite the vices of a savage, and a corrupted, people.
* ↑ Epiphanius was thirty years bishop of Pavia (A.D. 467-497; see Tillemont, Mém. Ecclés. tom. xvi. p. 788). His name and actions would have been unknown to posterity if Ennodius, one of his successors, had not written his life (Sirmond, Opera, tom. i. p. 1647-1692 [cp. App. 1]), in which he presents him as one of the greatest characters of the age.
* ↑ Ennodius (p. 1659-1664) has related this embassy of Epiphanius; and his narrative, verbose and turgid as it must appear, illustrates some curious passages in the fall of the Western empire. [P. 90-93, ed. Vogel.]
* ↑ Priscus, Excerpt. Legation, p. 74 [fr. 29]. Procopius de Bell. Vandal. 1. i. c. 6, p. 191. Eudoxia and her daughter were restored after the death of Majorian. Perhaps the consulship of Olybrius (A. D. 464) was bestowed as a nuptial present.
* ↑ The hostile appearance of Olybrius is fixed (notwithstanding the opinion of Pagi) by the duration of his reign. The secret connivance of Leo is acknowledged by Theophanes and the Paschal Chronicle. We are ignorant of his motives; but in this obscure period our ignorance extends to the most public and important facts.
* ↑ Of the fourteen regions, or quarters, into which Rome was divided by Augustus, only one, the Janiculum, lay on the Tuscan side of the Tiber. But, in the fifth century, the Vatican suburb formed a considerable city; and in the eccle-
* ↑ See Ducange, Familiae Byzantinae, p. 74, 75. Areobindus, who appears to have married the niece of the emperor Justinian, was the eighth descendant of the elder Theodosius. [John of Antioch, fr. 209, states that Olybrius died at Rome of dropsy.]
* ↑ The last revolutions of the Western empire are faintly marked in Theophanes (p. 102), Jornandes (c. 45, p. 679), the Chronicle of Marcellinus, and the fragments of an anonymous writer, published by Valesius at the end of Ammianus (p. 716, 717). If Photius had not been so wretchedly concise, we should derive much information from the contemporary histories of Malchus and Candidus. See his Extracts, p. 172-179.
* ↑ See Greg. Turon. l. ii. c. 28, in tom. ii. p. 175. Dubos, Hist. Critique, tom. ii. p. 613. By the murder, or death, of his two brothers, Gundobald acquired the sole possession of the kingdom of Burgundy, whose ruin was hastened by their discord.
* ↑ Julius Nepos armis pariter summus Augustus ac moribus. Sidonius, l. v. ep. 16, p. 146. Nepos had given to Ecdicius the title of Patrician, which Anthemius had promised, decessoris Anthemii fidem absolvit [ib.]. See l. viii. ep. 7, p. 224. [A letter to his friend Audax, who was made præfect of Rome. Cp. Orelli, 1153; Salvo d.n. Iulio Nepote p(io) f(elice) Aug. Audax v. c. præfectus urbi fecit.]
* ↑ Epiphanius was sent ambassador from Nepos to the Visigoths for the purpose of ascertaining the fines Imperii Italici (Ennodius in Sirmond, tom. i. p. 1665-1669). His pathetic discourse concealed the disgraceful secret, which soon excited the just and bitter complaints of the bishop of Clermont. [On the negotiations between king Euric and Nepos, cp. Hodgkin, Italy and her Invaders, ii. 491.]
* ↑ Malchus, apud Phot. p. 172. [Müller, F.H.G., iv. p. iii. Cp. John of Antioch, fr. 209, ib., 618.] Ennod. Epigram. l. lxxxii. in Sirmond, Oper, tom. i. p. 1879. [Cc., p. 164, ed. Vogel] Some doubt may however be raised on the identity of the emperor and the archbishop.
* ↑ Our knowledge of these mercenaries, who subverted the Western empire, is derived from Procopius (de Bell. Gothico, l. i. c. i. p. 308). The popular opinion and the recent historians represent Odoacer in the false light of a stranger and a king, who invaded Italy with an army of foreigners, his native subjects.
* ↑ Orestes, qui eo tempore quando Attila ad Italiam venit se illi junxit, et ejus notarius factus fuerat. Anonym. Vales, p. 716 [8, § 38]. He is mistaken in the date; but we may credit his assertion that the secretary of Attila was the father of Augustulus.
* ↑ [The quarto has the misprint Epiphanites, which has remained uncorrected in subsequent editions.]
* ↑ See Ennodius (in Vit. Epiphan. Sirmond, tom. i. p. 1669, 1670). He adds weight to the narrative of Procopius, though we may doubt whether the devil actually contrived the siege of Pavia to distress the bishop and his flock [p. 96, ed. Vogel].
* ↑ Jornandes, c. 53, 54, p. 692-695. M. de Buat (Hist. des Peuples de l'Europe, tom. viii. p. 221-228) has clearly explained the origin and adventures of Odoacer. I am almost inclined to believe that he was the same who pillaged Angers and commanded a fleet of Saxon pirates on the ocean. Greg. Turon. l. ii. c. 18, in tom. ii. p. 170. [The genuine form of Odoacer's name is Odovacar, as it appears in the contemporary writer Ennodius.]
* ↑ Vade ad Italiam, vade vilissimis nunc pellibus coopertus; sed multis cito plurima largiturus. Anonym. Vales, p. 717 [10, § 46]. He quotes the life of St. Severinus, which is extant, and contains much unknown and valuable history; it was composed by his disciple Eugippius (A.D. 511) thirty years after his death. See Tillemont, Mém. Ecclés. tom. xvi. p. 168-181. [See App. 1.]
* ↑ Theophanes, who calls him a Goth, affirms that he was educated, nursed (τραϕέντος), in Italy (p. 102); and, as this strong expression will not bear a literal interpretation, it must be explained by long service in the Imperial guards.
* ↑ Nomen regis Odoacer assumpsit, cum tamen neque purpurâ nee regalibus uteretur insignibus. Cassiodor. in Chron. A.D. 476. He seems to have assumed the abstract title of a king, without applying it to any particular nation or country. [One silver coin (a half siliqua) is extant, which was probably issued by Odovacar. The legend (obv.) is Fl. Od(ov)ac, and the reverse shows the monogram of Odova. Cp. Hodgkin, Italy and her Invaders, iii. 722. It is to be noted that Odovacar was not "King of Italy," as he is inaccurately styled below on p. 54. The day of territorial royalty had not yet come.]
* ↑ Malchus, whose loss excites our regret, has preserved (in Excerpt. Legat. 93 [fr. 10]) this extraordinary embassy from the senate to Zeno. The anonymous fragment (p. 717) and the extract from Candidus (apud Phot. p. 176 [F.H.G., iv. p. 136]) are likewise of some use.
* ↑ The precise year in which the Western empire was extinguished is not positively ascertained. The vulgar æra of A.D. 476 appears to have the sanction of authentic chronicles. But the two dates assigned by Jornandes (c. 46, p. 680) would delay that great event to the year 479; and, though M. de Buat has overlooked his evidence, he produces (tom. viii. p. 261-288) many collateral circumstances in support of the same opinion. [There is no doubt about the date, A. D. 476.]
* ↑ See his medals in Ducange (Fam. Byzantin. p. 81), [see Eckhel, Doct. Num., 8, p. 203], Priscus (Excerpt. Legat. p. 56 [F.H.G., 4, p. 84]), Maffei (Osservazioni Letterarie, tom. ii. p. 314). We may allege a famous and similar case. The meanest subjects of the Roman empire assumed the illustrious name of Patricius, which, by the conversion of Ireland, has been communicated to a whole nation.
* ↑ Ingrediens autem Ravennam deposuit Augustulum de regno, cujus infantiam misertus concessit ei sanguinem; et quia pulcher erat, tamen donavit ei reditum sex millia solidos, et misit eum intra Campaniam cum parentibus suis libere vivere. Anonym. Vales. p. 716 [8, § 38]. Jornandes says (c. 46, p. 680) in Lucullano Campaniæ castello exilii pœna damnavit.
* ↑ See the eloquent Declamation of Seneca (epist. lxxxvi.). The philosopher might have recollected that all luxury is relative; and that the elder Scipio, whose manners were polished by study and conversation, was himself accused of that vice by his ruder contemporaries (Livy, xxix. 19).
* ↑ Sylla, in the language of a soldier, praised his peritia castrametandi (Plin. Hist. Natur. xviii. 7). Phædrus, who makes its shady walks (læta viridia) the scene of an insipid fable (ii. 5), has thus described the situation:— Cæsar Tiberius quum petens Neapolim In Misenensem villam venisset suam; Quæ monte summo posita Luculli manu Prospectat Siculum et prospicit [leg. despicit] Tuscum mare.
* ↑ From seven myriads and a half to two hundred and fifty myriads of drachmæ. Yet even in the possession of Marius, it was a luxurious retirement. The Romans derided his indolence: they soon bewailed his activity. See Plutarch, in Mario, tom. ii. p. 524 [c. 34].
* ↑ Lucullus had other villas of equal, though various, magnificence, at Baiæ, Naples, Tusculum, &c. He boasted that he changed his climate with the storks and cranes. Plutarch, in Lucull. tom. iii. p. 193 [39].
* ↑ Severinus died in Noricum, A.D. 482. Six years afterwards, his body, which scattered miracles as it passed, was transported by his disciples into Italy. The devotion of a Neapolitan lady invited the saint to the Lucullan villa, in the place of Augustulus, who was probably no more. See Baronius (Annal. Eccles. A.D. 496, No. 50, 51) and Tillemont (Mém. Ecclés. tom. xvi. p. 178-181) from the original life by Eugippius. The narrative of the last migration of Severinus to Naples is likewise an authentic piece.
* ↑ The consular Fasti may be found in Pagi or Muratorl. The consuls named by Odoacer, or perhaps by the Roman senate, appear to have been acknowledged in the Eastern empire.
* ↑ Sidonius Apollinaris (l. i. epist. 9, p. 22, edit. Sirmond) has compared the two leading senators of his time (A.D. 468), Gennadius Avienus and Cæcina Basilius. To the former he assigns the specious, to the latter the solid, virtues of public and private life. A Basilius junior, possibly his son, was consul in the year 480.
* ↑ Epiphanius interceded for the people of Pavia; and the king first granted an indulgence of five years, and afterwards relieved them from the oppression of Pelagius, the Prætorian præfect (Ennodius, in Vit. St. Epiphan. in Sirmond. Oper. tom. i. p. 1670, 1672 [p. 97, ed. Vogel]).
* ↑ See Baronius, Annal. Eccles. A.D. 483, No. 10-15. Sixteen years afterwards, the irregular proceedings of Basilius were condemned by pope Symmachus in a Roman synod.
* ↑ The wars of Odoacer are concisely mentioned by Paul the Deacon (de Gest. Langobard. l. i. c. 19, p. 757, edit. Grot.) and in the two Chronicles of Cassiodorius and Cuspinian [for which see App. 1]. The life of St. Severinus, by Eugippius, which the Count de Buat (Hist. des Peuples, &c. tom. viii. c. 1, 4, 8, 9) has diligently studied, illustrates the ruin of Noricum and the Bavarian antiquities.
* ↑ Tacit. Annal. iii. 53. The Recherches sur l'Administration des Terres chez les Romains (p. 351-361) clearly state the progress of internal decay.
* ↑ A famine which afflicted Italy at the time of the irruption of Odoacer, king of the Heruli, is eloquently described in prose and verse by a French poet (Les Mois, tom. ii. p. 174, 206, edit, in 12mo). I am ignorant from whence he derives his information; but I am well assured that he relates some facts incompatible with the truth of history.
* ↑ See the xxxixth epistle of St. Ambrose, as it is quoted by Muratori, sopra le Antichità Italiane, tom. i. Dissert. xxi. p. 354.
* ↑ Æmilia, Tuscia, ceteræque provinciæ in quibus hominum prope nullus exsistit. Gelasius, Epist. ad Andromachum, ap. Baronium, Annal. Eccles. A.D. 496, No. 36.
* ↑ Verumque confitentibus, latifundia perdidere Italiam. Plin. Hist. Natur. xviii. 7. [For a document recording a grant of estates by Odovacar, see Appendix 2.]
* ↑ Such are the topics of consolation, or rather of patience, which Cicero (ad Familiares, l. ix. epist. 17) suggests to his friend Papirius Partus, under the military despotism of Cæsar. The argument, however, of "vivere pulcherrimum duxi," is more forcibly addressed to a Roman philosopher, who possessed the free alternative of life or death.