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THE —-^yty^C 
 
 FALL OF ROME, 
 
 AND 
 
 THE EISE OF THE NEW NATIONALITIES. 
 
 ON THE CONNECTION BETWEEN ANCIENT &^ MODERN HISTOEY. 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN G. SHEPPARD, D.C.L. 
 
 SOMBTIME FELLOW OP WADHAM COLLEGE, OXFOBD, AND HEAD SIASTEB 
 OF EIDSBBIUKSTEB SCHOOL. 
 
 Die Weltgesckcli^* i^* d^ ^'^'^eltgericht ' 
 
 SCHILLEK. 
 
 LONDON: 
 EOUTLEDGE, WARNE, & ROUTLEDGE, 
 
 FARRINGDON STREET} 
 
 NEW YORK: 66, WALKER STREET. 
 
 1861. 
 
 \The Jiight of Translation U reserved.] 
 
^5 
 
 ■••* ' 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 An important historical work is its own best introuucuon. 
 This is not the case with books which are about history, 
 rather than history itself. These require some explanation 
 of their purpose and method, for they may deal with a 
 matter in which the reader feels an interest, yet in a manner 
 displeasing to his taste or foreign to his purposes as a stu- 
 dent. I shall therefore explain, in as few words as possible, 
 what I have endeavoured to do in these Lectures, and why 
 I have endeavoured to do it. 
 
 Our Universities of late have extended their field of his- 
 torical study, and, whether as n. cause or consequence of the 
 fact, the general public has begun to feel an interest in 
 persons and times concerning which it was formerly well 
 content to remain in ignorance. 
 
 One of these periods, it has seemed to me, is, or must 
 necessarily very soon be, that critical and cardinal period 
 during which the old-world Civilization broke up, and the 
 new Civilization had its birth. When a man devotes his 
 time and thoughts to any particular subject, he is sure to 
 form large ideas of its importance. Every one exaggerates 
 his own specialite ; and this is doubtless the case with myself 
 Yet I cannot but think that most historical students will 
 agree with the remark of a distinguished living historian, — 
 " La dissolution de I'Empire remain d'Occident se rattache 
 
 250722 
 
iv PREFACE. 
 
 anx origines de I'Europe moderne par le lien logique le plus 
 6troit, celui de la cause h, I'effet ; et pourtant qui de nous en 
 sait rhistoire?"* To make a humble contribution to the 
 better understanding of this transitional period is the object 
 of the following pages. I have said a " better understand- 
 ing," not because I am presumptuous enough to attempt an 
 improvement upon what Gibbon, Hallam, Milman, Stephen, 
 Sismondi, Michelet, Guizot, Thierry, and other illustrious 
 men, have written upon this important era, but because I 
 trust that the ordinary reader, and also the young student, 
 may be induced, by what they find here, to turn to those 
 more formidable because more voluminous pages, and that 
 in this way the knowledge of history may be generally 
 extended. I pretend to no higher office than that of fur- 
 nishing an introduction to these great names and these great 
 works. But I have attempted to do so in this special way, 
 because experience convinces me that without some atten- 
 tion to detail in dealing with persons and events, persons 
 and events pass away from the memory like the names and 
 dates of a chronological table, and leave behind in the mind 
 no living image of the time. " Les details sont I'ame de 
 rhistoire."t It has not, therefore, been my ambition to 
 rival or add to the large number of Outlines, Landmarks, 
 Abridgements, Analyses, and other forms of historical precis — 
 many of them exceedingly well executed — which are already 
 before the public. I have rather attempted such a combination 
 of narrative, anecdote, and disquisition, as seemed best adapted 
 to create interest, and to convey that sort of information 
 which would induce the student to seek for more. To this 
 the objection may be made, that the method is superficial ; 
 * Amed^e Thierry, R^cits de I'Histoire Romaine. f Ibid. 
 
PREFACE. V 
 
 and on this question Criticism has a fair right to pronounce 
 its judgment without remonstrance on the part of him who 
 adopts the method. Yet I will venture to hope, that what 
 is imperfect is not necessarily superficial. As a matter of 
 simple duty and good faith, I have done my best, by study 
 of the original authorities, when accessible, to avoid that 
 sort of superficiality which mis-states facts and misjudges 
 men, or which builds up theories without examining the 
 ground upon which they rest. To write a learned and pro- 
 found book, even were I possessed of the ability, I do not 
 enjoy the needful opportunities, and certainly do not make 
 the pretence. But I trust that I may conscientiously ask 
 credit for honesty and industry in my work, so far as it 
 goes. And in reference to the class of persons for whom it 
 is mainly intended, I must declare my conviction that, prac- 
 tically speaking, the alternative is not between profound 
 and superficial knowledge, but between imperfect knowledge 
 and no knowledge at all. If there should be found any 
 critic whose mind is so sternly constituted as to maintain 
 that the latter is the preferable condition of the two, I 
 would remind him how imperfect, after all, is the historical 
 knowledge of the most learned among us, and how needful 
 are small beginnings even for the accomplishment of the 
 greatest results. 
 
 There may be an unfavourable judgment of another kind; 
 one which allows the propriety of the plan adopted, but 
 condemns the defects in its execution. Such a judgment I 
 have no right to deprecate or dispute. The excuse some- 
 times made by members of my own profession, that they 
 have none but spare hours and exhausted energies to bestow 
 upon their task, though painfully true, has never appeared 
 
vi PREFACE. 
 
 to me legitimate. It is an excellent excuse for not writing 
 a book at all ; it is no excuse for writing a bad one. I 
 shall not, therefore, plead it here ; but the fact may, at least, 
 prove thus much : any want of success on my part is no 
 argument against the utility or possibility of the labour I 
 have undertaken. One possessed of leisure and University 
 opportunities may achieve a signal success where an over- 
 tasked schoolmaster, ^'Parnasso procul et Permesside lympha," 
 has signally failed. Few critics, at any rate, will feel so 
 strongly as myself — because few have so long laboured in 
 the same field — that the work which has been here done, 
 might be much better done by many of those who possess 
 the larger facilities for historical study which residence at 
 the Universities confers.* 
 
 I am by this reminded to say, though with much difii- 
 dence, a few words respecting a matter upon which I have 
 been requested to express an opinion. How far would it be 
 possible to treat the period of History here reviewed as a 
 subject of University study ; under what head should such 
 study be classified ; and what are the best instruments for 
 its prosecution ? 
 
 These considerations involve several questions, and among 
 them the much-controverted question as to the limits of 
 Ancient, Mediagval, and Modern History. I must confess 
 myself one of those who do not believe — with a single 
 exception — in the possibility of afiaxing any such limits 
 at all. When, as Professor Owen tells us, it is im- 
 possible to draw the line of exact demarcation between 
 
 * It is right to explain that the subject of our own History has been 
 left to a fellow-labourer, whose work appears contemporaneously — "The 
 History of England, by the Rev. James White." Routledge & Co. 
 
PREFACE. vii 
 
 the animal and vegetable kingdoms ; when no man can 
 accurately separate youth from age, or approximate to a 
 physiological division of human life, is it probable that we 
 shall successfully effect such a division in reference to a 
 subject-matter which exhibits so close an analogy to the 
 life of the individual, — the life, that is to say, of that com- 
 bination of individuals which we call a "People;" or the 
 aggregate life of all these in common, which forms the 
 history of the world 1 
 
 One thing is certain : no distinction founded simply upon 
 the processes of time will satisfy the needful conditions of 
 such a division. The Modern cannot be separated from the 
 Ancient simply by a reference to chronology. That which, 
 in itself, or in its direct results, lives on into the Present, 
 belongs to Modern History ; that which has perished with 
 the Past belongs to Ancient History, even though of later 
 date than the former. It is, of course, exceedingly difficult 
 to determine what institutions and events have left an 
 operative influence behind them, and what have not, — 
 to point out those which are, so to speak, still visible in 
 their living representatives, and those which have passed 
 away without a memorial or an heir. But the inroads of 
 the Huns and Vandals upon the provinces of the Empire 
 can surely not have the same connection with Modern 
 History as the passage of the Rhine by the Franks, or the 
 settlement of the Saxons in Britain, even though the events 
 may have been nearly contemporaneous. The intrigues 
 of Byzantine eunuchs, and the factions of the Hippo- 
 drome, cannot be forced by a rigid synchronism into 
 the same division of History as the rise of Bepresentative 
 institutions. We are still living under arrangements of 
 
viii PREFACE. 
 
 Church Government which existed side by side with the 
 executive machinery of Roman imperialism ; yet B-oman 
 imperialism is a thing of the Past, and Church Government 
 is a living question. 
 
 There is assuredly an event which was, in more than one 
 sense, the new birthday of Humanity, and which, therefore, 
 may be said to have terminated Ancient History. But if 
 our prejudices induce us to extend that name beyond the 
 Christian era, then it is impossible to place our finger upon 
 any other event, — as, for instance, the fall of Constantinople, 
 — and to say, "There Ancient or Mediaeval History ceases, 
 and Modern History begins." 
 
 But, for all practical purposes, I venture to think that 
 such divisions as will suit the requirements of study and 
 teaching, may easily be made. One part of the great World- 
 drama finds, as we have said, its natural conclusion in the 
 coming of Christ, and the contemporaneous birth of the 
 Empire and the Church. The next period, if we take a 
 simply secular view of the subject, is clearly enough defined 
 by the establishment of the Empire of Charlemagne. The 
 stream of history is a metaphor as old as History itself. 
 Following out the same metaphor, we may say, that the 
 waters which had been rushing through a hundred channels 
 and descending from a hundred hills, gathered, in the Em- 
 pire of Charlemagne, into a single mighty lake, from which, 
 at his death, they burst forth in the great rivers which 
 reptesent the nationalities of modern Europe. 
 
 The next period closes with the Beformation, the Thirty 
 Years' War, and the Peace of Westphalia. The third finds 
 its catastrophe in the French Bevolution, and the Fall of 
 Napoleon I. We are living in the fourth. How far these 
 
PREFACE. ix 
 
 three last periods can be treated as one single whole, — 
 how far, for instance, they can form a fit subject for the 
 teaching of a single Professorship, — it is not for me dog- 
 matically Jo pronounce. I will only venture to express a 
 humble opinion that they cannot be satisfactorily so com- 
 prised. 
 
 With regard to the text-books to be employed in the study 
 of that particular portion of history of which these pages 
 treat, there is nothing which can be placed in comparison with 
 the great work of Gibbon. Subsequent writers have hewn 
 their materials from the gigantic quarry of the Decline and 
 Fall, as the mediaeval Komans built their palaces with the 
 stones of the Flavian Amphitheatre. Yet the student of 
 our own age will feel deeply the need of some corrective to 
 the tone of a work which, with all its learning and elo- 
 quence, embodies so much of the spirit of another century. 
 The gorgeous magnificence of Gibbon's style is, after all, but 
 the pomp of a funeral procession. It celebrates the obse- 
 quies of a dying world ; but there is no voice beside the 
 grave to whisper hope beyond, — the hope of another 
 and brighter future for Humanity, when the discords 
 of the old society shall have given place to a principle 
 of unity and universality, which, despite the diversities 
 which agitate its surface, underlies, we earnestly believe, the 
 new society, — the principle of the Fatherhood of the Chris- 
 tian God, and the brotherhood of Christian men. Under this 
 feeling the following pages have been written, and very 
 ample will be my reward if they in any way serve to inspire 
 the young student with the same sentiment. In the mean 
 time let me earnestly exhort him to the study of the original 
 authorities. My own imperfect acquaintance with them 
 
X PEEFACE. 
 
 convinces me that much may be gathered from their pages 
 which has escaped Gibbon, or even the best and ablest 
 of his successors, M. Am^dee Thierry. Some I have 
 very carefully examined, — Ammianus Marcel^inus, Jor- 
 nandes de rebus Geticis, the Gothic and Vandal Wars of 
 Procopius, Claudiau, Prudentius, and, above all, the letters 
 and poems of Sidonius Apollinaris, without a knowledge of 
 which it is not too much to say no one can thoroughly 
 understand the age. There is no reason why these, or some 
 of these, might not be treated as the University treats Livy, 
 Virgil, and Thucydides. The sources from which their infor- 
 mation might be supplemented are innumerable. We have 
 the Ecclesiastical historians ; we have the Pagan historians, 
 some of which, as, for instance, Zosimus, ought to be read, to 
 gain a view of Society from the Pagan stand-point ; the 
 Panegyrists of the Emperors, the Lives of the Saints, Paulns 
 Diaconus on the Lombard annals, Gregory of Tours for 
 those of the Franks, — a monkish Herodotus, without the 
 grace, and it is to be feared, without the veracity, of the old 
 Ionian ; Eginhard's Biography of Charlemagne, and all the 
 legendary literature of the Carlovingian period. I have 
 merely mentioned what may, in part at least, be mastered 
 by the ordinary student. He who desires a really sound 
 and scientific knowledge of the era must devote himself to 
 the study of its laws, the Theodosian Code, the Codes of the 
 Ostrogoths and Lombards, the Prank Capitularies, and the 
 Acts of the Council of Toledo. 
 
 But on these matters there are others who can speak 
 with an authority to which I have no claim. 
 
 London, January, 1861. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PREFACE Page Hi 
 
 EOME : BTS EXTERNAL ORGANIZATION 1 
 
 ROME : ITS INTERNAL CONDITION 61 
 
 THE BARBARIAN RACES 107 
 
 THE COLLISION — THE CELTS — THE TEUTONS — THE TURANIANS — 
 
 ATTILA AND THE HUNS — THE AVARS 159 
 
 ITALY — THE FALL OF THE CiESARS — ARB )GASTES — ALARIC — 
 
 RICIMER — ORESTES — AUGUSTULUS 230 
 
 ITALY — ODOACER — THEODORIC — THE GREEK INVASION — THE 
 
 LOMBARDS — THE FRANKS AND THE PAPACY 270 
 
 THE SLAVES— AFRICA — THE VANDALS 347 
 
 THE ROMAN PROVINCE OP GAUL — THE BURGUNDIANS — THE 
 
 VISIGOTHS — THE FRANKS 406 
 
 CHARLEMAGNE. A^Q 
 
 SPAIN — THE VANDALS, ALANI, SUEVI, VISIGOTHS 528 
 
 ARABIA— MOHAMMED— ISLAMI8M— THE SARACENS 567 
 
 THE CHURCH IN ITS RELATION TO THE OLD SOCIETY 615 
 
 THE CHURCH IN RELATION TO THE NEW SOCIETY 688 
 
 CHRONOLOGICAL APPENDIX 765 
 
 INDEX 779 
 
THE FALL OF EOME. 
 
 'The city which thou seest no other deem, 
 Than great and glorious Rome." 
 
 Milton, Paradise Hegained. 
 ' His ego nee metas rerum nee tempora pono ; 
 Imperium sine fine dedi." 
 
 Virgil, uEncid, i. 278. 
 
 LECTURE I. 
 
 Synopsis. — Importance of the Question as to the connection of Rome 
 with the Modern World. — Opinions of Robertson ; of the later French 
 Historians and Sir F. Palgrave. — Connection shown to subsist (i.) From 
 the Roman Language ; (ii.) The Roman Law ; (iii.) The Municipal Sys- 
 tem ; (iv.) The Imperial Idea ; (v.) The Arts ofWar, Agriculture, &c. ; 
 (vi.) Manners, Customs, and Words of Roman Origin. — Conclusion as to 
 the continuity of History from the Era of the Caesars to our own. — 
 Description of the Geographical Limits of the Empii'e ; its armies ; 
 extent of the City ; its population ; importance of its central site, and 
 the means of communication afforded by the Mediterranean and the 
 Roman Roads. — The World beyond the limits of the Empire. — The 
 Empire itself divided into the two civilizations, Greek and Roman; 
 grave importance of the fact. — The effects of the policy of Diocletian 
 and Constantine. — Results of Constantine's treatment of the Army, 
 adoption of Christianity, and transference of the Seat of Empire. — 
 General Reflections. 
 
 No event, perhaps we should rather say no series of events, 
 in the secular history of mankind can equal in interest the 
 fall of the Roman empire. Our minds are overwhelmed 
 by the grandeur of the image which the name of Rome 
 evokes. Through all the mutations of human affairs, and 
 the vicissitudes of what men call Fortune, "Magni stat 
 nominis umbra ;" the giant shadow broods over the birth of 
 European civilization, and projects itself far onward into 
 the depths of an unknown future. As to Rome all ancient 
 
2 THE FALL OF EOME. 
 
 history converges, so from Eome all modern history begins. 
 Meanwhile she is to every educated man the source of a 
 sentiment which, like the master passions of the human 
 mind, transcends the power of external expression. Her 
 world-wide glory ; her ten centuries of dominion ; her 
 colossal monuments ; the mighty work she has done in the 
 mission of civilization ; the pervading, and in many cases 
 permanent influence exercised by her language, her laws, 
 her institutions, and her arras, are more than the imagination 
 can compass, or the intellect satisfactorily classify and com- 
 prehend. And as we reflect that this long domination and 
 widely-extended rule, the victories of this wise policy and 
 this conquering sword, are now numbered among the things 
 that have been, and that we can only trace at second hand 
 the operation of their influences upon other institutions and 
 among other races of men, — the dream of perished grandeur,, 
 which so haunts the fancy of the poet, becomes the gravest 
 lesson which the history of humanity can teach to the moralist 
 and the statesman. 
 
 Our present purpose, however, demands that we should 
 deal with something more than the poetic and sentimental 
 aspects of the subject. We mean to speak of Home as she 
 is connected with modern life, not as a thesis for the burning 
 eloquence of Corinne upon the Capitol. Here, therefore, 
 we are at once met by the question, — " May we not be 
 deceiving ourselves 1 " Is there any ground for assuming 
 such a connection between the spirit of Eome and the life 
 of the modern world, as to warrant our regarding them 
 in combination? If the answer, in our own country at 
 any rate, were derived from first impulses and common 
 notions, it would in all probability be in the negative. 
 The popular mind depicts to itself a wild "Hourra!" of 
 the northern nations upon Italy, followed by the obsequies 
 of the imperial mistress of the world, like those of Sar- 
 danapalus or the Carthaginian queen. A royal form reposes 
 
EEACTION AGAINST EOBEETSON'S THEORY. 3 
 
 upon a funeral pyre, liigli-heaped with the wealth of 
 its household and its realm ; a savage crowd surround 
 the spot with shouts of barbarian triumph, burning torches, 
 and brandished swords ; and as the devouring flame be- 
 comes more strong, it sweeps away into annihilation all, 
 save a few sad memories, which once attached to the 
 Monarch of world-wide fame and power. This view has 
 jierhaps been encouraged by our historical writers, who have 
 been over anxious to claim a Teutonic, and therefore national 
 parentage, for the main developments of modern civilization. 
 Hobertson, who was long the leading authority, writes : — 
 "Very faint vestiges of the Roman jjolicy, jurisprudence, 
 arts, or literature remained. New forms of government, 
 new laws, new manners, new dresses, new languages, and 
 new names of men and countries were everywhere intro- 
 duced." * And elsewhere he speaks in the same way. The 
 sonorous periods in which he pours his barbarians over 
 Europe, and sweeps away the last remnants of Roman 
 civilization with fire and steel, are among our earlier histo- 
 rical recollections. 
 
 Now it need not be said that a strong reaction against 
 these opinions has arisen among late continental historians, 
 and especially those of the French school. Children of the 
 Romaic races, they see traces of Rome in all around them ; 
 her influence they believe to have been paramount in the 
 institutions and forms of social life which succeeded the fall 
 of the empire ; and they regard the inroad of the German 
 nationalities and the German spirit as an interruption, 
 rather than as a serious alteration in the course of imperial 
 civilization. 
 
 But of all who advocate this view, our own learned an 
 
 eloquent Palgrave has approached the topic with the greatest 
 
 " schwarmerei," as it is called by our German neiglibours — 
 
 a word very inadequately translated by " enthusiasm." In his 
 
 * Introduction to Charles V., i. § 1. 
 
 B 2 
 
4 THE FALL OF ROME. 
 
 estimation Kome is all in all. The barbaric sovereignties, 
 the whole character of modern monarchical institutions, the 
 policy of the European commonwealths, the titles, badges, 
 dignities, and functions of nobility, the mediaeval serfdom or 
 villainage, the forms of national jurisprudence, municipalities, 
 corporations, and guilds, great councils and parliaments, ro- 
 mance and chivalry, architecture and arts, nay, even the very 
 name and form of feudality itself, are derived from Roman 
 sources, and form part of the great legacy bequeathed, at least' 
 potentially, by the Empire to mankind. 
 
 It is undesirable to accept either theory in its extreme 
 form. Here, as elsewhere, a sober judgment will adopt a 
 middle course. Modern society is composed of two elements ; 
 its civilization owns a double parentage. The Teuton and 
 the Latin have each contributed to make it what it is ; and 
 the duty of exactly assigning to either the limit of the 
 influence which he has exercised upon us, or of our own 
 obligations to him, is a most delicate and diJOficult one. This 
 cannot be fully attempted here. Our task will be rather to 
 consider briefly the Roman element, for it is that which is 
 most prominent during the early ages, of which we are about 
 to treat, and which, as we have said, our own writers have 
 been inclined to depreciate and forget. 
 
 In the first place, Robertson's remark about the dis- 
 appearance of the Roman language must, I think, strike us 
 as very untenable. Scientific and comparative philology had 
 not in his day been cultivated with the same success as at 
 present. Still he might have known that we can trace to 
 a Latin origin something like three-fourths of the most 
 widely-spoken language in Europe ; French, it has been 
 well said, is "Latin squeezed."* Compare, for instance, the 
 first linguistic monument where the process of transition 
 
 * "How to Speak French." A little work by M. Albites, of Bir- 
 mingham, which on this, as on many other subjects, contains an immense 
 amount of information in a very few words. 
 
THE LATIN LANGUAGE. 5 
 
 may be traced, the oath which the two sons of Lottis I. 
 took to each other in a.d. 842 : 
 
 *' Pro Deo amur, et pro Christian poplo, et nostro commun salva- 
 ment 
 Pour Dieu amour, et pour Chretien peuple, et notre commun 
 salut." 
 
 The same may be said of the Italian, the Spanish, the 
 Portuguese, and of the less-known RhjBtian and Wallachiau 
 dialects. They have never entirely repudiated their origin : 
 Dante regarded Virgil as a fellow-countryman. The mediaeval 
 dialects, which form the substratum of the modern French, 
 still described themselves as the Komance or Roman tongue. 
 In most cases a few simple rules enable the student to 
 detect the old Latin word beneath its modern corruption, 
 and any intelligent man, who really understands the ori- 
 ginal, has already more than half mastered these latter 
 deflections from its type. 
 
 Again, as a simple matter of fact, Robertson must have 
 known that Latin for many centuries constituted almost the 
 sole written language of the civilized world, and was spoken 
 by all educated men and women, from Constantinople to the 
 Scottish hills. For many centuries it was the only medium 
 through which theology, history, poetry, science, and art 
 conveyed their teaching to the world, and it has graven its 
 impress upon them all. We are inclined to forget that even 
 the Novum Organon and the Frincipia were first given to 
 the world through the medium of the language in which 
 Caesar's war-cry sounded on the shores of Kent. When I 
 say we are inclined to forget it, I mean those who only take 
 a popular and superficial view of the matter. His nomen- 
 clature, and the history and literature of his own special 
 subject, will not sufier the scholar or the man of learning to 
 forget it. He encounters traces of the Latin influence at 
 every turn. Indeed he is often beneath this influence when 
 he knows it not. It is the case with us all. The Roman 
 
6 THE FALL OF EOME. 
 
 spirit has extended its ramifications so widely, and in such 
 subtle shapes, that it reappears at times when we are wholly 
 unconscious of its existence. " Nous avons en nous je ne 
 sais combien d'idees, de sentiments antiques, dont nous ne 
 nous rendrons pas compte,"* says a great French writer of 
 our own times ; and most men who have read history in the 
 true historical spirit, will echo the remark. 
 
 There is, however, one evidence of the permanence of the 
 Latin tongue, palpable even to the common mind. Wherever 
 the gorgeous ritual of the Church of Rome feasts the eyes of 
 the multitude who, in Europe or the new world, crowd her 
 spacious cathedrals, the grand old tongue of Italy, " the 
 voice of Empire and of War," to them the voice of Salvation 
 and of Faith, rolls its sonorous accents in their ear. Whatever 
 we may think of the practice, the fact remains. It is im- 
 possible to speak in the tone of Robertson respecting the 
 disappearance of a language which for eighteen centuries 
 has gone up in the prayers of half Christendom to heaven. 
 
 But besides her language Rome has also left to modern 
 society her law. The Roman law has afforded a basis to 
 half the existing codes of Europe, and has materially modi- 
 fied the rest. On this subject the great work of course is 
 that of Savigny, which was written to prove that the Roman 
 law has never become entirely obsolete, but maintained a 
 strange vitality from the fifth to the thirteenth century, 
 reappearing in a multitude of laws, institutions, and customs. 
 
 Learned men do not accept all the conclusions of the 
 celebrated German jurist, but I think (speaking from the 
 superficial and second-hand acquaintance with his theory 
 which is all that I can boast) that he has, in the main, facts 
 and the truth upon his side. No one, at least, will dispute 
 the influence, for instance, of the Roman law upon the Visi- 
 goth legislation in Spain, modelled as was the latter upon 
 the laws of Theodosius ; of the Pandects of Justinian upon the 
 ♦ Michelet, "Discours d'Ouverture," 1834. 
 
THE EOMAN LAW. 7 
 
 Etablissemens of St. Louis ; of the jurists of the Empire upon 
 the whole ftibric of the jurisprudence of Germany, the Prus- 
 sian Landrechts, the Gesetzbuch of Austria ; and, again, not 
 only on the famous Code Napoleon, but on the principles of 
 the Scottish law, and our own maritime and ecclesiastical 
 codes. Hallam, in speaking of the Justinian code, condemns 
 the too hasty supposition that it was ever entirely unknown 
 in the West : " Some of the more eminent ecclesiastics, as 
 Hincmar and Ivon of Chartres, occasionally refer to it, and 
 bear witness to the regard which the Roman Church had 
 uniformly paid to its decisions."* 
 
 Justinian's system was taught publicly in Italy early in 
 the twelfth century, at the university of Bologna ; but the 
 most active impulse was given to the study by the discovery 
 of a copy of the Pandects at Amalfi, in 1135 a.d., upon the 
 capture of that city by the Pisans. Within fifty years 
 Italy, we are told, was full of lawyers, and distinguished 
 schools arose at Modeua, Mantua, Padua, and Naples. It 
 was the same in other countries. Montpellier and Toulouse 
 were distinguished for their eminent masters. We know- 
 that the Roman law was taught in Oxford by a Bolognese 
 in the reign of Stephen, though it encountered there an 
 opposition, which may explain the modified, yet positive, 
 influence which it has exercised among ourselves.t Hallam 
 observes that he should earn but little gratitude for dwelling 
 with obscure diligence upon a subject which attracts so 
 few. This would be still more the case with ourselves. 
 Let us therefore remain satisfied with Hallam's own re- 
 marks, applied directly to our own country, yet perhaps 
 still more applicable to those of others. " Everywhere the 
 clergy combined its study with that of their own canons ; 
 it was a maxim that every canonist must be a civilian, and 
 that no .one could be a good civilian unless he were also a 
 
 * Hallam, " Middle Ages," vol. iii. p. 413. 
 
 t See Hallam's remarks on Selden, vol. iii. p. 416. 
 
8 THE FALL OF EOME. 
 
 canonist. In all universities degrees, are granted in both 
 laws conjointly ; and in all courts of ecclesiastical jurisdic- 
 tion the authority of Justinian is cited when that of Gregory 
 of Clement is wanting."* 
 
 To language and literature we must add the municipal 
 spirit, and the type of municipal institutions, as another 
 heir-loom inherited from Rome. The great writer t to whom 
 we have already referred, traces the continuance of municipal 
 institutions in certain French cities from the fall of the em- 
 pire to the twelfth century, in which we first hear of com- 
 munities with formal charters. The subject has been taken up 
 by Raynouard, Thierry, and other distinguished men, among 
 whom some doubt prevails as to matters of detail, and the 
 limitations under which any such assertion as that of 
 Savigny may be made. Few, however, will gainsay the 
 statement of Guizot, that ancient Roman civilization has 
 bequeathed the municipal system to modern Europe ; in an 
 inferior, indeed, very irregular and much weakened, but 
 nevertheless in the only real, the only constituted system 
 which has outlived the Roman world. 
 
 The little attention I have been able to bestow upon the 
 suV)ject convinces me further of the truth of another remark 
 of the same able and learned man : " Between the municipal 
 system of the Romans and that of the middle ages the 
 municipal-ecclesiastic system interposed." J It will be neces- 
 sary hereafter to speak more minutely upon the nature of 
 this interposing link and of the system itself; at present we 
 are only concerned with the fact that in the municipal 
 form ancient civilization began, and in the same it closed. 
 The first object which meets the eye amid the twilight in 
 which the history of the West is born, is the city ; the last 
 which rises above the debris of the empire, is the city also* 
 It never entirely fades from view. Other elements, doubt- 
 
 * Vol, iii. ch. 9, pt. 2. f Savigny, ut supra. 
 
 t Guizot, "Lectures on European Civilization," ii. 
 
THE ROMAN MUNICIPALITIES. 9 
 
 less, entered into the constitution of the municipal com- 
 munities of the middle ages, the free cities of Germany, the 
 great towns of France and Flanders, and the boroughs of 
 England. This has been conclusively shown by Thierry, in 
 reference to certain communes in the north of France, whose 
 origin he ascribes to the Teutonic institution of guilds, 
 ■which were voluntary associations of a fraternal character 
 among persons of the same trade, who engaged to assist one 
 another in person and purse, and ratified their combination 
 by some secret ceremonial of a religious character. But 
 even these, directly or indirectly, in all probability owed 
 somewhat to the example or influence of the great towns 
 south of the Loire, — Perigeux, Bourges, Aries, Nismes, 
 Marseilles, Toulouse, and Narbonne, which had never 
 entirely lost the type of Roman institutions, and which still 
 retained the Roman spirit. On the northern bank of the 
 great central river of France it is not so easy to discern the 
 same thing; though Raynouard adds Paris, Bheims, and Metz 
 to the class. At any rate, the great Boman-Frankish city of 
 Cologne is a conspicuous example. Historians discover 
 others, subject to more or less controversy, in the different 
 countries of Europe j in the cities of Italy, which retained 
 a civil government under the Ostrogoth, and even under 
 the Lombard yoke ; in the free towns of Flanders and Hol- 
 land, whose self-government goes back beyond any assignable 
 date, and in consequence connects itself with the period of 
 Roman domination ; in the legally incorporated communities 
 of Spain, such as that of Leon, in 1020, whose charter, 
 granted by King Alphonso Y., makes mention of its common 
 council as an established institution ; and even in those 
 cities and towns of England, which Lyttelton declares were 
 " bodies corporate and communities long before the alteration 
 introduced into France by the charters of Louis le Gros."* 
 It is impossible at any rate to deny a species of affiliation 
 ♦ Hallam, " Middle Ages," vol. i. p. 435. 
 
10 THE FALL OF ROME. 
 
 between the old Italian muncipalities and tlie Lombard 
 republics. It coloured their character throughout the middle 
 ages ; and even at the present moment, it is argued by a 
 writer in the Times, that the relics of the old municipal 
 form and spirit confer upon the cities of Central Italy a 
 power of self-government which has preserved them from 
 anarchy under the terrible trial to which they have been 
 lately subjected. 
 
 Another great idea inherited from Kome has prevented 
 the entire severance of historic unity between ancient and 
 modern life, and transmitted an inspiration from the first 
 to the second, which has come vividly forth in the working 
 of the States- system of Europe. That idea is the idea of 
 Empire, of centralized authority. The majesty of the Roman 
 name did not pass away with the presence of Koman power. 
 The imperial Image which haunted the Seven Hills still 
 awed the imaginations of men. Rome herself was still the 
 
 " Gran Latina 
 Cittk, di cui quanto il sol aureo gira 
 Ke altera piil, ne piti onorata mira." 
 
 The rude multitudes who poured over the Rhine and the 
 Alps could not shake themselves free from the spell which 
 had once been strong enough to charm or to coerce the 
 world. They still paid an unconscious homage to the idea 
 long after the reality had departed ; and the idea, reacting 
 upon their minds, produced for itself new and vigorous 
 developments. 
 
 " The name of the Empire," says Guizot, " the recollection 
 of that great and glorious society, disturbed the memories of 
 men, particularly of the senators of towns, of bishops, priests, 
 and all those who had their origin in the Roman world. 
 Among the barbarians themselves, or their barbaric ancestors, 
 many had been witnesses of the grandeur of the empire : 
 they had served in its armies ; they had conquered it. The 
 image and name of Roman civilization had an imposing 
 
THE IDEA OF EMPIRE. 11 
 
 influence upon them, and they experienced the desire of 
 imitating, of reproducing, of preserving something of it." * 
 Hence an intolerance of their native barbarism, and the 
 isolation which was its predominant characteristic; a tendency 
 to combine and cohere, a lonsrincj for some form of centralized 
 power. Perhaps to this we owe in great measure the con- 
 solidation of our modern nationalities under circumstances 
 and influences very unfavourable to unity. Hence, too, the 
 idea of a common Christendom inspiring the Crusades, and 
 not unknown to the dreams of later statesmen, — witness the 
 well-known project of a Christian commonwealth in the brain 
 of the great Bearnais, which the dagger of Ravillac cut short. 
 And doubtless the same idea, briefly and imperfectly realized 
 by Charlemagne, was underlying the ambitious visions of 
 popes and emperors, and gave to both Guelph and Ghibelline 
 whatever real strength and vitality their respective prin- 
 ciples possessed. 
 
 " The conquests of Charlemagne and his predecessors," 
 writes Professor Vaughan, " enforced a political organization, 
 which carried some elements of Roman society into the heart 
 of Germany. They left behind them the idea of the Roman 
 emperor, which should one day grow to maturity, strike its 
 roots from the German into the Italian soil, and so draw 
 from under the very palaces of the Caesars a Roman prin- 
 ciple of life to circulate through all its prerogatives, and 
 to be exhaled through all its functions into the German 
 atmosphere." t 
 
 French ambition has ever clung to the same phantom : 
 witness Francis I., Louis XIV., Napoleon the Great ; 
 French expeditions beyond the Alps; French occupations 
 of the Capitol ; French " Kings of Rome ;" the coronation of 
 French emperors by Italian pontiffs at Notre Dame; the 
 bloody fields of Magenta and Solferino ; the annexation of 
 
 * Guizot, Lecture ii. 
 
 + Vaughau, Introductory Lecture, p. 18. 
 
12 THE FALL OF EOME. 
 
 Italian Nice ; the bayonets which bristle round the ruined 
 palaces of the Csesars, and occupy the approaches to the 
 Vatican. Yet the German still guards, though no longer 
 in a Lombard fortress, the iron Crown : no stipulation was 
 more sternly contested in that secret chamber at Yilla- 
 franca; and those who in "the '48" listened to the debates 
 in the Paulkirche at Frankfort, know how, despite the 
 most unfavourable circumstances, the traditions of the 
 Kaisers hang round the place of their birth, and linger in 
 the popular mind, though neither Hapsburg nor Hohen- 
 zollern can give them life. 
 
 The Romans again have taught us the art of war; a 
 strange assertion it may seem to those who deem that war 
 depends on gunpowder. But Dr. Arnold has shown, upon 
 the authority of Napoleon I., that the tactics and campaigns 
 of the ancient generals are as well worth the study of 
 military men as those of Marlborough and Turenne. And 
 the name of Teacher may fairly be claimed by the earliest 
 professors of the art, if their practice still continues to supply 
 matter of interest and instruction to ourselves. 
 
 " I assume," says Mr. Long, " that modern military science 
 is to be derived from the Romans. Some of our own 
 countrymen have had a high opinion of them in this line, 
 as Lieutenant Clarke's sensible preface to his edition of 
 Yegetius shows. And Captain John Bingham, in his 
 Translation (1616) of Elian's ' Tactic of the Greeks,' says : 
 * ^lian hath in a small volume so expressed the arts, that 
 nothing is more short, nothing more linked together in 
 coherence of precepts, and yet distinguished by such variety 
 that all motions requisite or to be used in a battle are fully 
 expressed therein.' Roesch, who gave lectures on the 
 military art, says that among all the ancient and modern 
 military histories, he knows of none he found better adapted 
 for lectures on Strategy than the ' Commentarii.' " * 
 * Preface to Caesar's Commentaries. 
 
ROMAN STRATEGICS, AGRICULTURE, &c. 13 
 
 You will probably indorse this opinion of Mr. Long ; nor 
 will you refuse your assent to another remark of the same 
 gentleman, though our space will not permit its verification. 
 " The Romans have also taught us a great deal about civil 
 administration, and about roads, canals, aqueducts, and 
 draining ; to which we may add farming, both the cultiva- 
 tion of land and the management of stock." 
 
 These are the great influences, material, moral, and 
 intellectual, which may be traced back through the confusion 
 of mediaeval Europe to imperial Rome. But independent of 
 these, there are to be found among nearly all European 
 nations a crowd of ideas, superstitions, practices, traditional 
 notions and customs, all springing more or less from the 
 Roman element in their social constitution, which inter- 
 penetrate their daily life, and mingle with their common 
 habits of thought. That excellent work, " The Popular 
 History of England," illustrates this so admirably in our own 
 case, that I shall make no apology for quoting its words. 
 
 " The customs of a nation, and whatever relates to its com- 
 mon life, furnish as enduring traces of what has gone before 
 as its laws and its language. There cannot be a more 
 striking example of the blending of Roman and Teutonic 
 modes of thought than is furnished by the names of our 
 months and of our weeks. January presents itself under 
 the influence of the * Two-faced Janus;' March is the 
 month of Mars ; July keeps to the memory of the mighty 
 Julius ; and August claims an annual reverence for the 
 crafty spirit of Augustus. It was in vain that the Saxons 
 would have superseded these popular titles by their wolf- 
 monat for January ; and their lenet-nionat (lengthening 
 month) for March. In vain would they have made Caesar 
 and Octavius yield to their ' hay-month ' and their ' barn- 
 month.' And yet they have put their perpetual stamp 
 upon our week days. The Saxon Woden set his mark upon 
 Wednesday, and banished the Dies Mercurii ; Thor, the 
 
U THE FALL OF ROME. 
 
 Saxon thunderer, was too mighty for the Roman Jupiter, 
 who yielded up his Dies Jovis ; and that endearing wife 
 of Woden, the Saxon Frea, dispossessed the Roman goddess 
 of love of her Dies Veneris. But the Saxons have not 
 obliterated more trifling things. Many traditionary customs 
 and superstitions which have come down to us from the 
 Roman period, still bear testimony to the Roman influence. 
 Our parochial perambulations are the ancient Terminalia ; 
 our May-day is the festival of Flora. Our marriage cere- 
 monies are all Roman : the ring, the veil, the wedding gifts, 
 the groomsmen and bridesmaids, the bride-cake. Our funeral 
 images and customs are Roman : the cypress and the yew,* 
 the flowers strewn upon graves, the black for mourning. 
 The lucky days of a century ago were the dies alhi of the 
 Romans, and the unlucky the dies atri. If we ask why 
 we say ' God bless you' to the sneezer, we only ask a 
 question which Pliny asked, and perform a ceremony which 
 the stern Tiberius thought it necessary to perform. If we 
 laugh at the credulous fancy of the simple maiden, who, 
 when her ears tingle, says that a distant one is talking of 
 her, we should recollect that the Romans believed in some 
 influence of a mesmeric nature which produced the same 
 effect. We have faith in odd numbers, as Virgil records 
 the faith, numero Deus impare gaudet. * A screech owl at 
 midnight,' says Addison, ' has alarmed a family more than 
 a band of robbers.' The terror was traditionary. * The 
 bird of night ' was ever an evil bird ; and no Roman super- 
 stition entered more completely into the popular belief, and 
 was more referred to by the historians and poets. Indica- 
 tions such as these of the influences of the obscure past may 
 be as trustworthy records as half-obliterated inscriptions. 
 They enable us to piece out a passage or two in the history 
 of a people."* 
 
 Finally, speaking of the death of the Roman empire, 
 * Knight's " Popular History of England," vol. i. ch. 3. 
 
EOME NEVEE PERMANENTLY OCCUPIED. 15 
 
 one fact mvist always be remembered — a fact insisted upon 
 by Guizot, and emphatically repeated by Sir Francis 
 Palgrave. Kome herself never died. She never entirely 
 passed into the hands of her enemies, or witnessed a per- 
 manent barbarian occupation. A hundred times on the 
 verge of annihilation she was never annihilated. A remnant 
 always remained to restore the name of Rome, and keep 
 alive the tradition of the eternal city, even when Alaric or 
 Genseric had seemed to trample her very ruins into dust. 
 " Such is eminently the case," writes Sir F. Palgrave, 
 *' with that due conception of the eternal city's destiny, 
 which the illustrious historical investigator, now the honour 
 and the reproach of France, has presented with equal 
 modesty and emphasis. E-ome never was permanently con- 
 quered, — never accepted the stranger's yoke, — never became 
 subjected to the barbarian. Rome alone continued jDurely 
 Roman after the imperial presence departed ; province after 
 province was lost ; plague, pestilence, and fire desolated the 
 city ; the inhabitants shrunk away within the walls ; a fierce 
 and corrupt aristocracy, a depraved and cowardly populace, 
 composed the community which defiled the Seven Hills ; 
 but the succession was unbroken, and Rome was Rome, and 
 is Rome still." The fact is a very remarkable one, and must 
 assuredly have exercised a palpable influence over the 
 mediaeval world. At present, however, we must recur to 
 the Rome of the Empire, before a barbarian standard had 
 crossed the Alps, or a conception of their coming fate had 
 flashed upon the minds of her rulers or her people. 
 
 Thus far I have dwelt upon facts which must, I think, 
 convince the historical student at least of this truth. History 
 is unintelligible to those who do not read it in its natural 
 continuity, and between the era of the Caesars and the 
 19th century, no epoch, no point of time, can be discovered, 
 at which it is possible to say, " Here this continuity breaks 
 off." I am therefore convinced, with many of the dis- 
 
16 THE FALL OF EOME. 
 
 tinguished men who have of late years written history, that 
 to know our modern selves we must know Rome. In her 
 soil are deeply fixed the roots of modern society. The tree 
 may tower on high, spread forth its thousand branches, and 
 wave its multitudinous leaves in the light of day ; but he who 
 would estimate its nature and strength, must seek deep in 
 earth and darkness for the source of its vital power. I do 
 not say the analogy is an exact one, but modern history has 
 its birth in the death of the Roman empire, and we must 
 recur to that gloomy period if we would understand its real 
 character. The Roman empire, therefore, I shall endeavour 
 to lay before you, and explain not only its external develoj)- 
 ment, but the social conditions out of which arose its decay. 
 
 I shall first speak more especially of , the period between 
 the consolidation of supreme power in the hands of Au- 
 gustus and the accession of Diocletian, who imparted a 
 more artificial character to the imperial policy, and intro- 
 duced that elaborate but impotent administrative system 
 which fell before the vigorous inroad of the nations of the 
 North ; and, in conclusion, I shall briefly notice the shape 
 which this policy assumed in the hands of Constantino the 
 Great, and that crisis in the constitution of the empire to 
 which his measures gave birth. 
 
 Place before you a map of the ancient hemisphere : ex- 
 clude from your consideration the northern and north- 
 eastern portion of Europe, beyond the mouths of the 
 Rhine and Danube ; the whole of Africa south of the Great 
 Desert, and the 10th degree of north latitude ; and Asia, 
 west of the Caspian Sea and the great Mesopotamian rivers. 
 What strikes you as the central point in this vast portion 
 of the earth's surface 1 It nearly coincides with the site of 
 Rome. And this fact is of immense importance. From 
 her local position alone Rome was fitted to be the capital 
 of the ancient world. The pulse of civilized life radiated 
 from and returned to that great centre, which could not 
 
THREEFOLD DIVISION OF THE ANCIENT WORLD. 17 
 
 have been elsewhere placed without a serious derangement 
 of the vital energy of the whole body, and the activity of 
 the limbs. I shall be reminded of this again when, after 
 having considered the geographical limits of the empire of 
 Home, we come to see how her peculiar situation enabled 
 her to extend the executive of a centralized administration 
 to the extreme limits of her territory, with rapidity and 
 ease. At present, let us observe how the whole area of 
 the known world might, at this period, have been classified 
 under a triple division. First was the Roman empire, 
 known, civilized, carefully organized, and governed by 
 Roman officers, receiving almost daily direction from the 
 great central authority on the banks of the Tiber. Then 
 there was the Barbarian world, imperfectly explored, 
 stretching far away into unknown wildernesses of morass and 
 forest, inhabited by savage tribes of many distinct races, 
 with crude forms of political government, or living in the 
 semi-lawlessness of nomad and patriarchal life. Between 
 the two was a crowd of half-independent Chieftaincies, or 
 so-called Monarchies, allies or subjects of the "Roman 
 people" — a world neither barbarous nor civilized, biit dwell- 
 ing in a moral and intellectual twilight, which darkened 
 into shadow or brightened into day as it receded from or 
 approached the great central luminary of Rome. The sup- 
 posed limits of the Empire have been given by Gibbon ; but 
 it is needless to repeat the well-known passage, more especi- 
 ally as we shall attempt a brief outline of our own. 
 
 Of what was this immense superficial area made up 1 I 
 must still refer you to Gibbon for particulars ; a general 
 sketch may perhaps be sufficient for our present object. 
 The Atlantic Ocean, with its bays and channels, as it sweeps 
 round from the foot of the Cimbric peninsula to the Straits 
 of Gibraltar, and southward again towards the Canary 
 Islands, may be regarded as the real northern and western 
 boundary of the Empire. On the other side of the sea 
 
18 THE FALL OF EOME. 
 
 which washes the north of Gaul, the Roman had indeed 
 seized with a late grasp, and precariously retained the pro- 
 vince of Britain. The rampart of Hadrian and Severus, 
 extending from the Solway to the Tyne, may be regarded 
 as the real limit of Romanized Britain. A more ambitious 
 attempt was made to extend this limit to another rampart, 
 called the Wall of Antonine, stretching from the Frith of 
 Forth to the estuary of the Clyde ; but the inroads of the 
 free Caledonian mountaineers rendered Roman authority 
 very equivocal in this debatable ground, the scene of 
 so much bloodshed in after-days. Here, at any rate, 
 the Roman placed the last limits of the civilized world. 
 Indeed, we may doubt whether he for a long time 
 allowed that Britain was within its boundaries. Horace 
 speaks of the inhabitants as " the most remote of human 
 beings." Virgil calls them "a race divided from all the 
 world." Catullus holds it to be the strongest proof of 
 fidelity in friendship that Furius and Aurelius are ready to 
 accompany him, "even unto the horrid Britons, last of men." 
 An ancient historian tells his readers, with the naivete 
 of supreme ignorance, that "the world of the Britons is 
 as large as our own." However these things may be, it is 
 certain, from his own account, that Julius obtained a very 
 insecure footing in the island. Superstitious motives in- 
 duced Claudius to annex it as a province, in direct contra- 
 diction to the avowed policy of Augustus. It was ably 
 administered by Agricola for Domitian ; it subsequently 
 saw the death, birth, and accession of heirs to the imperial 
 purple ; but the revolts of Caractacus, Boadicea, and Carau- 
 sius witness to the fact that the spirit of independence was 
 never entirely subdued. The government of Agricola was 
 perhaps the period of its most entire submission, and great- 
 est material prosperity ; yet, of the British of Agricola's 
 time, Tacitus could write the prophetic words, — " The 
 Roman sword had tamed them to submission, but not to 
 
GEOGRAPHICAL LIMITS OF THE EMPIEE. 19 
 
 slavery." We are not, therefore, wrong in limiting the 
 real Roman empire by the Straits of Dover and the coasts 
 of Gaul — Gaul which was so indisputably her own. 
 
 Keturning to Africa, we find the boundary indicated by a 
 somewhat indefinite line, drawn across the whole continent 
 from west to east. Where no antagonism to the Roman 
 arms, save that of climate and the character of the country, 
 was to be encountered, the actual demarcation was not very 
 positively drawn. The Atlas, and the great African desert 
 on the western side, the cataracts of the Nile, and the con- 
 fines of Arabia on the eastern, may be considered, despite 
 the declamation of Virgil, as the goals of Roman conquest 
 towards the south. On the east lay the Parthian empire. 
 The vacillations of long warfare frequently changed the 
 frontiers in this direction ; but we may loosely place them at 
 the Euphrates, the Tigris, the Armenian mountains, and 
 the Euxine Sea. Gibbon says, perhaps with more precision, 
 that Syria formed the eastern frontier of the empire, and 
 that this province, in its utmost latitude, knew no other 
 bounds than the mountains of Cappadocia to the north, and 
 towards the south, the confines of Egypt and the Red Sea. 
 On the north-east, at any rate, the Pontus presented an 
 impassable barrier, alike to Roman victories and barbarian 
 inroads. An imaginary line drawn through it from the 
 spurs of the Caucasus to the mouths of the Danube, and 
 afterwards produced along the course of the Danube itself, 
 may be regarded as bounding the Empire on this side ; but 
 between the Danube and the Rhine lay the vulnerable heel 
 of this Achilles — the weak point of the Empire. Towards 
 the apex of the vast triangle, of which these rivers formed as 
 it were two sides, crowded, wave after wave, the foes of Rome. 
 Even at a very early period she held her own with difliculty 
 against the German tribes. The difficulty increased from year 
 to year, until the emperor Probus constructed a gigantic ram- 
 part wall, which, commencing at Ratisbon, on the Danube, 
 
 c 2 
 
20 THE FALL OF ROME. 
 
 passed for two hundred miles, with true Roman perse- 
 verance, over hill, valley, river, and morass, until it finally 
 touched the Rhine. The remains of this vast work, known 
 as " The Devil's Wall," still move the traveller's wonder and 
 the superstition of the Suabian peasant ; but " the experi- 
 ence of the world," says Gibbon, " from China to Britain, 
 has exposed the vain attempt at fortifying any extensive 
 tract of country." Hardly had Probus died, before the 
 Alemanni burst through the barrier he had raised, and left 
 nothing but its ruins to attest the insecurity of states 
 which are protected by no better bulwark than those of 
 wood and stone. A stronger and more permanent line of 
 defence was formed by the great river whose banks the 
 wall of Probus reached. The Rhine was a Roman intrench- 
 ment, and Gaul a vast place cCarmes. Among the thousand 
 associations which crowd upon the mind when we gaze upon 
 that historic stream, as it comes down broad and rushing 
 from the bosom of the Alps, none is more moving than the 
 thought that we have before us the bulwark of the old free 
 life of the Germanic world, beyond which the demoraliza- 
 tion and slavery of the toga could never permanently pass. 
 The raids of Caesar and Germanicus acquired no lasting 
 dominion in a land defended by the sword of Arminius, and 
 even the disciplined valour of the legionary and the impe- 
 rial name of Rome, produced but little effect upon the swift- 
 footed and fierce barbarians who vanished before the eagles 
 into the morasses which girt the Rhine, the shifting quick- 
 sands of the Northern Ocean, or the gloomy and impenetrable 
 depths of the Hercynian forest. 
 
 Such were the geographical limits of the Roman Em- 
 pire ; within them lay, in the time of Augustus, and 
 according to his organization, nineteen provinces, each of 
 which might have well been a royal realm. About the end 
 of Kero's reign they were subjected to a new arrangement, 
 and increased in number to thirty-five. No mere recapitu- 
 
PROVINCES OF THE EMPIRE. 21 
 
 lation such as a lecturer can give, will suflSce for those who 
 are desirous of accurately studying this portion of the 
 subject. I will, however, briefly place before you such an 
 enumeration, as may enable those who have the advantage of 
 a good map, to acquire a more definite idea than mere words 
 can give of Eoman grandeur and dominion. Eemember, 
 however, that the policy of Augustus introduced a distinc- 
 tion between the provinces, which had no slight effect in 
 consolidating and maintaining the imperial authority. The 
 frontier provinces, whose situation required the presence 
 of powerful armies, he retained under his sole and direct 
 control. These he called Provincise ImperatorisB, and he 
 adminstered their affairs by militaiy officers styled Pro- 
 praetors, and Legati Caesaris or Augusti. Their revenue 
 was collected by procurators and paid into the fiscus, or 
 imperial privy purse. The Provincise Senatorise, on the 
 contrary, were those whose long-established tranquillity and 
 ascertained allegiance demanded no troops beyond the few 
 who fulfilled the purposes of a police. They were governed 
 by proconsuls, whose appointment was only for a single year ; 
 and their taxes were collected by a quaestor, who paid them 
 into the ^rarium, or public treasury, nominally managed by 
 the senate. We may easily imagine that under an arbitrary 
 emperor, there was little practical difference in the nature 
 of the authority exercised in an imperial or senatorial 
 province. In the first instance it may have been other- 
 wise, and we cannot but admire the subtle policy o£ 
 Augustus, who in professing to select for himself the 
 scene of difficulty and peril, really acquired the solid ele- 
 ments of power. 
 
 The whole Empire then in Nero's time consisted of thirty- 
 eight provinces. Six of them had already been united to 
 the Republic in the sixth century of its existence — Sardinia, 
 Sicily, Corsica, lUyria, and the two Spanish provinces of 
 Bsetica and Tarraconensis. Before the battle of Actium, 
 
22 THE FALL OF ROME. 
 
 fourteen others had been added to the list ; two African 
 districts, Achaia, Asia Minor, Macedonia, Narbonnese Gaul, 
 Cyrenaica and Crete, Cilicia, Cyprus, Bithynia, Syria, Aqui- 
 tania, Belgic and Celtic Gaul. The government of Augustus 
 made ten others, Egypt, Lusitania, Numidia, Galatia, the 
 Maritime Alps, Noricum, Vindelicia, Rhsetia, Pannonia, 
 and Moesia. Tiberius increased the empire by a single 
 province only, that of Cappadocia. The vainglorious 
 Claudius incorporated the two Mauritanias, Lycia, Judaea, 
 Thrace, and Britain. Pontus, under Nero, closes the list. 
 Of these countries many still retain their original name with 
 a slight variation ; these require no further explanation. 
 Noricum, Rhaetia, and Vindelicia comprised part of Bavaria, 
 the duchy of Austria, Styria, the Tyrol, and the country of 
 the Grisons. Pannonia was nearly equivalent to trans- 
 Dan ubian Hungary. lUyria and Dalmatia may be dis- 
 covered by their modern appellations. But Gaul was much 
 more extensive than modern France ; it included Belgium 
 and in part Holland, the Bhenish provinces of Prussia, and 
 all Switzerland, except the Grisons. Achaia, from the pre- 
 dominance for a short time asserted by the Achaean league, 
 was the name under which the Romans annexed Greece and 
 the Ionian Isles. Macedonia, Mcesia, and Thrace are now 
 the European provinces of Turkey beneath the Danube ; 
 Turkey in Asia includes the rest. Of these provinces Sicily, 
 Sardinia, Narbonnese Gaul, Baetica or Southern Spain, Mace- 
 donia, Achaia, Crete, Proconsular Asia, Bithynia, Paphlagonia, 
 Pontus, were considered beyond the danger of insurrection, 
 and consigned to the peaceful keeping of the Senate. 
 
 Augustus guarded and managed these immense regions 
 with an armed force, which to modern ideas appears strangely 
 disproportionate. The European governments which occupy 
 the same area, employ in their fleets and land forces, accord- 
 ing to the most moderate computation, something like four 
 ••^itlion of armed men. In the first year of the empire we 
 
THE AEMY OF THE EMPIKE. 23 
 
 find mention of but twenty-five legions and fourteen cohorts. 
 If we compute the legion at 6,300, and the cohort at 600, 
 or perhaps 610 (excepting those of the garrison of Rome, 
 which contained 1,000), we reach a grand total of 171,500 
 men. It is, of course, easy to understand many of the 
 reasons which swell the modern total and could not have 
 influenced this ; still the contrast is a startling one. We 
 must however add to the Roman aggregate the maritime 
 forces under arms at the same time. These were not very 
 considerable. Two praetorian fleets, one stationed at 
 Ravenna, the other at Misenum, patrolled the Mediter- 
 ranean ; they were each manned by a legion of mariners, 
 about 6,000 fighting men. An auxiliary fleet (vicaria) 
 from Frejus protected the coasts of Southern Gaul ; a 
 second performed the same office for those of the Euxine 
 Sea. They consisted — certainly the latter did — of forty 
 vessels ; we may assign half a legion to each. Beside these, 
 two flotillas (fluviatiles) passed perpetually backwards and 
 forwards on the two great frontier rivers of the empire, the 
 Danube and the Rhine. In each were twenty-four galleys, 
 and we may suppose that together they employed 3,000 
 men. Here then we have an additional item of 21,000, 
 which, added to the foregoing, brings the sums up to 191,000. 
 But Tacitus* intimates that the auxiliary, troops furnished 
 by friendly monarchs and nationalities were about equal 
 in number to the legionaries. These have been com- 
 puted at 171,500; therefore the grand aggregate of the 
 armed forces of the Empire under Augustus may be 
 stated at 362,500 men. Nero made additions, which 
 raised it to 391,100, and if we may credit the accounts 
 given to us, the legionaries alone of Marcus Aurelius 
 amounted to 258,258 ; but if this was the case, that 
 number was probably obtained by the incorporation of 
 numerous auxiliai'ies. 
 
 * Ann. iv. 5. 
 
2i THE FALL OF ROME. 
 
 I have been thus particular, because it is an interesting 
 and instructive fact, that the world could be governed by 
 an amount of physical force less formidable than that which 
 the mutual jealousy of modern states compels them seve- 
 rally to maintain.* 
 
 In the midst of all these wide-spread dominions, the 
 imperial City sat serenely upon her throne of seven hills, 
 ordering and enforcing obedience by the mere terror of her 
 traditions and the inviolate dignity of her name. It would 
 require not only unlimited artistic skill, but an unlimited 
 breadth of canvas, to delineate a picture of this Queen of 
 cities, her wealth, her splendour, and her extent, as she 
 appeared to the eyes of those who witnessed the apogee of 
 her power. 
 
 "All that which -^gypt whilorae did devise, 
 All that which Greece their temples to embrave. 
 After the lonicke, Atticke, Doricke guise. 
 Or Corinth, skill'd in curious works to grave ; 
 All that Lysippus practique art could form, 
 Apelles' wit, or Phidias his skill, 
 Was wont this ancient Citie to adorn. 
 And the heaven itself with her wide wonders fill j 
 All that which Athens ever brought forth wise, 
 All that which Africke ever brought forth strange, 
 All that which Asia ever had of prise, 
 Was here to see ! " 
 
 I entertain no such ambitious project. Who would 
 willingly vie with the crowd of rhetoricians, poets, and 
 panegyrists, who have exhausted their ingenuity and 
 eloquence upon the theme ? " Rome, loveliest of created 
 things," exclaims Virgil, in a burst of patriotic enthusiasm. 
 " Rome, city of the world, capital of the nations," writes the 
 rhetorician Aristides.t "City of cities," "Epitome of the 
 IJniverse," are the titles conferred by contemporaries. " The 
 
 * For an estimate of the armies of modern Europe, see the work of 
 Count Franz de Champagny, " Les C^sars," vol. ii, A ppendix i. It has 
 apparently been borrowed by Mr. White, in his "Eighteen Christian 
 Centuries." 
 
 t Aristides Ehetor, "De Urbe Roma." 
 
THE DIMENSIONS OF THE CITY. 25 
 
 spreading houses," says Pliuy, " have added many new cities 
 to the older one." " It is impossible to say," Dionysius of 
 Halicarnassus tells us, " where the city terminates and the 
 country begins ! both are so intertwined together that they 
 present the aspect of a city without bounds." In fact, it 
 contained many cities ; there was a Scythian, a Cappadocian, 
 a Jewish quarter. So numerous were the latter ]>eople, that 
 Josephus speaks of a deputation, as we should call it, of 
 some 8,000, who waited with a petition upon Augustus. 
 An immense number of foreign nations {exterarum gentium 
 muUitudo)* surrounded the funeral pyre of the great Dictator 
 who had thrown open to them the Capital, lamenting him 
 each in their own fashion. Distinguished amongst the rest 
 were the Jews, who passed several continuous nights by 
 the corpse. 
 
 What then was the extent of ground really covered by 
 this colossal city ? what the number of the multitude 
 within its circumference 1 The earliest legends point to 
 a village on the Capitol, then known by the appellation 
 of Mons Saturnius ; the tradition recorded by Virgil, and 
 Ovid tells of another founded by the Arcadian Evander ; 
 between them lay what afterwards became the Forum 
 Romanum. This was the central cradle of the race ; 
 the nucleus of that mighty wilderness of building which 
 afterwards assumed the appearance of a world. The pro- 
 gress of Rome was rapid during the Republic; during the 
 Empire it became portentous. The city soon climbed to 
 the summits of the five remaining hills, and, descending 
 their sides, filled the intermediate spaces with piles of 
 masonry raised so high that one story, says Cicero, toppled 
 over another, and seemed to be suspended in the air. 
 She descended to the Tiber, and stretched herself like some 
 great monster along its banks, crowning with roofs the 
 Janiculum, and then the Vatican hill, northward to the 
 * Suetonius, C. Jul. Cassar, 84. 
 
26 THE FALL OF EOME. 
 
 Milvian bridge, and to the south in the direction of the 
 great port which connected her with the Mediterranean and 
 the outer world. In other directions it was the same. 
 Toward Tiber and Praeneste, she covered the fields of Latiuoi 
 with a cloud of edifices, "like the snow of Homer's Olympus," 
 says the rhetorician Aristides, " which veils the summit of 
 the mountains, the wide plains, and the cultivated farms of 
 men."* 
 
 On the second question, which regards the number of the 
 population, it is nearly as difficult to form a correct judge- 
 ment. Estimates have varied from between four and five 
 million to between four and five hundred thousand; The 
 first is a palpable exaggeration, and is to be attributed to 
 the magniloquent statements of professed rhetoricians and 
 rhetorical historians. These have, however, deceived the 
 great mediaeval scholar Justus Lipsius, who, in his work 
 upon the subject, adopts the former estimate, and that too 
 even for a later period, when the empire was rapidly declining. 
 His authority was long paramount, but the reaction against 
 it has run into the opposite extreme. Those who have fixed 
 the number of inhabitants between five and six hundred 
 thousand, are in error, for two reasons. In the first i)lace, 
 they take the circuit of the city as drawn out by Marcus 
 Aurelius as a basis for their calculations. This can scarcely 
 have been the time when the population was most dense ; 
 but, even if we waive this objection, we must remember that 
 the lines of Marcus Aurelius were constructed for military 
 defence, and as such must almost of necessity have omitted 
 the gi'eater part of the suburbs. Another consideration has 
 escaped them. They forget how closely the ancient popula- 
 tions were packed. A people, one half of whom were slaves, 
 and half of the remainder proletarian paupers, did not re- 
 quire, or did not, at any rate, obtain, very extensive accommo- 
 dations. An Anglo-Saxon would probably marvel at the 
 * Aristides, "De Urbe BomV 
 
POPULATION OF THE CITY. 27 
 
 menage of two-thirds of the inhabitants of modem Naples j 
 but ancient Kome, with its vast barracks and subterranean 
 cells for slaves, who also filled the temples and the baths, 
 must have crowded men together far more densely than any 
 modern city ; and indeed, the immense height and close pro- 
 pinquity of ordinary dwelling-houses formed the subject, 
 more than once, of legal enactment, as they were per- 
 petually the theme of satirists, writers of epigrams, and 
 historians.* 
 
 The negative sort of proof derived from these facts is 
 supported by others of a more positive character. We know, 
 for instance, that Julius Caesar found the number of needy 
 citizens who received the government largess of corn to be 
 320,000 ; and despite all attempts at reduction, it still reached 
 that number in the time of Augustus. t Again, Josephus, 
 Tacitus, and Suetonius, inform us that the corn of Egypt 
 and Africa was reserved for the support of the metropolis. J 
 The amount of com imported was about 60,000,000 modii, 
 or bushels, which would suffice for about one million souls. 
 These statements agree with what we have reason to believe 
 of the relative proportion of proletarians and the remaining 
 denizens of the city, including slaves. . If we place the popu- 
 lation of the city of Rome at something more than one 
 million, slave and free, we shall probably be near the truth. 
 
 Count de Champagny § arrives at nearly the same result by 
 another analysis. After a careful examination of authorities, 
 he divides the Koman population under the Empire into 
 four classes. The first, or financial and judicial aristocracy, 
 comprised four subdivisions, each containing about 1,000 
 citizens : 1. Senators, and sons of senators ; 2. The Equites, 
 or Knights, as they are popularly but improperly called ; 
 3. Tribunes of the Treasury, functionaries nominated by the 
 
 ♦ Juvenal ; Martial. + Suetonius, J. C. 41 ; Dion. Hal. lib. 14. 
 
 % Josephus, Bell. Jud. ii. 16 ; Tacit. Ann. xi. 43 ; Suetonius, 
 Claud. 18. § Les C^sars. 
 
2S THE FALL OF ROME. 
 
 people ; 4. Citizens whose incomes readied the sum of 
 200,000 sesterces. The second he describes as the tiers-etat 
 of Rome, a crowd of inferior functionaries employed about 
 the temples and the courts of law, forming a bureaucracy 
 numerous and important ; to whom we must add, merchants, 
 bankers, farmers of the taxes, men of business of various 
 sorts, who all had their "colleges," clubs, or guilds, for 
 purposes of mutual protection and advantage. The third 
 class were the proletarians, or cajnte censi, i.e. rated according 
 to number, not property, who paid no taxes, and lived upon 
 the " frumentations," or public largesses of corn. They 
 amounted, as we have seen, to 320,000. The fourth class 
 comprised the strangers and the slaves. Of the latter, we 
 shall have occasion to speak at length. It is enough to say, 
 that to the immense number of slaves in the hands of pri- 
 vate individuals we must add those of the emperor, those 
 belonging to the state, and those of the array. The numbers 
 of the latter class must have been immense, for each pre- 
 torian, and most probably each legionary, had his own. As 
 to the strangers, our own experience of London and Paris is 
 enough to show in what multitudes they must have crowded, 
 to a city which was at once the London and Paris of an- 
 tiquity. Upon the whole, therefore. Count de Champagny 
 concludes, that the free population may be estimated at 
 500,000, the strangers and slaves at an equal number, and 
 the garrison under Nero, at 1 6,000, — amounting in all to 
 1,016,000. This must be considered as the' highest point 
 ever reached. The civil wars which followed upon the death 
 of Nero, the tyranny of Domitian and Commodus, the 
 general declension of the Empire, and the unpatriotic, anti- 
 Roman character of the later emperors, diminished mate- 
 rially the numbers of those who dwelt in or resorted to 
 Rome ; and we hear that as early as the time of Septimus 
 Severus the daily consumption of corn had fallen to 75,000 
 bushels. 
 
CENTEAL SITUATION OF EOME. 29 
 
 I have thus endeavoured to give some idea — a very faint 
 and vague one, I am sure — but still, perhaps, some idea 
 of the imperial City and the world she governed with so light 
 a rein. How it was that with so little apparent effort she 
 performed so vast a labour, is an interesting speculation for 
 political philosophers and statesmen. Much, we must 
 repeat, is to be ascribed to the terror of the Roman name, 
 and the almost superstitious awe with which centuries of 
 success had taught men to regard it. Resistance to certain 
 individuals who had assumed a right to wield the terrors of 
 this name was, indeed, occasionally undertaken as a matter 
 of personal rivalry, where each party sheltered themselves 
 beneath the pretence to imperial authority ; but resistance 
 to Rome herself, as Rome, was scarcely dreamt of in the 
 West ; or, if attempted in the German forests, was per- 
 petually enfeebled and disorganized by sedition. We must 
 also add the fact, that Rome had no rival power in all the 
 world with whom a rebel might find refuge, as the political 
 exile of Paris seeks safety in London or New York. It was 
 in vain for the disaffected eques or senator to attempt flight, 
 when the all-pervading power of the emperor was at hand 
 to seize upon the fugitive, from the Pillars of Hercules to the 
 Caspian Sea, and from the wall of Antonine to the cataracts 
 of the Nile. But granting all this, there was something 
 else to be taken into account, as we have already said, to 
 which attention has not perhaps been sufficiently accorded — 
 the central situation of Rome itself among the vast regions 
 over which her well-organized executive extended. The 
 Mediterranean rolled like a great artery through this com- 
 pact body of states and countries. The Mediterranean has 
 from immemorial ages formed the highway of the nations as 
 they passed to and fro on the mission of civilization. Its 
 aspect takes hold of the imagination of the philosopher as 
 strongly as that of the poet. More has been said and sung 
 in its praise than has been said or sung of any other portion 
 
30 THE FALL OF EOME. 
 
 of the earth's surface, not excepting Italy itself. " What a 
 noble subject for a poem the Mediterranean would be," said 
 General Paoli ; or " for twenty poems," adds Southey. " The 
 grand object of travelling," was Johnson's comment on the 
 remark, " is to see the shores of the Mediterranean. All 
 our religion, almost all our law, almost all our arts, almost 
 all that sets us above savages, has come to us from the shores 
 of the Mediterranean."* Who does not remember the 
 eloquent apostrophe of Byron 1 But long before Byron, it 
 had been described in glowing terms by one of the great 
 triumvirs of the revival of letters — Justus Lipsius. " It is 
 stretched across the world," he says, " like a baldric across 
 the body of a man ; a magnificent girdle, studded with isles 
 as with glittering gems, and uniting, at the moment it dis- 
 tinguishes them, the shores between which it flows." t The 
 cradle of civilization, it is associated in our minds with all 
 the great events of ancient history, and most of the more 
 important revolutions of modem times. Conquest, com- 
 merce, civil liberty, and science, all seem to have started 
 into life upon its banks, and pushed their pathway across its 
 waves. All the great cities of the ancient world looked 
 down upon its waters or their tributary seas, — Tyre, Car- 
 thage, Athens, Corinth, Alexandria, Home, Constantinople, 
 Marseilles. The tide of conquest was perpetually rolling 
 toward its shores. Shalmaneser, Sennacherib, Nebuchad- 
 nezzar, sought, one after another, to win the Syrian seaboard. 
 The great rulers of the Persian dynasty, Cyrus, Xerxes, and 
 Darius, precipitated themselves upon Ionian and European 
 Greece. Beside its waves, in a pass between the sea and the 
 Cilician mountains, Alexander smote down the Persian 
 empire, and returned to found a capital for the world at the 
 spot where it receives the waters of the Nile. Soon Carthage 
 spread her commerce along its southern shore, colonized the 
 
 * Boswell's "Johnson," vol. v. p. 145. 
 f jLipsius de Mag. Kom. i. 3. 
 
THE MEDITERRANEAN. 81 
 
 coast of Spain, and passed upon her adventurous path beyond 
 the Pillars of Hercules. Carthage, in her turn, surrendered 
 the central sea, the symbol and means of empire to her rival 
 Rome ; and Rome embraced it more completely still, with 
 the encircling arms of conquest, from Gades to Byzantium. 
 
 But the hold of the Roman empire is at length loosened 
 by a dying grasp, and the empire of the Caliphs and the 
 empire of Charlemagne come down to exchange defiance 
 across its waters, like two paladins of chivalry on the 
 opposite banks of a river which divides their hosts. Mean- 
 while, the blue-eyed Scandinavian Yikings sweep like sea- 
 eagles from the shores of the Baltic, through the portals of 
 Gibraltar, and teach Sicily aud Apulia the terrors of the 
 northern sword. The Crusades come next. The Mediter- 
 ranean is covered with the fleets of Christendom, the red- 
 cross banner is seen in every port, the glitter of steel is as 
 ubiquitous on her bosom as the waves which glisten in the 
 sun. The Crescent, too, has her turn, and the multitudinous 
 galleys of tbe East swarm around Rhodes and the rock of 
 Malta, as they follow the flying track of the gallant Brethren 
 of St. John. New quarrels, new enterprises are decided in 
 that watery arena. At last the greatest of modern con- 
 querors is born within its bosom. The Corsican Bonaparte 
 knows full well the traditions of glory and of dominion 
 which cling round his native sea, and >vould make them his 
 own. It is the dream of French ambition that the Medi- 
 terranean shall be a French lake. That dream is dissipated 
 by the thunder of the guns which proclaim the victory of 
 Nelson and the Nile. Our own eyes have seen the gallant 
 armaments which Western Europe sent forth to arrest the 
 onward march of the Muscovite towards these jealously- 
 guarded waves ; our own ears have caught the sounds of 
 battle as they rolled downward through the Dardanelles. 
 Who could look without emotion upon a sea which has borne 
 upon its breast the fleets which went forth to Salamis and 
 
32 THE FALL OF ROME. 
 
 Syracuse, to the Agates Insulse, Lepanto, Aboukir, Sebas- 
 topol 1 AVho can look forward to its future fortunes without 
 the ^ belief that the destinies of nations may yet be decided 
 on its waves 1 It was, then, this sea which Rome proudly 
 called "nostrum mare'' — our own sea; and which the Arab 
 boatman, faithful to the traditions of the past, still calls 
 " the Sea of Bourn." It was also styled " the Great Sea ;" 
 and for the ancient and mediaeval world, a mass of water 
 which covered an area of 760,000 square miles, and 
 stretched for 2,000 miles in length, from Phoenicia to 
 the Straits of Gibraltar, may well have deserved the name. 
 It is but four hundred years since the great Genoese 
 has opened out to European knowledge the vast oceanic 
 spaces of the Atlantic and Pacific, which we should describe 
 as great seas. But to Bome the midland sea was in every 
 sense great, and to the facilities which it afforded for her 
 government, and to her own position, as what a French 
 poet, in speaking of another city, has called " a predestinated 
 capital," is in no slight measure to be ascribed her prosperity 
 and her power. By the waters of this convenient central 
 basin, and by the rivers and seas with which it was con- 
 nected, the produce and the news of the world were wafted 
 to her gates, and her legions went forth into the remotest 
 regions of the West, and North, and East. The Euxine and 
 the Tanais connected her with the steppes of Tartary. By 
 the Nile she communicated with the cataracts of Syene and 
 the distant Ethiopians, with the Bed Sea, the Persian 
 Gulf, and all the commercial districts of India. She could 
 pass by the Ebro through Spain up to the Tagus, and thence 
 to the Lusitanian mountains and the shores of the Atlantic. 
 By the Bhone she penetrated into central Gaul, and opened 
 out communication with the Loire and the Bhine, — rivers 
 which gave her the command, for commercial and military 
 purposes, of the whole of the west of Europe. These natural 
 lines of water-traffic she skilfully connected by canals. The 
 
EOMAN ROADS. 33 
 
 canal of Drusus united the Ehine to the Yssel ; that of Cor- 
 bulo, the Rhine to the Meiise. Cisalpine Gaul was crowded 
 with similar works of engineering skill. Tacitus records 
 the bold project of cutting through the Isthmus of Corinth ; 
 and there were others of a scarce less enterprising character. 
 We should, however, form to ourselves a very insuffi- 
 cient notion of this immense system of internal communi- 
 cation if we failed to take into account those gigantic works, 
 relics of which still remain, to symbolize the genius of Rome 
 — the Roman roads. Straight as an eagle's flight, these 
 highways, built of the most solidly-compacted materials, 
 passed onward from one limit of the Empire to the other, 
 overleaping valleys and rivers upon viaducts, cleaving their 
 way through rocks, or toiling straight on over the summits 
 of almost inaccessible mountains. The resolute purpose of 
 the people may be discerned in the traces which they have 
 left behind them of their path over the face of the earth, — 
 a path ever undeviatingly directed to their goal, and never 
 turning aside, either from respect for the rights of property 
 or the impediments of nature. From the central terminus 
 at Milan several such lines passed through the gorges of the 
 Alps, and connected Italy with Lyons and Mayence on one 
 side, and with the Tyrol and the Danubian provinces on 
 the other. Augustus united Spain and southern Gaul by a 
 grand route from Cadiz to Narbonne and Aries. Lyons, 
 again, was another common centre from which parted long 
 military ways to Saintes, Marseilles, Boulogne, and Mayence ; 
 thus forming a network of communication between the three 
 seas that surround Gaul and the Rhine. In Britain, most 
 of us have had opportunities of tracing the direction of 
 these colossal works. Any goo^ map of the country will 
 give us an opportunity of estimating their character by 
 familiar examples. It would be tedious to pursue the subject 
 further, and it is enough to know that, without quitting 
 these admirably-constructed routes, the Roman legionary 
 
84 THE FALL OF EOME. 
 
 leaving Narbonne, in Southern Gaul, might pass the Rhine 
 at Mayence, traverse the perilous confines of the Hercynian 
 forest, and the hardly less perilous ground included under 
 the provinces of Rhsetia, Vindelicia, Pannonia, and Thrace ; 
 cross the Greek sea, make his way through Asia Minor, 
 Palestine, and Egypt ; and then, with his face once more 
 towards the west, skirt the southern coast of the Medi- 
 terranean till he embarked for Cadiz, and thence pursued 
 his path over the Pyrenees to the camp from which he had 
 started at Narbonne. 
 
 We have seen the geographical limits and political 
 divisions of the Roman empire — what lay beyond 1 The 
 Barbarian world. The answer is in the main correct. Still, 
 as I have before said, between the tWo were to be found a 
 number of petty kingdoms or chieftaincies, enjoying various 
 degrees of independence as '* allies and friends of the Roman 
 people." They are described by the Roman historian some- 
 what singularly, as in a state of "diihice libertatis,'' or 
 standing in a scale of nicely-graduated dependence from 
 entire submission to vague acknowledgment of Roman su- 
 premacy. The kingdoms of Damascus, Comagene, Pontus, 
 and numberless other similar principalities, paid tribute to 
 the neighbouring proconsul, submitted to the Roman cen- 
 sors, and, in short, stood in a relation to the imperial govern- 
 ment very like that which the Spanish or German " marches" 
 bore to the empire of Charlemagne, or the native Rajahs of 
 Hindostan to the government of the East-India Company. 
 Again, the petty princes of the Caucasus, the rulers of 
 Albania and Iberia, the Armenian kingdom, and the little 
 realm of Palmyra, ever hovering in their allegiance between 
 the rival empires of Rome Und Parthia, when the influence 
 of the former predominated, rather claimed the protection 
 than acknowledged the authority of the great city of the 
 West.* Still, generally speaking, she gave them kings, re- 
 * Tacitus, Ann. ii. 56. 
 
THE WORLD BEYOND THE EMPIEE. 85 
 
 gulated the succession, and sometimes exacted subsidies. 
 Indeed, this was the case with the great Eastern antagonist 
 of Rome, the Parthian empire itself. Its kings were often 
 educated on the banks of the Tiber, beneath the shadow of 
 the imperial palace on the Palatine, and owed their throne 
 to the intervention of the patron Csesar. There was ever a 
 powerful faction at the Parthian court opposed to the ruling 
 despot, which had its own candidate for the purple ready to 
 avail himself of every symptom of revolution and domestic 
 discontent. Rome, true to the Machiavellian policy, " Divide 
 and govern," was always at hand to protect this candidate, 
 and interfere in his favour. How unchangeable is the 
 East! The policy of Hastings and Dupleix in Mysore 
 and Bengal is precisely the policy of Tiberius towards 
 the Parthian rulers; and as we read the account of 
 Roman missions and embassies to the Parthian empire, 
 we seem to be reading the transactions of a governor-general 
 with Rajahs and Indian kings. Uj)on the whole, Rome 
 preserved the peace tolerably well with her allies and good 
 friends. Their somewhat loose and vague adherence served 
 her turn. But occasionally some ambitious emperor made a 
 raid among them, and the admiring inhabitants of the capital 
 heard of monarchies overthrown and whole countries annexed 
 to their dominion. " Every day," says Gibbon, speaking of 
 Trajan, " the astonished senate received the intelligence of 
 new names and new nations that acknowledged his sway. 
 They were informed that the kings of Bosphorus, Colchos, 
 Iberia, Albania, Osrhoene, and even the Parthian monarch 
 himself, had accepted diadems from the hands of the em- 
 peror ; that the independent tribes of the Median and Car- 
 duchian hills had implored his protection, and that the rich 
 countries of Armenia, Mesopotamia, and Assyria were 
 reduced into the state of provinces."* 
 
 Now, when we review this immense variety of " peoples, 
 * Gibbon, i. ch. 1. 
 D 2 
 
86 THE FALL OF EOME. 
 
 nations, and languages" which Rome had integrated into a 
 coherent whole, we must, I think, be struck with one signi- 
 ficant fact, — a fact which Gibbon has noticed, but hardly 
 with that emphasis which it deserves. This complex civiliza- 
 tion was composed of two separate elements, which differed 
 greatly in their character, and in their influence upon the 
 destinies of mankind. A line drawn from Dalmatia down 
 the Adriatic, and cutting the African coast near the famous 
 city of Cyrene, will pretty accurately divide these two civiliza- 
 tions, the eastern of which was Greek, and the western 
 Latin in its origin. Sicily, it is true, and Magna Grsecia lie 
 westward of this line ; but though Greek by colonization and 
 by manners, they had at a very early period become integral 
 parts of Rome, and remained Roman in their laws, institu- 
 tions, and fortunes. " If," — I translate from the interesting 
 work of Count Franz de Champagny, — " after crossing the 
 Libyan deserts, which cost Cato thirty days' march and 
 so many hardships, we catch sight of a building as it 
 rises in the distance, it will no longer be the thatched roof 
 of the African, the rude Numidian cottage. No ; it has 
 somewhat of the purity and harmony of the Greek temple ; 
 'tis Berenice, 'tis Cyrenaica ! Here a new world begins : 
 here, all at once, separated from the other only by that belt 
 of sand, — the Eastern world — the world of Greece — arises 
 before your eyes. Rome reigns not here save by her pro- 
 consuls and her lictors; it is Greece that really reigns by 
 language, by religion, by manners. Cyrene, that oasis of 
 civilization cast into the midst of the desert, has bravely 
 defended her Greek nationality against the barbarian. Here 
 we enter upon the second portion of the Roman world, into 
 that Greece which has fallen beneath Roman laws at an era 
 when she had been already civilized by colonization and the 
 conquests of Alexander."* 
 
 This language is no less picturesque than true. The 
 * Les C^sars, vol. ii. ch. 1. 
 
THE TWO CIVILIZATIONS. 87 
 
 Roman world, that is, the world of the Empire and the 
 Csesars, had received its culture from two sources. Greek 
 civilization propagated itself far and wide at a very early 
 period in many different directions. The coast of Asia 
 Minor was of course entirely Greek ; the northern seaboard 
 of the same peninsula was also Greek ; Byzantium, " the 
 empire of the world," as Napoleon called it, was of Greek 
 foundation. The shores of the Euxine, and even the 
 Tauric Chersonese, received Greek settlers, and were the 
 scenes of Grecian legend, the homes of Grecian art. We 
 have all heard of, or perhaps have seen, the valuable 
 relics which Russia had accumulated in the museum at 
 Kertch. To the south and west, Gyrene, the rival of 
 Carthage, carried the language and influence of Greece to 
 the very sands of the Libyan desert. Sicily and South 
 Italy were, as has been said, Greek in dialect, institutions, 
 manners, and name. The flourishing colony of Massilia, 
 or Marseilles, was founded by Phocseans, that is, by Asiatic 
 Greeks. Their traders penetrated into the fastnesses of 
 Celtic Gaul, and gave the Greek alphabet to the painted 
 savages who brought them furs, amber, or tin from the 
 unknown realms lying beyond the pale of civilized life.* 
 The same men passed the Pillars of Hercules ; well-known 
 traditions attest their presence on the west coast of Africa, 
 and even under the shadow of that great peak whose 
 summit, lost among the lofty clouds, gave rise to the legend 
 of Titanian Atlas, bearing upon his mighty shoulders the 
 superincumbent heaven. 
 
 The conquests of Alexander were, however, the most 
 conspicuous means of diffusing Greek civilization. From 
 the ruins of his empire there sprang up Greek monarchies 
 in Macedonia, Asia Minor, Syria, Egypt, and Bactriana. 
 Antioch, and above all Alexandria, had the same origin. 
 From the latter emanated the chief intellectual in- 
 * Caesar, de Bello Gallico, lib. ii. 
 
88 THE FALL OF EOME. • 
 
 fluences which, after the fall of Athens, acted upon the 
 ancient world. 
 
 Home, on the other hand, placed between the Celts 
 of Cisalpine Gaul and the lonians of Magna Grsecia, 
 received from the latter a civilization which she imparted 
 to the first, and afterwards transmitted across the Alps. 
 Her long struggle with Carthage made her mistress of 
 Sicily, Africa, and Spain, and into these countries she intro- 
 duced her institutions in the track of her victorious arms. 
 Twenty-four years of incessant and bloody warfare brought 
 the tribes of Transalpine Gaul to her feet, and it was in 
 Southern Gaul that she most successfully planted her own 
 image, and saw a new and Romanized world grow up on 
 every side. Her grasp of Britain was less firm, but still the 
 sword and policy of Agricola graved an unmistakable im- 
 press of Rome and her civilization upon our barbarous land. 
 What little of civilized life was found on the opposite banks 
 of the Rhine and Danube clung around the camp of the 
 legion, where was displayed to the rude tribes of Germany, 
 a miniature picture of the Roman city, with its artificial 
 habits and social discipline. 
 
 It will be seen, then, that Greece and Rome divided 
 between them the civilization of the empire. Speaking in 
 general terms, to the former belonged the eastern, to the 
 latter the western half. The distinction was very positive, 
 and of no little importance. Yet the statesmen of the 
 Empire do not appear to have been fully alive to its force. 
 They scarcely seem to have perceived that though the Greek 
 had accepted the Roman name, he was still an alien in tastes, 
 feelings, habits, and national aspirations ; and as an alien 
 would naturally avail himself of the first opportunity to 
 assert independence, if not to aim at superiority. Con- 
 stantine could hardly have purposed, by his transference of 
 the seat of government to a Greek town, that Greece should 
 acquire an entire and lasting preponderance in the East. 
 
THE GREEK CIVILIZATION. 39 
 
 Yet sncli was undoubtedly the result. When botli races 
 were united under one head, and obeyed a vigorous central 
 authority on the banks of the Bosphorus, the difference 
 was perpetually asserting itself in many inconvenient ways. 
 At a later period it caused the partition of the Empire, and 
 later still the great schism of Christendom. The eastern or 
 Greek civilization partook of the national characteristics. 
 Brilliant and intellectual, it was deficient in the more solid 
 worth, which stability of principle and steadfastness of 
 purpose alone confer. The immense mental activity, and 
 the taste for the beautiful, with the power of producing it 
 in concrete shapes, which formed the undoubted birthright 
 of the Greek race, were developed into a love of sensuous 
 enjoyment, which in its exaggeration becomes incompatible 
 with the true dignity of men or nations, and is a significant 
 symptom of their fall. The civilization, therefore, which 
 Greece gave to the world, however showy in itself, however 
 capable of influencing the minds and life of others, could not 
 impart to any people the attributes required for solid and 
 permanent power. Such was precisely the condition of the 
 East, with which Augustus and his successors had to deal. 
 But in the west lay the real strength of the Empire, for the 
 West, in imbibing civilization through the medium of 
 Home, had also acquired somewhat of her sterner and more 
 resolute spirit, and her aptitude for dominion. The i:)lains 
 of Pharsalia tried the men and decided the destiny of the 
 two civilizations. Caesar knew to whom and to what he 
 tinisted when he played for the great stake of the empire 
 of the world with the veteran legions of Gaul against the 
 tumultuous levies of Greece and Syria. Even then, "tlie star 
 of Empire glittered in the West." The perspicacious genius 
 of Augustus discerned the fact. He spent the first years 
 of his government in company with his minister, Agrippa, 
 upon a progress through Spain and Gaul, which may be said 
 to have entirely Romanized those provinces, and consolidated 
 
40 THE FALL OF EOME. 
 
 his own power. Henceforth no breath of rivalry or sedition 
 west of the Adriatic and the Alps shook the throne of the 
 Caesars. These countries, assimilated by the genius of Rome, 
 henceforth shared her honours, her perils, and her fall. 
 
 Thus, then, we see that to the Barbarian world Rome 
 presented one front ; to the world already civilized by the 
 Greek, another. To the first she condescended ; she dis- 
 trusted the second. To the barbarian, conquered by her 
 sword, she felt that she was all in all ; the giver of every- 
 thing he had, — the arts and appliances of social life, know- 
 ledge, law, the first notions of political government : she 
 knew that she could Romanize him — make him hers, and 
 hei-s alone. The barbarian therefore she welcomed with 
 open arms j she strewed his country with colonies ; she gave 
 him her institutions ; she educated his children, admitted 
 them to the rights of citizenship, and bestowed upon them 
 the honours of the senatorial order. Some of them even sat 
 upon her throne. But with the Greek, and the men whom 
 the Greek had taught, the case was widely different. They 
 were already inheritors of a civilization superior to any- 
 thing which Rome could give, and therefore, partly from 
 pride and partly from policy, she kept them at a distance. 
 The Mistress of the world could ill brook superiority of 
 any kind ; and completely as she had adopted the Greek 
 language and literature in all things appertaining to her 
 intellectual life, in her official capacity she clung jealously to 
 native customs and forms of speech. Latin was the language 
 of public life : it appears in the senate, in the acts of the 
 legislature, in all imperial documents, at the tribunal of 
 the proconsul, in the courts of law. It was a high offence 
 against the state if her magistrates employed another tongue.'"' 
 Tiberius noticed with indignation a Greek word which had 
 accidentally crept into a senatus-consultum.f Claudius with- 
 drew the right of Roman citizenship from a man who did 
 * Valerius Maximus, ii. 2, § 2. + Suetonius, Tib. 71. 
 
EOMAN JEALOUSY OF GREECE. 41 
 
 not understand Latin.* We all remember the angry invec- 
 tives of Cicero against Verres and Antony for appearing 
 publicly in Greek costume. Yet, at the very same time, 
 and among the same men, Greek was the language of litera- 
 ture and daily life. It was every whit as familiar as their 
 own. " You speak our two languages," said Claudius to 
 a barbarian, who understood Greek and Latin. In Greek 
 they wrote, conversed, scolded their slaves, criticised the 
 last new book, made love — 
 
 " Quoties intervenit iUud, 
 Zior] Kal "irvxr] ! " t 
 
 Meanwhile the Greek did not return the compliment. 
 He lectured his Roman masters on philosophy or rhetoric, 
 he amused them by his wit and his buffooneries, but it was 
 always in his own tongue. Their barbarian dialect he 
 treated with contempt. Plutarch, who had discharged all 
 sorts of public missions at Rome, only attempted to read 
 Latin late in life ; and even then, as he tells us in the Life 
 of Demosthenes, did not trouble himself to do much more 
 than guess at the meaning of the words. The mutual 
 jealousy and antagonism exhibited in the matter of language 
 had other more important results. We never hear of Greek 
 senators, Greek proconsuls, Greek candidates for the imperial 
 throne. In Greece and the countries under Greek influence 
 were comparatively few Roman colonies, and the fact is very 
 significant. There is also another fact of no little signifi- 
 cance. Alexandria was the second, in some respects the first, 
 city of the Roman world. Almost a rival, she might pos- 
 sibly become an antagonist of Rome. Alexandria therefore 
 was a special object of Roman jealousy ; a jealousy aggra- 
 vated by the fact that Egypt was the granary of Italy. 
 Singular restrictions were therefore from a very early period 
 imposed upon intercourse with any part of the province, 
 * Suetonius, Claud. 43. + Juvenal, vi. 194. 
 
<J2 THE FALL OF ROME. 
 
 and by a special provision it was ordained that no Egyptian 
 might, under any circumstances, become a member of the 
 senate. 
 
 I might easily accumulate illustrations, but I have perhaps 
 been tedious ah^eady. My excuse is, the necessity of study- 
 ing carefully the mutual relation of these two civilizations, 
 as some help towards understanding the division of the 
 Empire between Rome and Constantinople, and the long 
 train of consequences which followed upon the dissolution 
 of ancient society into a Greek and Koman world, not the 
 least memorable of which is the schism of Christendom into 
 an Eastern and Western Church. • 
 
 The consequences of this indestructible opposition were 
 developed in a long train of events, but it is beyond 
 dispute that this train of events was practically inaugurated 
 hy Constantino the Great, when, on the 11th of May, 
 330 A.D., he consecrated upon the Bosphorus a new and rival 
 Rome. This great change in the imperial policy was com- 
 menced by his predecessor, Diocletian, and finally carried 
 out by his successors. But it was Constantino himself who 
 first actually broke with the traditions of old Rome, repub- 
 lican as well as imperial, and thereby he has brought upon 
 himself the bitter" criticism of all those writers who were 
 attached — many of them naturally enough—to the ancient 
 regime, its splendours, its triumphs, and supposed invinci- 
 bility. Some of these have asserted that Constantino v/as 
 actuated by merely personal motives in transferring the seat 
 of empire to the East. " He felt that he was unpopular in 
 Rome ; his reception there had been but lukewarm, while 
 the opposition of those devoted to the old faith, though 
 smothered for the moment, was implacable and menacing. 
 The terrible tragedy of Faustus and Crispa had cast a gloom 
 over the place of its perpetration : their avenging shadows 
 haunted the presence of their murderer, and drove him from 
 the spot." Probably this is true, if we regard it as a con- 
 
CONSTANTINE THE GREAT. At 
 
 sequence rather than a cause of the imperial policy and dis- 
 positions. Inheriting the traditions of Diocletian, and pro- 
 fessing the Christian faith, Constantino must have seen that 
 Eome was not the place where he could safely appear either 
 in one character or the other. There is no reason to doubt 
 his sincerity in either capacity. His subsequent conduct 
 proves that he entertained a profound conviction of the 
 wisdom and utility of the new regulations introduced by the 
 Dalmatian peasant for the conservation of the imperial 
 authority ; and, waving for a moment the question of 
 motives, his whole life after conversion attests his fixed 
 determination to make Christianity take the place of the 
 ancient cults as the state religion of E,ome. And therefore he 
 must have felt that the words of the old Latin Satirist were, in 
 a new sense, appropriate to his situation : Quid Roincefacianiiy 
 meniiri nescio ? With his fixed purpose, and his opinions, 
 had he striven after peace, his life at Rome must have been 
 one long practical lie. Had he cast off the mask, and boldly 
 avowed the revolution which he meditated, his life must 
 have been a bloody and protracted combat — a combat of 
 very doubtful issue, for it would have been fought in the 
 stronghold of the enemy. At that era the Church could not 
 have arisen under the shadow of the Capitol, nor would that 
 Oriental and despotic absolutism, in which Constantino 
 believed as the " salvation of society," have securely taken 
 root within sight of the Senate-house. Debased as was the 
 Kome of Nero andDomitian, some republican memories still 
 lingered within its walls ; though Liberty was dead, a senti- 
 ment of Equality, as often happens, imperfectly survived. 
 Possibly no more degraded race was to be found on the eartli 
 than the Ptoman patriciate ; yet there was that among them 
 which rendered them unfit to fulfil the functions of eastern 
 courtiers in the neighbourhood of the Forum ; and even if 
 the influence of place and tradition, and long jyfestige had 
 been powerless, there still remained the more powerful 
 
44 THE FALL OF EOME. 
 
 influence of personal ambition. The imperial purple was a 
 prize which seemed to hover within the grasp of every 
 Roman senator j but this was no longer possible under the 
 rule of a master upon the eastern model, such as Diocletian 
 wished to be, and Constantine was. The experiment essayed 
 by the former at Nicomedia, was by the latter converted 
 at Byzantium into a success. 
 
 It would be too tedious to relate the whole process of 
 that experiment here, or to detail with minuteness the 
 means employed to carry it out. Such is the province of 
 the professed historian ; and to the regular histories we 
 must refer for a description of the machinery, civil, eccle- 
 siastical, and military, of the new administration. We can 
 merely glance at one or two points which seem to possess 
 special interest or importance. 
 
 Diocletian, as we have said, saw that, if the empire was 
 really to be governed as a monarchy, it must cease to be at 
 the disposal of the strongest military force which could 
 be brought to bear upon the Capital. If the throne was 
 ever to have stability or strength, it must, he felt, be rescued 
 from the degrading weakness which had rendered it the 
 prize of successive adventurers. His political measures, 
 however disastrous in many of their results, were steadily 
 directed towards this end. Hence his gradual approximation 
 to the type of an eastern despot ; his multiplication of an 
 army of functionaries, the useful ministers and interested 
 adherents of a centralized absolutism ; his disposition of the 
 legions on the distant frontier j his transference of the seat 
 of government to Bithynia, or Subalpine Gaul. But he 
 seems to have been staggered by the hopeless antagonism of 
 the East and West, of the Greek and the Latin world, and 
 therefore he attempted a corresponding partition of the 
 empire. Heir to his ideas in other respects, Constantine 
 could never induce himself to consent to this. His aspiring 
 genius clung to the traditions of the Caesars, and he deter- 
 
TRANSFERENCE OF THE CAPITAL. 45 
 
 mined that the successors of Augustus should still be masters 
 of both worlds. It was impossible, therefore, for him to fix his 
 capital at Nicomedia or Milan. He sought a spot where the 
 two worlds seemed to meet, the two civilizations to mingle, 
 hoping that, from such a vantage-ground, he might be en- 
 abled to overlook and sway them both. For a moment he 
 thought he had discovered the object of his search near the 
 site of ancient Troy — a locality hallowed by the immortal 
 legend of Homer, and calculated, it might be presumed, to 
 exercise a powerful influence over both the Asiatic and the 
 European imagination. But all sentimental considerations 
 at once gave way before the marvellous natural advantages 
 of Byzantium, and its singular aptitude for his own special 
 purpose. Probably no man, from the earliest Hellenic 
 mariner to the last tourist of the nineteenth century, upon 
 whom that glorious panorama has burst after emerging from 
 the narrow waters of the Dardanelles, ever failed to recog- 
 nize the extraordinary character of that unrivalled site, 
 which has made the city of Constantine " a predestinated 
 capital," a meet metropolis for the civilized world. The 
 truth must have flashed upon the perspicacious genius of the 
 emperor, and ten centuries of existence, conferred upon a 
 feeble rule and degenerate people, attest the wisdom of his 
 choice. He lost no time in putting his intentions into 
 effect, nor did he disdain the assistance which the report of 
 miraculous guidance was sure to confer upon the under- 
 taking. An eagle winging his flight across the strait, let 
 fall a stone from his claw upon the site of the future city. 
 A mysterious forerunner, invisible save to himself, preceded 
 his steps, as he traced the area of the new Eome, and suffered 
 him not to pause until he had encircled a space of fifteen 
 stades. 
 
 The accounts given of the time occupied in filling up this 
 immense inclosure with edifices are altogether fabulous. 
 Nine months is the period assigned by some writers ; and 
 
Ae THE FALL OF ROME. 
 
 even if we extend this to two or three years, such an 
 architectural exploit appears incredible. It was the passion 
 of the emperor, so far as possible, to reproduce old Home 
 upon that distant shore. Seven irregular elevations still 
 justified the epithet of the "Seven-hilled City." Many 
 public buildings were constructed upon the exact model of 
 those beside the Tiber; nay, the emperor is said to have 
 erected private dwellings for his friends, where every stone, 
 every piece of furniture, was copied from their former 
 mansions within the walls of Rome. It was necessary to 
 provide a . population for the newly-erected Capital. Nor 
 was Constantine scrupulous as to the means. Personal and 
 courteous invitations brought many rich proprietors from 
 Italy or the provinces ; where invitation failed, more rigorous 
 measures were tried. Among other arbitrary ordinances, 
 we hear of one which forbade the owners of property in 
 Asia to dispose of it by Will, unless they had previously 
 built a house in Constantinople. Large masses of the lower 
 orders were easily collected by the old expedients, pomps and 
 shows, the games and races of the Circus, free distributions 
 of corn, and even the pomp of religious processions, — for his 
 enemies do not fail to reproach the emperor with this incon- 
 sistency. Among this strangely accumulated society, Con- 
 stantine erected his throne, and surrounded it with a whole 
 legion of functionaries, who ramified to the remotest 
 parts of the Empire, and pushed from their stools the 
 ancient aristocracy. Still further to secure the latter object, 
 Constantine created a new nobility. Men entirely discon- 
 nected with all the associations of old Rome formed the 
 fittest support for a dynasty which was determined to work 
 itself clear from all the old sources of rivalry and weak- 
 ness. Availing himself of the existing official names as 
 most calculated to conciliate respect, he attached to them 
 privileges and prerogatives, and gradations of rank, which, 
 perhaps for the first time in Europe, gave an example of the 
 
 i 
 
CREATION OF A NEW NOBILITY. 47 
 
 etiquette of a monarchical court. Undoubtedly the experi- 
 ment was tried by Diocletian ; but now the experiment had 
 become an institution. The numerous and carefully-dis- 
 tinguished titles of this new Patriciate, their various func- 
 tions and duties, with the graduated scale of their dignities, 
 have been given by Gibbon, and other historians of the 
 epoch. It is unnecessary to rejDeat them at present ; only 
 let us remember that the result was the creation of a class 
 of persons widely differing from those who had previously 
 stood in a similar proximity to the imperial throne. It 
 was a great epoch in the history of the Empire, a crisis in 
 its social condition, and therefore we dwell upon it here. In 
 many respects this newly-created aristocracy resembled more 
 closely that which surrounded the throne of modem Euro- 
 pean monarchs, than the proud patriciate which did not 
 altogether fall with the fall of the Roman republic, but lived 
 on, though transfigured and debased, into the imperial 
 regime. To them, indeed, may be ascribed the origin of 
 many official usages still existing ; much of the overstrained 
 and servile phraseology which has survived even the era of 
 Puritan ascendancy, and the Reign of Terror ; and, as it has" 
 been thought, the outward trappings and insignia of modem 
 nobility, the crest, if not the coat of arms. In. all this the 
 policy of Constantine is patent, though it has been grossly 
 misrepresented and misconceived. To convert a despotism 
 disguised under the forms of a republic into an actual 
 monarchy; to separate himself from the traditions of the 
 past; to break up the influences which had been fatal to the 
 stability of the throne; to obviate the internal rather than 
 the external perils which threatened society, and to establish 
 order and unity of action throughout his wide-spread do- 
 minions, — these were his objects ; and in comprehending 
 them, we possess the key to the somewhat involved enigma of 
 his policy and his life. To the Christian Church, as the 
 theoretical embodiment of Order and Unity, he looked for 
 
48 THE FALL OF EOME. 
 
 aid in this great labour, and did not altogether look in 
 vain, though he lived to experience bitter disappointment 
 from her disunion. How far this may have been the secret 
 of his attachment to the Christian faith, it is not for his 
 fellow-men judicially to declare. But that he looked more 
 to the outward action of the Church than to her internal 
 spirit, — that lie regarded her as the great organizer of society 
 rather than as the great teacher and guardian of the souls of 
 men, — is, I think, proved by the singular inconsistencies of 
 his own private practice, by his vacillation in the treatment 
 of Arius and Arian doctrine, by his evident determination at 
 the close of his life to secure external uniformity among 
 professing Christians at any cost. 
 
 Of all the means, however, employed by Constantino 
 to carry out the policy which has been described, his treat- 
 ment of the army was the most remarkable and the most 
 efficacious. With a few remarks upon this and another 
 matter, which has not been altogether regarded by historians 
 as it deserves, the present lecture must conclude. 
 
 It seems a mere platitude to say that to her army Rome 
 owed her greatness and her power. In fact, during the 
 early days of the Republic, the army was Rome. The 
 constitution of Servius Tullius identified the two, and it was 
 long ere they were disunited. When the legion went forth 
 to battle, with its heavy-armed citizens in the centre, its 
 mounted nobles upon both wings, its scantily- furnished 
 proletarians in the rear, it was in reality a mimic Rome, 
 which, girt in iron and bristling with steel, opposed itself to 
 the enemy. Hence it was felt in the early days of national 
 growth " uhi castra, ibi Respuhlica ; " the household Gods 
 accompanied the eagles, and wherever her legions halted, in 
 the Syrian sands or the morasses of the lower Rhine, there 
 Rome planted a miniature image of herself, and established 
 a worthy representative of her awful name. Hence in a 
 great measure arose her military prestige ; her unexampled 
 
THE LEGION, THE KING-MAKER. 49 
 
 strength in colonization and conquest. In process of time, 
 the legion changed its character. In the days of ]\Iarius, its 
 old aristocratical distinctions were abandoned in the ranks, 
 and the proletariat admitted upon terras of equality. As 
 E,ome expanded and assimilated to herself the world, the 
 constitution of the legion became more expansive also, until 
 under Caracalla, the barbarians, sometimes the friends and 
 sometimes the foemen of the Empire, were crowded beneath 
 the imperial eagles. Long before this, indeed, Home had 
 ceased to depend for defence upon her own sons. " Italy is 
 resourceless," it was said, "the urban population unwarlike; 
 there is nothing strong in the legions except what comes from 
 abroad."* In the mean time, amid the universal corruption of 
 the equestrian order, the cavalry contingent had disappeared, 
 and this arm of the service was entirely furnished by the 
 allied states. The legion was no longer tlie city in arms, the 
 legionaries no longer citizens summoned to combat in the 
 cause of their fatherland ; they became mere mercenaries, 
 presenting all the features which distinguish such a species of 
 force, and originating all those evils which so long rendered 
 standing armies objects of suspicion and dislike. But with 
 the actual physical force at their command, they inherited 
 much of the prestige which had descended from the days 
 when the army was the representative of the state ; and to 
 this they added an arrogance all their own, derived from the 
 shameless facility with which the Roman people had accepted 
 emperor after emperor at their hands. The legion felt it- 
 self to be the king-maker wherever stationed, or however 
 employed ; but when one king-maker was found in Syria, 
 another in Britain, and a third in the Dalmatian provinces 
 or Upper Germany, each eager to imitate the successful 
 dictation of the other, — the result was utter anarchy, with 
 unceasing alternations of treason, bloodshed, and misery. 
 This was the giant evil which stared Constantine in the face, 
 * Tacitus, Ann. iii. 40. 
 E 
 
^0 THE FALL OF ROME. 
 
 and banished, if not entirely from his mind, at any rate 
 from his more immediate anxieties, what to his critics has 
 appeared the greater peril of barbarian invasion. But this, 
 like a\\ ex post facto judgments, is an unfair one. Constan- 
 tine, so often victorious on the banks of the Danube and the 
 Bhine, could not, by any exercise of human prescience, 
 discover the terrible vengeance which destiny had reserved 
 for Rome in the depth of the Sarmatian deserts ; whereas, 
 a brief and easy retrospect would recall to his memory the 
 fate of his predecessors, the struggles of his own early life, 
 and the sanguinary contest for empire with a rival com- 
 mander at the Milvian bridge. Constantino therefore de- 
 termined to put down the dictation of the army. He 
 determined that it should no longer play the violent and 
 irresponsible part which it had so long played in the drama 
 of domestic politics, and that for the future its function 
 should be to defend, and not to confer the crown. This 
 object he mainly eflfected by breaking up the old consti- 
 tution of the legion, by multiplying the divisions of the 
 service and the number of officers in high command, and 
 by entirely isolating the army from the duties of civil life. 
 The policy of the government had long resembled the astute 
 arrangements of Austria, who garrisons Yenice with her 
 Croats, and dispatches her Italian grenadiers to Pesth or 
 the banks of the Moldau, and her Bohemians to Mayence. 
 The legionaries levied in Britain were sent to serve in 
 Syria, while Britain was guarded by the tribes of Southern 
 Germany, and the line of the Danube protected by Asiatics 
 or Africans. But the most fatal blow to the old military 
 organization was, without doubt, inflicted by Constantine, 
 in what he called the multiplication of the legions. This 
 was effected by diminishing the number of each to fifteen 
 hundred men, and thus also diminishing the importance, 
 the power, and the esprit de corps of each separate body. 
 It was little probable that a small band of professional 
 
CHANGES IN ITS CONSTITUTION. 61 
 
 soldiers, not much exceeding in number an English regi- 
 ment, and stationed apart from their fellows, would trouble 
 themselves with questions of imperial policy, or deem them- 
 selves capable of determining the succession to the imperial 
 throne. 
 
 Another measure of military innovation or reform, which 
 has been severely criticised by his enemies, was the institu- 
 tion of three or four entirely distinct classes of military 
 service. The Palatini formed the garrison of the numerous 
 imperial residences ; the Comitatenses, or soldiers of the 
 imperial suite, accompanied their master in his progresses or 
 expeditions ; the Castriani, or Riparienses, garrisoned the 
 river fortresses and frontiers of the Empire. The latter 
 class, to whom the most important duties were intrusted, 
 had neither the same pay nor the same privileges as their 
 more fortunate brethren, and were subjected to the command 
 of officers entitled counts and dukes of the frontier. The 
 same policy of " Divide et impera " is evident here. An 
 army thus split up into different and unequally-favoured 
 classes, no longer possessed that unity of interest and action 
 which rendered them terrible to the crown. 
 
 One consequence of these measures has called forth the 
 severest criticism, and it certainly .was a grave one. By 
 grouping his troops not according to their nationalities, but 
 solely in reference to the nature of their service, Constantino 
 admitted the barbarians into the very heart of his military 
 system, and placed them in positions of authority and emo- 
 lument such as they had never hitherto acquired. We are 
 told that a barbarian officer of the Palatini, or Comitatenses, 
 was pampered with luxury and inflated by pride in the great 
 cities of the Empire ; while the Riparian of Roman birth 
 wasted his life amid irksome and ill-paid duties in some dis- 
 tant garrison. Naturally, the best-paid troops were also the 
 best in quality ; and as these were gradually concentrated in 
 central positions, the outer circle of defences became more 
 
 E 2 
 
62 THE FALL OF ROME. 
 
 carelessly guarded. It cannot be denied that these results 
 followed the policy of Constantino, and I think we must 
 assume that they were intentional. They are to be explained, 
 as I have said, by the fact that the emperor's thoughts were 
 more bent upon sedition than upon war, his precautions 
 directed more against the domestic traitor than the foreign 
 foe. From the same cause he was drawn into more inti- 
 mate relations with the men of the new blood. He greatly 
 increased the numbers of those whom his predecessors had 
 incorporated into the legions ; he kept some of their most 
 distinguished leaders about his person, loaded them with 
 honours, and enriched them by large grants of land. This 
 was doubtless an offence to his contemporaries, and has 
 been made the matter of grievous reproach by the assailants 
 of his policy. From a Roman and a Pagan point of view, 
 they were in the right ; but should we, the children of the 
 revolution this policy helped to bring to the birth, indorse 
 their malignant censures and unavailing regrets ? 
 
 As early as the age of Augustus, that which in the 
 eyes of such censors is the crowning sin of Constantino — 
 the transference of the seat of empire to the East, — had 
 presented itself to the thoughts of Roman statesmen and 
 the suspicions of the Roman public. There can be no doubt 
 but that Horace alludes to it*in terms of anxious depreca- 
 tion more than once. " The whole of the ^neid," Mr. 
 Merivale thinks, '•' may be read as a continued i)rotest against 
 this crime." But, if a crime in the earlier days of the great 
 imperial experiment, it was a necessity when the experiment 
 had been tried and found so grievously wanting. The 
 struggle between Otho, Galba, Vitellius, and Yespasian 
 utterly negatived all hopes of future success, broke up the 
 foundations of society, and rendered government upon the 
 old principles an impossibility. The eight years of anarchy 
 which almost immediately preceded the advent of the family 
 of Constantine to power, harassed by the rival ambitions of 
 
POLICY OF CONSTANTINE. 59^ 
 
 leaders, cruel and selfish beyond example, deservedly revived 
 the hated title of the reign of Thirty Tyrants, and exhibited 
 so dark a picture of suffering, insecurity, and crime, that they 
 justified — we may say necessitated — the only policy which 
 could bring them to a close. 
 
 A distinguished French writer has so admirably expressed 
 the ideas which in a very imperfect form I have long enter- 
 tained upon this great but scarcely appreciated crisis in the 
 political disease of which the Empire died, that I must ask 
 permission to conclude in his words. " That the heathen 
 writers, that Julian or Zosimus, should have seen in these 
 pacific sentiments" [he is speaking o/ Constantine's desire, 
 during the later half of his reign, to avoid all collision with 
 external enemies] "the indication of failing courage, result- 
 ing from long prosperity ; that, forgetting how they admired 
 in Augustus the moderation of satiated ambition, they 
 should represent Constantine in the eyes of posterity as a 
 sovereign rendered effeminate by the luxurious indulgences 
 of absolute power, exhibits nothing more than their ordinary 
 malevolence. Hate and scorn of the stranger had always 
 been the habitual sentiment of eveiy Roman, and now they 
 were specially affected by such as professed a particular 
 attachment to the old customs and the old faith. But that 
 modern and Christian writers, the civilized sons of those very 
 barbarians whom Constantine received at his court, and them- 
 selves brought up among the complex relations produced by 
 the equilibrium of European states, should have repeated to 
 us, with a somewhat servile fidelity, the same accusations, is 
 what must give us more reason for astonishment. The re- 
 proaches which they cast upon Constantine were made by 
 the men of the fourth century against all Christians in 
 common. They could find no animosity sufficiently disdainful 
 and patriotic for everything outside the circle of Roman 
 citizenship. And, in effect, Christianity, with an unseen 
 action, was gradually sapping and bringing to the ground 
 
W THE FALL OF EOME. 
 
 the barriers which separated the Eoman world from the rest 
 of humanity. When men had treated and loved the Goth 
 or Pei'sian as a Christian brother, they could no longer detest 
 and despise him as an alien. Ever since the time when 
 Christianity had spread beyond the borders of the Empire, 
 relations of a gentler character had established themselves 
 between the Romans and their neighbours. More than 
 once the persecuted Christians had found, on what was called 
 the barbarian border, an asylum against the refinements of 
 cruelty practised by a civilized master. Constantino, whether 
 he knew it or not, did not altogether escape the influence of 
 these new sentiments ; not only had he enrolled barbarians 
 among his body-guard, but he had placed upon the benches 
 of the council of Nice, bishops who, beneath their sacerdotal 
 vestments, still wore the Germanic 'sagum' or the Persian 
 robe. They were styled ' fathers,' as the others were ; and 
 their suffrages, though expressed in barbaric tongues, had 
 concurred with equal authority to define those Christian 
 doctrines to which Constantino was devoted. From these 
 relations were developed new points of view, which entirely 
 changed the aspects of general policy. A sentiment more 
 liberal and more humane replaced in the breast of the sove- 
 reign himself the jealous patriotism of antiquity. Hence- 
 forth men were united one with the other by bonds not 
 identical with those of a political constitution. A Christian 
 was naturally disposed to raise that state of siege in which, 
 from prudential motives, ancient civilization had inclosed 
 itself."* 
 
 There remains one other matter in the external organiz- 
 ation of the Empire which cannot indeed be described as 
 a special cause of its decline, but was rather one of those 
 necessary predispositions which, upon a retrospect of its 
 nature, seem to have indicated the inevitable occurrence of 
 
 * L'Eglise et TErupire Komain, vol. ii. p. 225, 
 
FOLLOWS THE IMPEEIAL TRADITIONS. 55 
 
 sucTi a result. When Caracalla conferred the right of Roman 
 citizenship upon the civilized world, he was only carrying out 
 a policy inaugurated in the infancy of the Empire ; but he 
 was no less manifestly bringing to a close the great work 
 which the Empire, which Rome herself, had been created to 
 do. The day when this famous edict was proclaimed, has 
 been called a solemn day in the history of the human race. 
 Nor is the expression unreasonable or extravagant ; for then, 
 at last, was the mission of the imiDerial nation fulfilled, her 
 task accomplished, her part in the great World-drama played 
 out. Ever since the first access of the Julian party to 
 supreme power, it had been a fixed maxim of their policy to 
 play off the interests of the Provinces against the tradition? 
 of the Republic. Beneath the shadow of the Tarpeian, iu 
 the very spot overlooked by the temple of Capitolian Jupiter 
 and hallowed by legends of the triumphs, the virtues, and 
 heroic deeds of the Republic, the old spirit might perad- 
 venture have been strong enough to reassert its empire even 
 over the debased and impoverished multitude which bore 
 the Roman name. It was, therefore, necessary to introduce 
 into the constitution of the state, and into the very bosom 
 of the capital itself, a new element, which might counteract 
 these undoubtedly dangerous recollections. This new ele- 
 ment was found in the now Romanized provinces, more 
 especially that of Gaul, whose distinguished men might not 
 unreasonably claim a share in that country with which they 
 had so heartily identified themselves, and whose materiai 
 prosperity they were so largely contributing to advance. 
 Hence the admission upon equal terras of Gaulish senators 
 into that august body, whose ancestors had awed the bar- 
 barian warriors of Brennus as beings of a superior race. The 
 august body were infinitely mortified and somewhat re- 
 fractory, but they dared not resist. Like other aristocracies 
 in similar circumstances, they revenged themselves by "bon- 
 mots" upon the awkwardness and unfashionable costume of 
 
ii$ THE FALL OF ROME. 
 
 tlie pro^-incials.* But "bon-mots" are feeble weapons against 
 the will of Caesar and the course of fate. Augustus entered 
 heartily into the same views, by the advice, as we are told, 
 of his able minister Maecenas. At any rate, the policy upon 
 which the emperor acted is clearly set forth in the language 
 which Die Cassiust places in that statesman's mouth : 
 " Purify the Senate by the exclusion of unworthy members, 
 and replace those whom you have been compelled to expel, 
 by the most considerable and most wealthy nobles, not of 
 Italy alone, but of the provinces and confederate countries." 
 The advent, therefore, of Augustus to supreme power was 
 warmly welcomed by the provinces, who began to under- 
 stand how deeply their interests were involved in the 
 ti*ansference of authority from a venal senate and factious 
 aristocracy, to an irresponsible absolutism, weighing equally 
 upon all. Tiberius, Claudius, Hadrian, all actively carried 
 out the same principles. The cosmopolitan spirit of Marcus 
 Aurelius breaks out in his aspiration for the empire of free 
 speech, equal laws, and common institutions ; J and the great 
 Roman jurists of the same era, Salvius, Papinian, and 
 Ulpian, themselves not men of Roman birth, are perhaps 
 the first persons who ever g^ve a formal and technical ex- 
 pression to the equality of all men in the eyes of the law. 
 " By the law of nature," says one, " all were born free : 
 subsequently, by the law of nations, the practice of slavery 
 was established." § The dignity of the conception formed 
 of man as a social being gained immensely by the doctrine, 
 but the exclusive dignity attaching to Roman citizenship 
 received a shock from which it never recovered. Other 
 causes also had been long at work tending to bring about 
 the same result. The old practice in relation to citizenship 
 was far too narrow in its character for a state, the law 
 of whose existence was unlimited expansion. Its restric- 
 
 * Suetonius, Vita Julii, c. 80. + lii. 19. 
 
 J EiQ lavTov, i. 1. § Ulpian, Lee. 4ta, De Justiti^ et Jure. 
 
THE EDICT OF CARACALLA. 67 
 
 tioils operated as a check upon commerce and the energies 
 of growing civilization. The luxury of Roman society had 
 immensely increased its connection with all countries of the 
 known world. The rude city of Romulus could now with 
 justice appropriate the somewhat hyperbolical praise be- 
 stowed by the patriotism of Pericles upon his native Athens. 
 Each day the winds of heaven wafted all the productions of 
 all lands into her arms. At one and the same time, her 
 tastes were gratified and her wants supplied by metals from 
 the coast of Cornwall and the Scilly isles, — by furs from the 
 wild regions beyond the Vistula, — by the jewels and silks of 
 India, — by the ferocious denizens of African forests, — by 
 perfume from Arabia, and spice from Malabar. The artificial 
 requirements and the widely-extended traflic which these 
 things imply, demanded a very different social and com- 
 mercial system from the laws which sufficed the Latin 
 shepherds and the Sabine farmers, for whom was framed the 
 first legislation of the Republic. So it came to pass that the 
 old formulas of Roman right gave way by degrees before 
 the new principles necessitated by the new state of things. 
 Laws were modified or evaded, to suit the change of circum- 
 stances and the demands of new interests and desires. The 
 praetor's edict excepted and excused violations of the letter 
 of the old law ; and at last, when the emperor became sole 
 and irresponsible pra3tor, the cosmopolitan spirit of which 
 we have already spoken, practically repealed all the restric- 
 tions of the ancient code. The logical consequence of all 
 this expressed itself in the edict of Caracalla, when it con- 
 ferred the right of Roman citizenship upon every community 
 in the Empire.* And although the character of its author, 
 and the purely fiscal and interested object of its apparent 
 liberality, detract from the moral dignity of the edict itself, it 
 
 * The full result, however, was not accomplished until the edict was 
 supplemented by the legislation of Justinian, under which the only dis- 
 tinction made was between subjects of the Caesar and slaves. 
 
58 THE FALL OF ROME. 
 
 has no less an historical grandeur of its own, proving as it does 
 that the work of assimilation and conquest was at an end, and 
 that the little settlement of hunted brigands upon the hills 
 which overlook the Tiber, had at last accomplished its des- 
 tined function of absorbing the ancient world. Yet the fact 
 that the world had become Roman was scarcely a source of 
 strength to the Empire. It was well for the world, but it was 
 fatal to Rome herself. It unveiled the mysterious Divinity 
 which had sat so long in awful and solitary grandeur upon 
 the central throne of those seven Italian hills : it familiarized 
 to the common mind the shadowy terrors of the great Name, 
 and removed a moral bandage from the eyes of men. The 
 Goddess had, as it were, become a human being, no longer 
 gifted with supernatural attributes, and therefore no longer 
 regarded in a supernatural light, or adorned with the reve- 
 rent honours of divinity. The multitude no longer wor- 
 shiped a power in which they had themselves been allowed 
 to participate. The right of Roman citizenship, which had 
 long been a rallying-cry for the natural and adopted sons 
 of Rome in every region throughout the known world — had 
 united them by a fraternal bond — had raised them above 
 their fellows by the consciousness of superior privilege — and 
 animated their minds by a common spirit of loyalty to the 
 central authority from which these honours flowed ; this 
 right was no longer a distinction, — no longer a source of 
 either dignity or emolument. Every man was a Roman with- 
 out effort, and without merit of his own ; and as all shared 
 the advantages, social, legal, and commercial, which attached 
 to the fact of citizenship, the right conferred no special pri- 
 vilege, and inspired none of that special pride which the 
 poverty of our language compels us to describe as espo'it de 
 corps. But when, among the outlying populations of the 
 empire, the attraction towards Rome was withdrawn, the 
 attraction to home and native fatherland began to acquire 
 force. Patriotism became a possibility, and before long 
 
ITS IMMENSE RESULTS. 69 
 
 became a fact. Instead of one great local centre of attrac- 
 tion and interest, there were many local centres. Above 
 all, the innate and indestructible discord of East and West, — 
 of Greek and Komau civilization, long smothered by the 
 overpowering predominance of the Latin element, — broke 
 fiercely forth, and has never since been extinguished. Pro- 
 positions for a division of the Empire had frequently been 
 made, and indeed partially carried into effect long before the 
 dismembering deed of Constantine, or the open partition 
 between the sons of Theodosius. They resjulted, of necessity, 
 from the condition of the Empire itself, not from the folly or 
 unpatriotic caprice of individual rulers. It has been usual 
 to ascribe to the sunderance of the imperial body politic 
 under Honorius and Arcadius the evils which produced its 
 dissolution. And it is true that the division of the world 
 into an Eastern and Western Rome was, on the part of Rome, 
 an abdication of her function, and an acknowledgment that 
 the work of a thousand years had at last been brought to a 
 close. Henceforward the outward and artificial unity of the 
 empire of the Caesars was a thing of the past : for the future 
 was reserved the inner living unity of the kingdom of God. 
 Yet the revolution is not to be regarded as an isolated and 
 startling phenomenon ; still less as the consequence of a sud- 
 den and irrational impulse in a ruler who had been previously 
 remarkable for his wisdom. The germ of this wondrous 
 future lay hidden in the edict of Caracalla, and the social neces- 
 sities which it shadowed forth. " The change," writes an able 
 living historian, •' was doubtless fortunate for the future of the 
 world, — we may doubt whether it was equally fortunate for 
 the political grandeur of Rome. Be it what it may have been, 
 this profound revolution was recognized rather than wrought 
 out by the edict of Caracalla. Accordingly, as everything 
 was ready for equality, men had not long to wait for the 
 results. A few years after the imperial edict, we behold the 
 purple won without difficulty, and worn without embarrass- , 
 
60 THE FALL OF ROME. 
 
 ment, noi only by provincials, fashioned, so to speak, into 
 Roman habits, like the Spaniard Trajan, or the African 
 Septimius Severus, but by real aliens, deeply imbued with 
 Oriental or barbarian manners, and with the intention to 
 impose themselves, simply as what they were, upon the 
 capital of the world." * 
 
 But we are trespassing upon the subject of another 
 lecture. It is time to consider the moral causes whose 
 secret operation sapped ancient civilization to its base, and 
 evoked from the ruins a new order of things. 
 
 * L'Eglise et TEmpire Remain, par M. A. de Broglie, vol. i. p. 31. 
 
LECTURE 11. 
 
 THE FALL OF ROME. 
 
 "Antiquam exquirite matrern." — ViBGiL, jiEn. ii. 96. 
 
 Synopsis. — Policy by which the Roman Power was created and 
 maintained. — Dififered from modern Absolutism, — Inaugurated by the 
 Republic. — Broken up by the Civil Wars. — Attempted revival by 
 Augustus. — Modified success. — Strange efiFect of this upon modern 
 opinion. — Ultimate failure, arising from the Corruption of Domestic 
 Life, and neglect of the only influence capable of regenerating it. — 
 Results seen in the practical Atheism of the age ; in its Superstition ; 
 in its social demoralization.— i-Produced by poisoning in the family the 
 fountains of national life. — 'Effect upon some important social ques- 
 tions ; e. g. Education ; Divorce. — Strange Characters engendered by 
 the Era : — the Emperor ; the Senator ; the Informer ; the Poisoner ; 
 the Pantomimist ; the Client ; the Fortune-hunter ; the Parasite. — 
 Two of more importance to the destinies of the Empire : the Gladiator 
 and the Shows. — The Slave and Slavery. — Its dangerous character. — 
 Demoralizes the population of the Capital, and depopulates Italy. — 
 These things, with secondary causes, really destroyed the Empire. 
 
 "VVe cannot better recapitulate what has been said respecting 
 the external aspects of Roman policy and dominion, than in 
 the words of our bwn great poet, forming, as they do, one of 
 those vivid pictures which are only possible to the com- 
 bination of true genius with large intellectual culture and 
 accurate learning. 
 
 " The city which thou seest, no other deem 
 Tban great and glorious Rome, Queen of the earth, 
 So far renowned, and with the spoils enriched 
 Of nations : there the Capitol thou seest ' 
 
 Above the rest, lifting his stately head 
 On the Tarpeian rock — her citadel 
 Impregnable ; and there Mount Palatine, 
 The imperial palace, compass huge and high ; 
 The structure, skill of noblest architects. 
 With gilded battlements, conspicuous far ; 
 Turrets, and terraces, and glittering spires. 
 
62 THE FALL OF EOME. 
 
 Many a fair edifice besides, more like 
 
 Houses of gods (so well I have disposed 
 
 My airy microscope) ; thou mayst behold, 
 
 Outside and inside both, pillars and roofs. 
 
 Carved work, the hand of famed artificers, 
 
 In cedar, marble, ivory, or gold. 
 
 Thence to the gates cast round thine eyes, andseo 
 
 "What conflux issuing forth, or entering in ; 
 
 Prjetors, proconsuls, to their provinces 
 
 Hasting, or on return, in robes of state ; 
 
 Lictors and rods, the ensigns of their power ; 
 
 Legions and cohorts, turms of horse and wings ; 
 
 Or embassies from regions far remote. 
 
 In various habits, on the Appian road. 
 
 Or on the Emilian ; some from the farther south, 
 
 Syene, and, where the shadow both way falls, 
 
 Meroe, Nilotic isle ; and, more to west. 
 
 The realm of Bocchus to the Black-moor sea ; 
 
 From the Asian kings, and Parthian among these ; 
 
 From India and the golden Chersonese, 
 
 And utmost Indian isle Taprobane, 
 
 Dusk faces with white silken turbans wreathed; — 
 
 From Gallia, Gades, and the British west, — 
 
 Germans and Scythians, and Sarmatians north. 
 
 Beyond Danubius to the Tauric pool, — 
 
 All nations now to Eome obedience pay." 
 
 Rome had built up and maintained this mighty fabric of 
 dominion by a policy and by institutions which it is impos- 
 sible to describe at large ; but the student would be 
 seriously misled if he were induced to suppose that it was by 
 the favourite arts of modern statecraft that this result was 
 produced. The government of Rome was eminently a cen- 
 tralized government ; but the ubiquitous and restless action 
 which characterizes such administration in our own days, 
 to her was utterly unknown. The Roman proconsul or pro- 
 prsetor did indeed periodically traverse the provinces, for 
 the purpose of taking the census, collecting the prescribed 
 revenue, conducting his military levies, and superintending 
 the progress of public works ; but with its strictly private or 
 municipal affairs he very rarely interfered. The Syrian or 
 the Gaul might regulate these as he pleased, attend to 
 religion, commerce, or agriculture, and construct temples, 
 theatres, and ports ; no imperial official would ask his pur- 
 
POLICY OF THE REPUBLIC. 63 
 
 pose, or stay his hand. That great engine of modern 
 despotisms, a paid police, was unknown. The " Cause of 
 Order," or the " Pax Rom ana," as they would have called 
 it, did not require for its preservation any elaborate machinery 
 of espionage, passports, deportations, or other ingenious ex- 
 pedients, known to the absolutism of the nineteenth century. 
 Rome, in fact, stood so utterly above the puny efforts of 
 ordinary provincial revolt, — such a terror waited upon the 
 traditions of her name, that she needed no other expedient 
 than her own strong right arm to crush out, at once and 
 for ever, all attempts at conspiracy and insurrection. The 
 very notion of her fall would have paralyzed her subject 
 populations, and seemed equivalent to the social collapse 
 of the world. As a general rule, therefore, the provincial 
 suffered and appealed, and suffered again, but did not dream 
 of systematic resistance. Rome either amalgamated him 
 with herself, or finally and effectually convinced him of the 
 irresistibility of her power. 
 
 Nor, again, was this effected by the ever-impending menace 
 of a gigantic standing army. A centurion and a few soldiers 
 were sufficient to insure the tranquillity of a province. Italy, 
 Spain, Asia Minor, and great part of Gaul, were for a long 
 time positively denuded of a military force. The distribu- 
 tion of the legions I have already described. From this it 
 will be seen that about 150,000 men were sufficient to 
 maintain the authority of Rome, at the apogee of her em- 
 pire, throughout the Roman world. More than double the 
 number does not satisfy the exigence of states which now 
 include about one-fifth of her dominion. And, indeed, the 
 troops permanently under arms were meant to combat, not so 
 much internal treason, as assaults from without " The power 
 of Rome," admirably remarks Count Champagny, "was not, 
 as is the case with governments of our own time, a spring 
 invisibly moving a vast machine, which, when its action is 
 arrested, becomes nothing better than a fragile and con- 
 
64 THE FALL OF KOME. 
 
 temptible toy ; it was rather the mighty sword of our sires, 
 which, though flung into a corner of the armoury, still inspires 
 respect, and which, sure of its strength, may long linger in 
 the sheath without being forgotten. The force of Rome was 
 entirely a mo^al— force. Modern governments must have 
 their means of government visible, present, active, determined 
 by a mathematical logic, for the purpose of bringing the 
 world into some systematic mathematical order of their own 
 conception. Mathematics have nothing to do with senti- 
 mental traditions. Rome, on the contrary, was anything 
 but a mathematician. As she did not trouble herself to 
 discover a law of government in strict accordance with logic, 
 she was content to accept, as raaintainers of her power, 
 influences of a less logical — I do not say less reasonable — 
 kind ; all those influences, in short, which are found in human 
 life — its memories, sentiments, and hopes. Rome built her 
 power upon the past. To understand her power, therefore, 
 we must go back to the past, make ourselves acquainted with 
 the character of her conquest, take account of the force of 
 her rej)ublican institutions, and the influence they exercised 
 upon her policy for 600 years."* 
 
 We shall not, as you may well imagine, at present make 
 any such attempt ; but the main features of that republican 
 policy which consolidated a universal empire are intelligible 
 enough, and widely known. A public morality based upon 
 the family life and discipline ; an iron perseverance in the 
 onward path of conquest, supported by a marvellously-trained 
 soldiery, and tempered by a spirit of wise moderation, which 
 enlisted the sympathies rather than aroused the animosity 
 of the vanquished nationalities ; a military system which 
 made the civil society an army almost ready for the field, 
 and the army a civil society in the midst of its battles and 
 campaigns ; a recognition at home of public right and pub- 
 lic interest dominant over all personal objects, aflfections, 
 * Les C^sars, vol. ii. p. 69. 
 
BROKEN UP BY THE CIVIL WAES. 65 
 
 and ambitions ; an admirable system of colonization, which 
 planted an armed sentinel of civilization, a counterpart of 
 Eome,' where nothing but forests, morasses, and barbarian 
 huts had been found before; a conciliatory demeanour, which, 
 by spreading far and wide among savage tribes the amenities 
 and benefits of refined life, in a shape indissolubly associated 
 with Rome, gradually modified the character of her bar- 
 barian enemy, and, as in the conspicuous example of the 
 Gauls, eventually identified him, in feeling as in fact, with 
 the great people by whose spirit, rather than by whose sword, 
 he had been subdued ; and, finally, to maintain these results, 
 an administrative system organized with wonderful sagacity, 
 avoiding the errors which cling to the modern conception of 
 a centralized government, but not the less referring all things 
 and subjecting all things to the central power, and turning 
 all eyes to the City which sat upon the Seven Hills, as the 
 goal of all ambitions, the arbitress of all destinies, the sole 
 dispenser of honours, emoluments, and pains — these were 
 the Roman arts of which the Roman poet boasted ; and he 
 had a right to boast, for they established for a season the 
 most complete dominion which has ever swayed the minds 
 of men. 
 
 This policy was in a great measure broken up by the civil 
 wars ; for the civil wars broke tip old Roman society. They 
 were themselves the miserable, but most natural result of 
 the decay of the Roman spirit, the corruption of the national 
 manners by the inroads of Oriental luxury, the abandonment 
 of the ancient traditionary reverence for authority, and the 
 consequent neglect of that moral and military discipline 
 which had subdued the world. The evil developed itself in 
 many ways; most remarkably, perhaps, in the maladministra- 
 tion of the provinces. " The despotism of the Empire was 
 almost justified," as Professor G. Smith declares, "by the 
 misgovernment of the provinces during the senatorial regime, 
 and the difficulty, almost amounting to an impossibility, of 
 
 P 
 
66 THE FALL OF ROME. 
 
 any effectual reform."* The famous Verrine orations of Cicero 
 amply corroborate this statement. To the scholar it needs 
 no corroboration ; for the case of Verres, though a signal, 
 was by no means a singular instance of the mischief inflicted 
 by a bad man, and the misery endured by an oppressed 
 nationality. The evil was aggravated by a circumstance 
 upon which I think historians have n6t sufficiently insisted. 
 However much we may admire the Roman law as an 
 elaborate and nicely-adjusted system of jurisprudence, it 
 exhibited one error of the gravest character : it was never 
 independent of the existing political power of the state. If 
 the people at large discharged the duties of our modern 
 juries, the state officers were the judges. This, it may be 
 easily seen, opened the door for pecuniary corruption and 
 illegitimate influences of all sorts. Indeed, the entire 
 separation of the judicial and administrative functions 
 seems to be a modern conception, and one of the most 
 valuable additions which has ever been made either to 
 policy or law.t At Rome, their confusion placed the sacred 
 interests of justice at the mercy of electioneering agents, 
 class feeling, and prejudice of all kinds. It was in vain 
 that the constitution of the great judicial tribunal was 
 transferred from the senators to the knights, back again to 
 the senators, or to both in combination. Corruption had 
 free scope, and verdicts were bought and sold, which in- 
 volved the fortunes of the fairest and most important por- 
 tions of the Roman empire. From this tainted source, 
 and from others also, the moral contamination spread. 
 During the dreadful days which preceded the advent of the 
 Csesarean family to power, the fountains of the great deep 
 of human society were broken up, and a deluge of blood 
 
 * Oxford Essays, 1856. 
 
 t Or perhaps we should say mediaeval ; for, may it not have arisen 
 from that singular institution, the office of Podeata, instituted by the 
 Italian republics in the 12th century ? 
 
EEVIVED BY AUGUSTUS. 67 
 
 and crime swept over the state. The genius of the aspiring 
 Dictator for a moment stayed the storm. I can scarce 
 venture to ascribe to him those far-seeing and disinterested 
 views for which his modem admirers — and they are neither 
 few nor insignificant — are determined to give him credit ; 
 yet, with mixed motives, and gradually-developed aims, like 
 those of our own Cromwell, and perhaps those of all men 
 in analogous situations, whether from personal ambition or 
 public spirit, or from both combined, he laboured ener- 
 getically for the regeneration of Roman society ; and, 
 beyond all dispute, it was a great work, which was cut 
 short by the dagger of Brutus on the Capitol. 
 
 Octavius succeded to his position, and in many respects 
 to his policy ; but he brought more suitable, or at any rate 
 more successful, attributes to the task. The Ulysses of an- 
 cient statecraft accomplished more than the monarch of our 
 own time, who has sometimes been so called. He, unlike his 
 modern counterpart, mastered a great nation and impressed 
 his policy in a permanent form upon her institutions. And 
 as it was this policy which im])arted to the Roman empire 
 whatever strength and solidity it for some centuries 
 possessed ; as it was a departure from this policy, or an 
 incapacity to maintain it, which was the greatest external 
 cause of its decline, it will be worth while in a few words to 
 lay before you its more prominent characteristics. In one 
 word, as Professor Smith has said, " the policy of Augustus 
 was to restore old Rome." But to re-inspire an effete body 
 with the vitality of youth is no easy task for the most 
 skilful leech, and great as Augustus may have been as a 
 state physician, he was unable to accomplish such a resusci- 
 tation. He, however, patched up the patient with no little 
 art, and enabled him by artificial expedients and external 
 supports, to assume a temporary appearance of juvenile 
 vigour. He checked public immorality so far as it could be 
 checked by legal enactments ; he sought to revive the old 
 
 F 2 
 
68 THE FALL OF EOME. 
 
 type of domestic life, by discountenancing celibacy, and 
 bestowing special privileges upon the family ; he attempted 
 to purify the Senate by the expulsion of unworthy members, 
 and by affording pecuniary assistance to the deserving ; he 
 recalled some of the imprudent concessions which his pre- 
 decessoi*s in authority for the time being had made, and 
 granted others, such as the right of Roman franchise, and 
 the Jus Latinum, with the most politic consideration of the 
 specialities of every case ; he made kings and unmade them, 
 treating them like the great feudatory vassals of after-times; 
 he promised thrones and cared for the education of semi- 
 barbarian heirs-apparent in his own palace, always with the 
 most steady and perspicacious regard for imperial interests. 
 At the same time he earnestly endeavoured to raise the 
 character of the Roman citizen, by raising in the first 
 instance the character of Roman citizenship. This he ceased 
 to lavish upon whole provinces at a time, and where he did 
 bestow it, he took care that it should be valued by the 
 recipient, and convey reciprocal strength, by bringing with 
 it the adhesion of powerful cities, or influential men. No 
 prince has, in all probability, ever bestowed more labour 
 upon the external organization of his empire, or taken 
 greater pains to ascertain its resources and condition. At 
 his death, he left behind an autograph note containing an 
 accurate list of the provinces, their cities, their population, 
 resources, and imports ; the subject and allied monarchs 
 connected with the imperial regime ; its fleets, armies, and 
 auxiliaries ; in short, all particulars with which it was de- 
 sirable for his successor to be acquainted. During his life, 
 he had accumulated this information by careful surveys and 
 registrations, one of which recorded the greatest Name 
 known among men. Nor had he confined his exertions to 
 inquiries alone ; he was a real practical redresser of grievances. 
 The provincials were indebted to him for the alleviation of 
 many wrongs under the more responsible system which 
 
REFORMS OF AUGUSTUS. 69 
 
 divided their superintendence between the Senate and himself. 
 They obtained a recognition of their public right such as they 
 had never heretofore enjoyed, and their affairs were adminis- 
 tered with a unity of purpose and a moderation in practice, 
 very different from the capricious oppression of the senatorial 
 governors. " Home and her provinces," says the historian 
 of the Caesars, " lived for three centuries beneath the laws 
 and traditions of Augustus. It was at a later period that, 
 decrepit and struggling for existence, it accepted, as the 
 veteran's crutch, the puerile and oriental system of adminis- 
 tration which it received from Diocletian." But perhaps 
 Augustus left behind him no more valuable heir-loom than 
 a well-considered admonition, — an order Tiberius calls it, — 
 founded upon his intimate knowledge of the position and 
 perils of the Empire.* Like Pericles, and other wise men 
 somewhat similarly placed, he said, "Attempt no further 
 conquest. Strengthen the frontiers of the Empire, but do 
 not seek to advance them. Herein lies the secret of your 
 strength. The wider the circuit to be defended, the weaker 
 the defence." His successors were wise enough to accept 
 this counsel in the main. With the exception of the inju- 
 dicious annexation of Britain by Claudius, few permanent 
 additions were made to the dominion which they received 
 from his hands, and these were either forced acquisitions in 
 the shape of la])sed or rebellious monarchies, or illustra- 
 tions of the sagacity of his advice. This patient travail of 
 Augustus was not without its reward. He established a 
 coherent power, which for a long time resisted the downward 
 tendency of Boman society, the imbecility and wickedness of 
 the succeding Csesars, and the assaults of the new enemy 
 from without. This modified success has, in the long revolu- 
 tions of opinion, produced a somewhat singular result. The 
 government which he constructed, or rather consolidated in 
 himself, has appeared to some of our contemporaries to be 
 * Tacitus, Ann. i. 12, ii. 61 ; Agricola, 13. 
 
70 THE FALL OF ROME. 
 
 the type of all good government, and they do not hesitate to 
 recommend something of the kind to ourselves as a species 
 of provisional discipline, calculated to rescue the nation, as 
 it rescued Eome, from the evils of the age, and ultimately fit 
 our people for the task of conducting their own affairs under 
 free institutions.* Perhaps the remark of Gibbon, that the 
 world was never happier than during the period which 
 followed the death of Domitian ; perhaps, also, a little uncon- 
 scious admiration of the unscrupulous triumphs achieved by 
 modern Imperialism, has emboldened this new Csesarean 
 party to profess a doctrine which they would scarcely have 
 deduced from the ability of the administration, the virtues 
 of the rulers, or the happiness of the people during the 
 period in which this type of all good government was de- 
 veloping itself under the Julian race. But even though we 
 concede the merit of the " good emperors," as they are called, 
 who followed the last of the legitimate Caesars, and grant 
 that in the second century a temporaiy pause occurred in the 
 most virulent symptoms of the state disease, it is still open for 
 us to ask, as it has been asked, — If the Empire was really 
 the type of all good government, how and why did it fall 
 into a decadence and ultimate decay, which is the significant 
 result of all bad government 1 Nay rather, had it been the 
 worst, instead of the best of all possible governments, could 
 it have failed in all the objects of government more signally, 
 and exhibited more fatal decrepitude and incapacity ? Many 
 of the evils, perhaps most of the evils, which beset society 
 are not chargeable upon any government — 
 
 " Of all the ills that human hearts endure, 
 How small the part that laws or kings can cure." 
 
 But " absolute power, wielded by perfect virtue and wisdom," 
 to adopt Gibbon's statement, contracts a greater responsi- 
 bility than other more limited authorities. It is bound to 
 
 * See note at the end of the Lecture. 
 
MODERN IMPERIALISM. 71 
 
 show that it understands the real evils of its age, and that 
 it has a tendency, or at the least an intention, to correct 
 them. But it cannot be asserted that the imperial rule ever 
 appreciated, or ever showed the slightest inclination to 
 remedy, the enormous evils under which Roman society, and, 
 indeed, we may say all ancient society, was slowly and surely 
 succumbing. These evils were irreligion, immorality, and 
 superstition, developed in the grossest forms. Every- 
 where we find entire indifference to the sanctions and in- 
 fluence of religion, such as in earlier and purer days it 
 existed among the men and matrons of ancient Rome ; 
 sensuality pervading all classes and conditions of society ; 
 licentiousness rampant from the Palatine to the Suburra. We 
 see a cruel thirst for blood fostered and fed by those sanguinary 
 spectacles of the circus and arena for which the Roman 
 populace raged with an ever-unsatisfied appetite ; and we 
 can lay ti-ur hand upon one fatal plague-spot which ate away 
 the very vitals of the commonwealth, — the canker of predial 
 and domestic slavery pervading Italy, and gradually con- 
 suming the middle class, the very pith and marrow of 
 states. And as the mixed cause and consequence of these 
 things, we can clearly trace the demoralization of domestic 
 manners, destroying the life of the family, the only true 
 basis of a national life, and creating everywhere a miserable 
 individualism, and an entire absorption of men and women 
 in mere personal and selfish interests. Cornipfcion, whether 
 morally or physically viewed, is a disintegrating power, and 
 where, by its influence, society is broken up into separate 
 atoms, patriotism becomes impossible. Then is seen that 
 terrible phenomenon, the loss of a national life, the final 
 and fatal curse of a people, foretelling its doom as certainly 
 as though the sentence of destiny had glared forth in letters 
 of fire upon the wall. This it was which befell Csesarean 
 and im})erial Roma She may have had wise laws, able 
 administrators, many ingenious expedients against decay. 
 
72 THE FALL OF ROME. 
 
 gold to buy barbarian blood, and fortress piled on fortress 
 by the Danube and the Ehine ; but she had not life. It 
 was this, and no mere change of policy or external accident, 
 which converted the Empire into a brothel and a slaughter- 
 house in the reign of Nero and Domitian, which brought it 
 to the hammer upon the death of Pertinax, and finally 
 delivered it over as a prey to the bow and spear of the 
 Ostrogoth and the Lombard. 
 
 One influence there was which might have made "the 
 dry bones live." One power there was which might have 
 breathed the breath of life into this corpse-like and corrupt- 
 ing form, even as the prophet stretched himself upon the 
 dead body of the widow's child, and called back the s})irit 
 that had fled. But we can never forget that the govern- 
 ment of the Caesars persecuted the men who wielded this 
 power — the purest, and, even in a political sense, the most 
 useful which the world had ever known. Imperialism placed 
 itself in an attitude of uncompromising antagonism to the 
 religion of Christ. It drove those who adopted it to pro- 
 secute their worship in tombs, and caves, and catacombs, and 
 desert places of the earth : by an exquisite refinement of 
 cruelty, it kindled their bodies as torches to light the streets 
 of Rome, or gave them over to be rent piecemeal by beasts 
 of prey, to make sport for the rabble of the circus and the 
 Suburra. And it was especially the modei men who did 
 this; the able administrators, the possessors "of perfect 
 wisdom and absolute power." The more wise and politic 
 the ruler, the more bitter the persecution. The laissez 
 faire of the first imperial sensualists conceded a sort of 
 contemptuous toleration to the followers of the new faith : 
 the energy and policy of Diocletian strove to drown it in 
 a torrent of blood, and would certainly have succeeded, had 
 not God and Destiny been stronger than a tyrant's sword. 
 
 The causes at which I have briefly hijited, without doubt, 
 were the main agents in producing the downfall of heathenism 
 
OLD ROMAN RELIGION. 73 
 
 and of Rome, and thereby tLe rise of modern society. But 
 as this matter is all-important, both to the general student 
 and to our own special purpose, it will be desirable to examine 
 these causes with a little more minuteness. .The birth-throes 
 mingled with the agonies of death, and he who would read 
 the features and the fate of the strangely-engendered child, 
 must gaze fixedly on both. 
 
 And first, with respect to that mixture of atheism and 
 superstition from which, as from a fountain, flowed the full 
 tide of Roman corruption, the student of history will have no 
 difficulty in detecting its source, and tracing the direction of 
 its current. The religion of early Rome was Paganism in its 
 most favourable form. It was simple, earnest, and pure ; it 
 had for its basis the domestic relations, and these it transferred 
 to the relations between man and the object of his worship. 
 Thus the fatherhood and protecting power of a Divine Being 
 seems to have been the thought underlying its religious insti- 
 tutions, and reproducing itself in the laws of the state, as in 
 the habits of family life. The grand old Capitolian Jove, 
 who from the heights of the Capitol kept watch and ward 
 over the destinies of Rome, was a being very different from 
 any among the fanciful creations of Greek mythology. It 
 would be easy to point out the distinctive character of the 
 other earlier Italian divinities, did time permit ; but this, I 
 think, may be assumed as beyond the chance of controversy. 
 Niebuhr, perhaps the first of all authorities, emphatically 
 declares, " The old Romans were governed by a religion of 
 the strictest veracity, fidelity, and honour ; " and he adds, 
 " This was the foundation upon which the gi'eatness of the 
 ^Id republican time was reared, and the whole life of the 
 constitution depended upon it." For a profound and eloquent 
 examination of the principle upon which this religion was 
 based, and the method of its development in public and 
 private life, I must refer you to the lectures of Mr. Maurice, 
 on the Religion of Rome. One passage only I will permit 
 
74 THE FALL OF ROME. 
 
 myself to quote, because it so strongly sets forth the truth, 
 so far as with my powers and opportunities for reflection I 
 have been enabled to see it. 
 
 "Forget, as we are privileged to do, all about a Trojan 
 colony and a Trojan war, all that merely belonged to the 
 vanity of the Julian family, the want of documents, the 
 carelessness of investigation, and then consider what is 
 implied in the story of a man bearing his father out of the 
 ruins of a fallen city, and coming to Latiura, after perils 
 by sea and land, with his household gods. Consider those 
 words * Household Gods' in this connection, and then ask 
 youreelves whether this is a mere tale, illustrating the dry 
 moral, that it is proper for sons to take care of their fathers, 
 or whether it does not give us a glimpse into the meaning 
 of the reverence for fathers, of the authority of fathers, — 
 whether it does not tell us whence that reverence and 
 authority were derived — how they were sustained. Was 
 there not a belief in. the Roman such as did not dwell in 
 any other Pagan nation, that there was a fatherly govern- 
 ment in the highest region of all, which was implied in the 
 very existence of the household; upon which the permanence 
 of all household relations depended ; upon which, therefore, 
 all civil relations, all civil order, and not less the military 
 order, the authority and subjection of the camp, ultimately 
 depended f 
 
 Under the shadow of such a faith grew up the great fabric 
 of Roman glory. AVith the fall of that faith fell also the 
 probity and valour by which empire had been won, and 
 eventually the Empire itself. And the process is intelligible 
 enough. The Pantheism of the East, with all its attendant 
 evils, poured into Rome at the close of the second Punic 
 war. I speak of the Oriental worships rather than of 
 Greek polytheism, because, though the influence of the 
 latter was undoubtedly mischievous, it was less extensively 
 and less permanently so than the superstitious practices 
 
FOREIGN CORRUPTION. 75 
 
 introduced from Syiia and Egypt. Conquest produced 
 corruption ; and corruption found a people prepared by the 
 sudden wants of newly-acquired wealth to welcome all the 
 means and appliances, intellectual as well as physical, which 
 minister to sensual enjoyment. Were I specially treating 
 of Roman history, it would be my duty to illustrate the 
 fact from Roman literature ; and this might be very easily, 
 though not perhaps very briefly done. I will, however, 
 orly quote a single passage, — a very remarkable passage, as 
 it seems to me ; for it shows at how early a period had 
 begun the evils of which I sj)eak, and how soon was sown 
 the seed which produced so sad a harvest in the days Sylla, 
 Catiline, and Caesar. " The longer," says Livy, speaking of 
 the second Punic war, "the contest was protracted, and 
 continual successes and defeats varied not only the fortunes 
 of the war, but the feelings of the combatants, in such 
 proportion did superstition, and that mainly of foreign 
 origin, invade the state ; so that either the people them- 
 selves, or their divinities, seemed to have been suddenly 
 transformed. Nor was it in secret only, and within the 
 walls of private dwelling-houses, that Roman rites were 
 abolislied. In public, in the forum and the Capitol, were 
 seen crowds of women who neither made offerings nor 
 prayed to the gods after their country's custom. Sacrificing 
 priests and seers had gained dominion over the minds of 
 men, and the number of the deluded was augmented by the 
 rural population, who had crowded into the capital from 
 their fields, which continued warfare had left uncultivated 
 or in possession of the enemy."* Thus deeply had the East 
 invaded the ancient faith three centuries before the time 
 when Juvenal uttered his bitter complaint : " Long ago 
 has the Syrian Orontes poured its waters into the Roman 
 Tiber." And foreign philosophy was at hand to do for 
 more cultivated minds what foreign superstition did for 
 * Livy, XXV. 1. See also xxxix. 10. 
 
76 THE FALL OF EOME. 
 
 the vulgar. The time and manner of the great advent of 
 Epicureanism are distinctly marked by Cicero and Livy.* 
 The new doctrine, he tells us, came in like a flood in the train 
 of a Greek, and presently contaminated all the old Roman 
 habits of thinking and ways of life. The result I will give 
 you in the words of a great man : — " The Roman patriciate, 
 trained in the conquest and government of the civilized 
 world, in spite of the tyrannical vices which sprung from 
 that training, were raised by the greatness of their objects 
 to an elevation of genius and character unmatched by any 
 other aristocracy, at the moment when, after preserving 
 their power by a long course of wise compromise with the 
 people, they were betrayed by the army and the populace 
 into the hands of a single tyrant of their own order — the 
 mosl accomplished of usurpers, and, if humanity and justice 
 could for a moment be silenced, one of the most illustrious 
 of men. There is no scene in history so memorable as that 
 in which Caesar mastered a nobility of which Lucullus 
 and Hortensius, Sulpicius and Catullus, Pompey and Cicero, 
 Brutus and Cato, were members." t Ausjustus, though 
 himself a libertine, made serious efforts to arrest the 
 evil tendencies towards atheism and immorality which had 
 been gathering strength ever since the civil war. But the 
 habit had become inveterate. Indeed, the very success 
 of the policy of assimilation, in accordance with which 
 Rome recognized the divinities of the vanquished, and 
 was in most cases ready to welcome them to her temples, 
 necessarily led to an utter confusion of religious systems, 
 and a contempt for religious creeds. Where Rome found 
 an uncompromising belief, she crushed it, as she crushed 
 Druidism in Gaul, and Judaism in the East. Christianity 
 she could neither trample out nor conciliate, though we 
 are told that she offered a place in her. Pantheon to the 
 
 * Livy, X. 10. 
 
 + Sir J. Macintosh, Introduction to Ethical Philosophy. 
 
ATHEISM AND SUPERSTITION. 77 
 
 Christians God. And in this "lowest deep" of infidelity 
 was found " a lower deep '* of sensualism and crime, un- 
 known to human nature, except as it existed in the 
 courtiers and contemporaries of the Caesarean princes. 
 What wonder, then, that Gibbon should be enabled to 
 say : " The philosopher" — that is, the man who thought 
 and reasoned — " believed every religion false;" for religion 
 was, in the words of Champagny, 'corrupted by base 
 admixtures, breached by the assaults of reason, without 
 dignity, authority, or consistency.' " But Gibbon also 
 says : " The people believed all religions to be equally 
 true." And to a certain extent he is right. He is right, 
 if he meant that in the common mind the religious 
 instinct is indestructible, and comes out alike under 
 every possible phase of social being. The consciousness 
 of a nature which sins, in combination with the conscious- 
 ness of a superior power in the universe, to whom sin is 
 hateful, inspires men with a vague terror, and a vague hope 
 to propitiate the anger which they dread, and to work out 
 for themselves deliverance from the penalties which they 
 feel to be impending over their heads. The operation of 
 this instinct in a corrupt age is superstition ; and the 
 superstition becomes more gross, sanguinary, and abomin- 
 able, in proportion to the ignorance and depravity of the 
 people among whom it reigns. And so it comes to pass 
 that an age intellectually debased and sensualized, is one 
 which greedily grasps at the counterfeits and cheats with 
 which false religions are ever ready to beguile the fears 
 of men. Such was the age of the Caesars. It was em- 
 phatically an age of superstition, — a time of dreams, 
 divinations, omens, talismans, prodigies, astrology, necro- 
 mancy, and witchcraft. Rome is graphically described by 
 a contemporary as an " epitome of all superstitions." The 
 streets and public places teemed with the votaries, minis- 
 ters, and ensigns of foreign gods; dark-skinned daughters 
 
78 THE FALL OF EOME. 
 
 of Isis, with drum and timbrel and wanton mien ; devotees 
 of the Persian Mithras, imported by the Pompeians from 
 Cilicia ; emasculated Asiatics ; priests of Berecynthian 
 Cybele, with their wild dances and discordant cries ; wor- 
 shipers of " the great goddess Diana, " the many-breasted 
 Ephesian Artemis, type of material Nature, so different 
 from the chaste huntress goddess of Greece, or the rustic 
 Italian spouse of Djanus ; here and there some barbarian 
 captive or hostage fresh from the gloomy rites of Teuton 
 forests or Scandinavian isles ; Syrians, Jews, Chaldean 
 astrologers, and Thessalian sorcerers. The leading writers 
 of even the Augustan age abound with reference to the 
 rites and practices of magic, and their tone in respect of 
 them is more credulous than sceptical. It would be a 
 waste of time to enumerate instances from the later litera- 
 ture of the Empire. But even the bold Dictator, unbe- 
 liever and libertine as he was, recounts, with the utmost 
 apparent confidence, the prodigies which announced the 
 victory of Pharsalia, and never mounted a vehicle without 
 reciting a magic form of words to preserve him from 
 accident. The biogi-apher of Augustus devotes several 
 consecutive chapters to an account of his various super- 
 stitions ; from which we learn that he was horribly alarmed 
 at thunder and unlucky days, and attributed a revolt in 
 the provinces to the portentous circumstance of his having 
 put on his left shoe before his right.* Tiberius, who was 
 especially an esprit fort, and affected a contempt for the 
 gods, like Louis the Eleventh of France, whom in some 
 respects he greatly resembled, alternately consulted the 
 astrologers, and persecuted them for their predictions. We 
 are also told that he wore a laurel garland on his brows to 
 protect himself from the effects of lightning ; and the 
 picture drawn by Juvenal and Tacitus of the hoary tyrant 
 seated on his island rock, and surrounded by the ministers 
 * Suetonius, Vit. Aug. 
 
ATHEISM AND SUPERSTITION. 79 
 
 of his lust, cruelty, and superstition, is as revolting a por- 
 traiture as all history affords. But these things were not 
 confined to weak men, or wicked men haunted by the 
 terrors of accusing conscience. Men of the highest emi- 
 nence in letters, unstained by the contamination of their 
 age, succumbed to similar delusions. Pliny, the naturalist, 
 whose studies ought to have emancipated him from some 
 vulgar prejudices at any rate, was among the most credu- 
 lous and superstitious of human beings. His pages are 
 full of grotesque marvels, and old wives' tales about divining- 
 stones, individuals who have changed their sex, the cure of 
 serpent-bites by the saliva of a fasting man, and other cures 
 by incantations and magic words. He is great on the sub- 
 ject of teeth, informing us, with perfect faith, that an infant 
 born with teeth is sure to attain distinction ; that an addi- 
 tional tooth assures the possession of longevity j that a lady 
 gifted with two eye-teeth is born to fortune ; with many 
 other equally veracious and important facts, which the 
 curious may discover in his great work on Natural History. 
 The sombre genius of Lucan, imbued with a melancholy fatal- 
 ism, rebelled against God and Providence, but succumbed to 
 a belief in Thessalian sorceresses, who could draw the labour- 
 ing moon from her course and convulse the elements. Nor 
 was Tacitus himself, despite his stern nature and philosophic 
 creed, proof against the weaknesses of his generation. He 
 evidently regarded with contempt the theory of a divine 
 government of the universe, but seems inclined to attach 
 importance to presages and dreams. 
 
 When such was the effect of superstition on superior 
 minds, it is easy to conjecture the intellectual condition of 
 the vulgar. With the latter, it produced the fruits which 
 superstition always produces, in all ages and among all 
 people — debasement of intellect and licentiousness of life. 
 With the former, it commonly resulted in fatalism, and the 
 logical conclusion of fatalism — suicide. Suicide under the 
 
80 THE FALL OF ROME. 
 
 imperial dynasty was too common, and too much in accord- 
 ance with the spirit of the age, to excite either censure or 
 surprise. And it is a melancholy reflection, that, practically 
 speaking, in suicide culminated all that religion and philo- 
 sophy had for so many centuries been teaching the ancient 
 world. It has been well called " le dernier mot d'anti- 
 quite ;" and in that last despairing utterance the moralist 
 may read the impotence of human wisdom, the decadence of 
 heathenism, and the fall of Rome.* 
 
 So far with respect to the first point — the mingled 
 atheism and superstition of the Csesarean age. On the 
 secoud and kindred topic of its social demoralization, those 
 who have any acquaintance with the subject well know that 
 it is impossible for me to enlarge. And, indeed, it would be a 
 painful task to extract from records and contemporary writers 
 a truthful picture of its social life. That picture may be 
 found in the pages of Juvenal, Suetonius, Tacitus, Seneca, 
 and other less-known authors. But those whose duty has 
 led them to the examination, will be most reluctant to 
 unveil the lineaments of the portrait to the common eye. 
 Thus much, however, it is perhaps right to say : The virtues 
 of domestic life are the true safeguards of society, "the 
 cheap defence of nations," in a sense more real than that in 
 which our great statesman employed the words. These had 
 been poisoned at their source. The Roman mother — 
 
 " Clarum et venerabile noraen, 
 Gentibus, et nostrse quod multum profuit urbi " — 
 
 had been the main agent in forming that simple, stern, unbend- 
 ing Roman character, which awed the world by its integrity, 
 and subdued it by its force. " Corruptio optimi est pessima," 
 says a clear-sighted philosopher ; and the condition of female 
 morals and manners at the court of the Roman emperors, 
 and in the social circles of the capital, offers, I will be bold 
 
 * See especially Seneca de Provid. § 6, Epp. 70, 77, 78. 
 
EDUCATION. 81 
 
 to say, tlie most incredible instance of debasement which 
 the history of civilized nations records. God forbid that we 
 should sin against the common charities of humanity, by 
 forming our judgment of the state of society, among any 
 people, ti'om the bitter criminations of a satirist ; but the 
 iact that the sixth satire of Juvenal should have been 
 possible, even in conception j that it should have had such 
 a basis of truth as to account for its being ^At•itten or read ; 
 that it should have contained enough life and reality to 
 prevent its being condemned to instant oblivion, as the 
 dream of a diseased imagination, is enough to brand the 
 generation ot women whom it describes with eternal infamy. 
 And, unhappily, it does not stand alone. There are patent 
 facts in the history, the legislation, the literature ot the 
 time, which forbid us to discredit its general assertions. 
 Adultery, divorce, poisoning, infanticide, gluttony, de- 
 bauchery of the most extravagant kind, shameless aban- 
 donment of the dignity and functions of their sex ; — as, 
 for instance, appearance in gladiatorial costume in the 
 arena, before the dregs of the Roman populace; — utter 
 carelessness as to the training of their offspring, physical, 
 intellectual, and moral ; — these are the crimes of which 
 history accuses the daughters of Lucretia, Cloelia, and Cor- 
 nelia ; and, unfortunately, history is too well able to support 
 the charge. Look, for a moment, at some of the great social 
 questions with which our own age is most busily employed, 
 not for the sake of unfruitful speculation, but because long 
 experience has shown that upon their satisfactory settlement 
 the welfare of a country mainly depends. What can we 
 say, for instance, of the state of education in the Empire ? 
 On this subject we naturally have recourse to the authority 
 of Quintilian. Quintilian was something of a pedant, and 
 a good deal of a rhetorician. We shall, therefore, have 
 some allowance to make for prejudice, and some for exag- 
 geration. But in the main he was an honest man, and an 
 
 G 
 
82 THE FALL OF ROME. 
 
 experinced teacher. What is his testimony ? " Pray 
 heaven," he says, " we ruin not the morals of our own 
 children ourselves. Their earliest infancy we corrupt with 
 luxury. That indulgent style of education which we call 
 ' spoiling * {quam indulyentiam vocamus) destroys the ener- 
 gies both of body and soul. What will be the appetites of 
 the youth whose infancy is reared on purple ? Before the 
 child can talk,* he understands all about the merits of the 
 cook ; he calls for delicacies. We educate their palates 
 before we teach them how to speak. They grow up upon 
 luxurious couches : soon as they can walk they are supi)orted 
 on either side by the hands of their attendants. We are 
 delighted if they are impudent and immodest in their 
 pi*attle. Language which is inadmissible in the lowest 
 ribaldry of Egypt, we receive with laughter and caresses. 
 And no wonder : we have taught them ; they have heard 
 it from us. They are permitted to see our mistresses, our 
 courtesans. At every dinner-party they listen to licentious 
 songs ; they see sights which it is a shame even to mention. 
 Hence is engendered custom, — a custom which becomes 
 second nature. And the worst of it is, that the unfor- 
 tunates learn these vices before they know them to be 
 vices."* So far Quintilian ; but we may produce another 
 witness of graver authority. It is thus that the philo- 
 sophic Tacitus — for, despite of adverse criticism, we be- 
 lieve the Dialogue "de Oratoribus" to be his — describes 
 the education of his contemporaries : — " What is our 
 present practice % The infant is committed to some 
 wretched creature in the shape of a Greek chambermaid, 
 who is assisted in her task by a slave or two, generally the 
 very worst in the whole household, and unfit for the dis- 
 charge of any office of trust. From the fables, and worse 
 than idle tales of these people, the tender and untaught 
 mind of the child receives its earliest colouring. There is not 
 * Quintilian, de Instit. Orator. I. ii. 6—8. 
 
EDUCATION. 88 
 
 a single person in the whole household who troubles himself 
 in the slightest degree about what he says or does before his 
 youthful master. Nay, the very parents themselves, so far 
 from habituating their young children to modesty and pro- 
 priety, teach them licentiousness and freedom of speech, 
 from which, by slow degrees, there creeps upon them a 
 habit of impudence and want of due respect either for 
 themselves or for others. In these days the patronage of 
 actors, the passion for horses and gladiators, that special 
 and peculiar vice of our age and city, seems, if I may say 
 so, impressed upon infants in the very womb of their 
 mothers ; and when once the mind has been beset and 
 taken possession of by things like these, what room is left 
 for honourable pursuits ; what else is the subject of con- 
 versation in the domestic circle ? If we enter our schools, 
 what else do we hear our boys talking about 1 Nay, this is 
 the most usual and popular topic with which even the 
 teachers amuse their pupils. It is not by strictness of 
 discipline, or by affording practical proof of their ability, 
 that these people get together their classes : it is done by 
 canvassing about from house to house, by flattery and 
 humbug [amhitione salutantium et illecebris adulationis). 
 To say nothing of elementary instruction, upon which hardly 
 any pains are bestowed, no suflficient amoupt of labour is 
 spent in forming an acquaintance with good authors, in the 
 careful study of history, in acquiring an adequate knowledge 
 of men, or times, or things. The whole object of education 
 is to make what they call rhetoricians."* It is needless to 
 mar the effect of this admirable sketch by superfluous com- 
 mentary. It is, however, perhaps not altogether needless 
 to place it before those who are interested in the education 
 of the 19th century, and who have some acquaintance with 
 the phenomena which it presents. 
 
 But look again at the grave question of divorce — a ques- 
 * Auctor Dialog! de Oratoribus, c. 29. 
 G 2 
 
H THE FALL OF ROME. 
 
 tion concerning which it is not too much to say, that it 
 forms an excellent test of the inclination of a people to 
 carry the principles of morality into the practice of legisla- 
 tion. In the earlier and better days of the Republic, divorce 
 was almost unknown ; before its close, it was of daily occur- 
 rence. The servile poets of the Augustan age, taking their 
 cue from the imperial policy of reformation, were loud in 
 their condemnation of an evil which it does not appear that 
 they were personally very anxious to amend. But their 
 language proves the prevalence of the facts which they 
 decry. Instances, indeed, are innumerable. The great 
 Cato considered it a commendable proceeding to transfer 
 his wife Marcia to his friend Hortensius ; and when Hor- 
 tensius died, leaving the lady a very handsome jointure, 
 Oato was delighted to take her back, — a transaction which 
 the epic poet Lucan extols, from beginning to end, in 
 the most magniloquent terms. Maecenas, the minister 
 of Augustus, despite of his master's zeal for the refor- 
 mation of senatorial morals, repudiated and re-married 
 his wife a dozen times. Nay, even Augustus himself dis- 
 solved, without scruple, his own marriage, and the marriages 
 of other members of his family, simply from motives of 
 expediency. "It is impossible to say," writes his biogra- 
 pher Suetonius, " whether the marriages of Caligula 
 were more disgracefully contracted, continued, or broken 
 oE" These examples, as might have been anticipated, 
 were freely imitated by the aristocracy. " No gazette 
 appears," says Seneca, " without the announcement of a 
 divorce ; " that is to say, one at least was published every 
 day. " The women marry," he complains, " simply for the 
 sake of being repudiated." Martial's Telesina was just 
 about to be married to her tenth husband. Well may the 
 poet exclaim : " She who marries so often does not marry, 
 but becomes adulteress by law." I will not dwell upon 
 what must be familiar to every scholar. Painful and de- 
 
DIVORCE. CHARACTERS OF THE TIME. 85 
 
 testable as all this is, there is worse behind. Divorce is, at 
 any rate, a recognition in some sort of the existence and 
 claims of a moral law. The wild debauchery of a Messalina, 
 imitated by too many a Roman matron ; the license of men 
 like the Caesarean emperors, with power as unlimited as 
 their passions ; the orgies enacted upon the Palatine Hill ; 
 the very traditions, ceremonies, and practices of religion, as 
 they affected the female sex ; the abominations of foreign 
 mysteries and worships ; these are things which it is im- 
 possible to describe ; but they must be taken into account 
 by any one who professes to form a just judgment upon 
 society under the Empire. It was of the men of this time 
 and place that an inspired apostle drew that memorable 
 and terrible picture which, for the honour of our common 
 humanity, were it lawful, we would fain forget. But there 
 remains an abiding impression of a state of things which 
 no patriotism of good men, no policy of wise men, could 
 remedy or remove. The vaunted perfection of external 
 organization could no more restore life to such a people, 
 than any machinery, however ingenious, could restore motion 
 to a corpse. " The dissolution of domestic manners," as 
 Mr. Maurice most admirably says, "was the curse of all 
 curses, which the utmost official diligence, had it descended 
 from the highest ruler to the governor of every province, 
 and to the centurion of every cohort, could not have re- 
 moved." * I shall not enlarge upon the corruption of imperial 
 society : yet so many reflections crowd upon the mind, as 
 it depicts to itself a spectacle so strange, that we cannot 
 altogether dismiss them from the thoughts. What varied 
 characters fill up the social stage, of which scarce any modern 
 counterparts remain ! At the summit of the whole social 
 fabric, the Emperor, raised to a position and gifted with an 
 authority unknown to any human being before or since, 
 wielding almost the power of a God, and for the most part 
 * Lecture iii. p. 389. 
 
«r THE FALL OF EOME. 
 
 demeaning himself as a Demon. Think of the nature of 
 that power, — absolute, irresponsible, unrestrained by moral 
 influences, and so capriciously exercised, that the life and 
 property of no man, the virtue and fair fame of no woman, 
 were safe from it for an hour. Then the servile Senator, 
 trembling at the frown of this earthly and earthy divinity, 
 in hourly dread of confiscation or the executioner, and either 
 drowning the few uncertain hours of life which the Informer 
 left him in the deepest sensuality, or, as a contemporary has 
 bitterly said, " flying to suicide for fear of death ; " the 
 Informer incessantly plying his business of blood, gorged 
 with the plunder of noble houses, and stealthily selecting 
 his next victim with judicious reference to the secret wishes 
 of his master, — a more terrible image of evil power than 
 the Emperor himself; the Poisoner making profitable traflSc 
 of the potent drug by which an enemy, or more frequently 
 a husband or parent, might be converted into a blackened 
 corpse, and carried out to burial in a few short hours, — a 
 Locusta anticipating by centuries the diabolical skill of a 
 Borgia or Brinvilliers ; the Pantomimists, before whose 
 artistic perfections popularity, wealth, extravagance, and 
 vice, our modern artistes "must pale" their, not very "in- 
 effectual fires," dowered with the riches of a province, and 
 bestowing provinces and offices of state themselves, and at 
 whose morning levee emperors, senators, noble ladies, grave 
 lawyers, and wealthy citizens, contended for the honour of a 
 smile. The picture has also its ridiculous figures, if anything 
 c^n be ridiculous which bears its part in so melancholy a 
 drama : the bustling Client, scrambling and fighting with 
 his fellows for a good place in his patron's audience-chamber, 
 ready to go anywhere, do anything, or submit to anything, 
 at his bidding, and only solicitous -about acquiring for him- 
 self an ample share in the dole of food, which, by a strange 
 relic of ancient custom, the great man still supplied to the 
 struggling multitude who now abused the character of the 
 
GLADIATORIAL SHOWS. 8T 
 
 once sacred relation of the " Clientela ;" the Fortune-hunter, 
 practising a profession which nothing but the entire disrup- 
 tion of family ties and affections could have rendered possible, 
 haunting the houses of all the heirless wealthy, but espe- 
 cially those of well-dowered widows ; nay, if we raay credit 
 Juvenal, even those establishments where the presence of 
 " a prattling nest " of expectant inheritors might have in- 
 spired him with despair, — conciliating favour, and purchas- 
 ing the chance of mention in a will by a thousand degrading 
 offices and ridiculous petUs soins ; the Parasite intriguing, 
 and sometimes even battling, for a place at the well-loaded 
 tables of those who could afford to dine, — an importation from 
 Greece, but one which had lost the wit and gi-acefulness of 
 Greece, and substituted for it notliing but an impudent and 
 obscene buffoonery. These, and many other types of indi- 
 viduality, have passed away with the mutation of manners 
 and the course of time ; but they must not pass away from 
 our recollection, if we would estimate aright the state of 
 Roman society under Csesarean government. 
 
 Two figures even yet remain behind — two figures of 
 terrible significance to the future destinies of the Em- 
 jnre, — the Gladiator and the Slave. The gladiatorial 
 combats were, above all things else, the distinctive cha- 
 racteristics of Rome. Rome, in her fallen days, without 
 virtue, without faith, without trust in her gods or in 
 herself, loved, believed in, deified one idol still, — Homi- 
 cide. The butcheries of the amphitheatre exerted a 
 charm upon the minds of men, for which literature, art, 
 philosophy, religion, and the simple enjoyments of domestic 
 life were flung aside. Existence became a frightful phantas- 
 magoria — an alternation of debauch and blood. The practice 
 itself can be traced back to one of the darkest superstitions 
 of the human mind. It originated in the barbarous instinct 
 which leads the savage to sacrifice his victim upon the tomb 
 of the dead as a satisfaction, and^ perhaps, as an attendant, 
 
88 THE FALL OF KOME. 
 
 upon the departed spirit. Tlie example, from whatsoever 
 source derived, was first set to the Eoman people by 
 Marcus and Decimus Brutus, who matched together gladia- 
 tors in the Forum Boarium, for the purpose of casting 
 unprecedented eclat upon the obsequies of their father, 
 B.C. 264. The seed fell upon fruitful ground, for it soon 
 grew and ripened into a harvest more destructive than the 
 dragon's teeth of Grecian fable. The wealth and ingenuity 
 of the Boman aristocracy were taxed to the uttermost to 
 content the populace and provide food for the indiscriminate 
 slaughter of the circus, where brute fought with brute, and 
 man with man, or where the skill and weapons of the latter 
 were matched against the strength and ferocity of the first. 
 In one day, Pompey poured six hundred lions into the arena. 
 Augustus delighted the multitude with the sight of four 
 hundred and twenty panthers. Twenty elephants, Pliny 
 tells us, contended against a band of six hundred Getulian 
 captives. The games given by Trajan lasted for more than 
 one hundred and twenty days. Ten thousand gladiators 
 descended to combat, and more than ten thousand beasts 
 were slain. Titus, that " delight of the human race," had 
 upwards of five thousand animals slaughtered in a single 
 day. Every corner of the earth was ransacked for some 
 strange creature whose appearance was hailed with frantic 
 applause by the spectators. We hear of camelopards, 
 white elephants, and the rhinoceros. Scaurus produced upon 
 the stage an hippopotamus and five crocodiles. Game of 
 the nobler sorts became scarce. The Roman populace was 
 as indignant with those who in any way damaged its sup- 
 plies, as the country sportsman is with a poacher or with 
 the unlucky culprit who has made away with a fox. In the 
 time of Theodosius it was forbidden by law to destroy a 
 Getulian lion, even in self-defence. But the death-agonies 
 of the wild animals of the desert were too tame a spectacle 
 to satisfy the Boman thirst for blood. It was when man 
 
THE AMPHITHEATEE. 89 
 
 strove with man, and when all that human strength and skill, 
 increased by elaborate training, and taxed to the ntter- 
 most, could do, was put forth before their unrelenting eyes, 
 that the transport of their sanguinary enthusiasm was at 
 its height. It is impossible to describe the aspect of the 
 amphitheatre at such a time. The audience became frantic 
 with excitement ; they rose from their seats ; they yelled ; 
 they shouted their applause, as one blow more ghastly than 
 another was dealt by lance, or sword, or dagger, and the life- 
 blood spouted forth. " Hoc liahet " — " he lias it^"" " lie has 
 it" — was the cry which burst from ten thousand throats, 
 and was re-echoed, not only by a debased and brutalized 
 populace, but by the lips of royalty, by purple-clad senators 
 and knights, by noble matrons, and even by those conse- 
 crated maids whose presence elsewhere saved the criminal 
 from his fate, but whose function here it was to consign the 
 suppliant to his doom, by reversing the thumb, upon his 
 appeal for mercy. His blood was soon licked up by the 
 thirsty sand, or concealed beneath the sawdust sprinkled 
 over it by the ready attendant ; his body dragged hastily 
 from the stage by an iron hook, and flung into a gory pit j 
 his existence forgotten, and his place supplied by another 
 and yet another victim, as the untiring work of death went 
 on. And we must remember that these things were not 
 done casually, or under the influence of some strange fit 
 of popular frenzy. They were done purposely, systematically, 
 and calmly : they formed the staple amusement, I had 
 almost said the normal employment of a whole people, 
 whose one audible cry was for "panem et Circenses" — 
 "bread and blood." Neither were they fostered by the 
 brutalized habits and associations which surround the cock- 
 pit or the prize-ring. When men were "butchered to 
 make a Roman holiday," it was among all the delicate ap- 
 pliances of the most refined sensualism. An awning, 
 gorgeous with purple and gold, excluded the rays of the 
 
00 THE FALL OF ROME. 
 
 midday sun ; sweet strains of music floated in the air, 
 drowning the cries of death ; the odour of Syrian perfumes 
 overpowered the scent of blood ; the eye was feasted by the most 
 brilliant scenic decoi-ation,and amused by elaborate machinery ; 
 and, as a crowning degradation to the whole, the Paphian 
 chamber of the courtesan arose beside the bloody den into 
 which were flung the mangled bodies of men and brutes. 
 Such things seem impossible to those who live beneath a 
 civilization which Christianity has influenced, however im- 
 perfectly, by its presence. And, indeed, it needs much, — 
 the concurrent testimony of poet, historian, and philoso- 
 pher ; the ruins of a hundred amphitheatres before our 
 eyes ; the frescoes of the Museo Borbonico ; the very pro- 
 grammes of the performance, which something higher than 
 accident has preserved j the incidental witness of an inspired 
 apostle, — it needs all this to convince us of their truth. 
 But they axe true, undisputed facts of history, and facts 
 which carry with them no obscure intimation of the reasons 
 which worked the fall of the imperial city. They prove 
 that she deserved to fall, and by the hands of those in whose 
 persons she had outraged humanity. It was not a poet 
 remarkable for overstraining the religious sentiment of 
 divine retribution, who wrote — 
 
 " Shall he expire, 
 And unavenged ? Arise, ye Goths ! and glut your ire." 
 
 The gladiator, whether directly a captive or a refractory 
 slave, was generally the child of those races who wreaked, 
 in after-times, a bloody vengeance upon the city of blood. 
 And if her own degenerate sons, freedman, knight, or 
 senator, nay, even her degraded daughters, descended into 
 the arena and combated by his side, this could only bespeak 
 her more entire debasement and unfitness to direct the 
 destinies of the world. Gibbon, meditating by moonlight 
 on his immortal work amid the ruins of the Coliseum, has 
 
THE SLAVE. 91 
 
 ever affected the student's imagination with a sentiment 
 akin to the sublime. Would it do so in a less degree, had 
 that great man more clearly seen in the colossal ruin, vast 
 as the memory, and sombre as the destiny of the eternal 
 city, something more significant than the shadowy symbol 
 of her fall 1 Is it not the enduring witness of her shame ; 
 the sepulchral-stone which marks her grave, inscribed with 
 the record of her darkest crimes 1 
 
 But the Gladiator had a kinsman in misery, oftentimes 
 more wretched than himself, a twin supporter of the 
 blazoned honours of the imperial shield — the Slave. His 
 feet in fetters ; his arms in chains ; his countenance 
 branded with a hot iron, the slave toiled by day to cul- 
 tivate those historic fields which once employed the sinews 
 of the sturdy Sabine and Samnite rustics, who were in 
 former times the pride of the republican legions, and 
 more than once the saviours of the state ; and at night, the 
 Ergastulum awaited his weary limbs, with its iron manacles, 
 its scourges, and subterranean cells. 
 
 We speak of the perils of modern proletarianism, and we 
 have cause ; but what modern proletariat ever merited the 
 title of the " dangerous classes " as truly as these men of 
 hopeless life and brutalized nature 1 Strange, however, to 
 say, they formed the staple of the Italian population. They 
 had altogether superseded the hardy peasantry who, in 
 other days, tended their little farms from the crests of the 
 Apennines to either sea ; upon them the capital depended 
 for such sustenance as it did not derive from Sicily or 
 Africa; by their hands the rich man's villa was reared 
 with the dimensions and splendour of a palace ; by them 
 his thousand acres of pleasure-ground, his vast groves of 
 myrtle, his fields of violets, and spacious fishponds, were 
 formed and kept in order; by them the countless appliances 
 of his luxury produced. Between him and themselves 
 stood no intermediate class — nothing but a nicely-graduated 
 
n THE FALL OF ROME. 
 
 hierarchy of servitude ; to him they were less than the 
 brute creatures on his estate — more useful, but quite as 
 Doxious as the hungry wolves who prowled about its deso- 
 lated confines. I do not, of course, mean that all slaves 
 were of the agricultural class, or all in the same degraded 
 position. There was, as I have said, a regular gradation in 
 their social standing, from the beautiful Greek or Asiatic 
 youth, the spoilt minion of his master, to the " servant of 
 servants," who discharged the most menial duties of the 
 household or the farm. The secretary or amanuensis was 
 a slave ; the son's tutor and attendants were slaves ; the 
 artistes, who in various ways ministered to the great man's 
 enjoyment, were all slaves. Physicians, actors, musical 
 performers, the buffoon and the improvisator, were of the 
 same order. So were the skilled artisans of every kind. 
 The slave engrossed the functions of labour and intelligence ; 
 what remained for the freedman and the citizen? What 
 indeed ! The answer is to be found in the nature of their 
 daily life, of which the most prominent feature has been 
 sketched above. We might proceed to fill up the details, 
 and conduct your imaginations through one unvarying round 
 of frivolity and debauch ; but I have surely said enough. 
 We know something of the character of this society, and, 
 being what it was, how could it last 1 How could it survive 
 the day of trial, when it had spent the days of its security 
 in rearing up within itself a fatal antagonism to its own 
 existence ? Perhaps a complete answer to these questions 
 could only be obtained by fully investigating the subject of 
 Roman slavery ; and this, of course, cannot be done here. 
 Yet it is impossible to discern aright the birth of modern 
 society in modem history, without correct notions upon 
 this matter ; for, assuredly, out of the relations which had 
 gradually grown up between the free and the slave popula- 
 tion arose the weakness of the Empire ; and in the weak- 
 ness of the Empire lay the secret of the strength of her 
 
NUMBER OF SLAVES. OS 
 
 barbarian foes, who swept down upon her prostrate form, 
 like vultures from every wind of heaven upon their prey. 
 Two facts must, at any rate, ever be borne in mind. First, 
 the immense and ever-increasing number of the slave 
 class ; secondly, the impolitic and irrational inhumanity of 
 the treatment which they received. The inferences to be 
 drawn from these facts will be patent enough. Now, as 
 regards the first, when we think of the unlimited scale upon 
 which the Romans were perpetually prosecuting war, and 
 remember the countless captives whose destiny every battle 
 must have placed in their hands, we can have no difficulty 
 in appreciating the exhaustless fertility of the source from 
 which their slaves were principally derived. The slave- 
 dealer waited on the eagles as regularly as the vulture or 
 the wolf, and obtained his victims at nearly as cheap a rate. 
 Their number, however, was swelled from other sources, as 
 birth, judicial sentence, regular trading and kidnapping. 
 We hear of a permanent slave-trade, with its constant sup- 
 plies and fixed entrepots, such as Delos, where ten thousand 
 were known to have been sold in a single day. Many came 
 from the European shores of the Euxine, but still greater 
 numbers from Asia Minor and Africa. Some unfortunate 
 nationalites, Thracians, Lydians, Phrygians, Cappadocians, 
 and Cretans, appear to have passed at a very early period into 
 a synonyme for slave. In addition to the regular slaves, 
 the Romans cultivated their land by coloni partia/n% as 
 they were called, to whom was apportioned a slight share 
 of the harvest, and who appear to have more nearly 
 approached the condition of the mediaeval serf But, prac- 
 tically speaking, there was but little difference between the 
 two classes. " In order to oblige the last," says Sismcmdi, 
 *' to content themselves with the least possible share, 
 they were attached to the land, and nearly as much op- 
 pressed as the slaves themselves."* Of the whole number 
 ♦ Sismondi, Hist. ItaL Rep. ch. 1. 
 
M THE FALL OF ROME. 
 
 existing at any one time, either under the Republic or the 
 Empire, we can only form a vague guess. But that it must 
 have been enormous, may be conjectured from several well- 
 known circumstances. In the servile wars of Sicily, so 
 obstinately contested, a million are computed to have 
 perished. With Spartacus, who has been emphatically 
 called "the Messiah of the slave," no less than sixty 
 thousand fell afber the sanguinary strife in which he was 
 defeated by Crassus. Many incidental notices by the writers 
 of the Augustan age and of the Empire may assist our calcu- 
 lation. Horace regarded two hundred as a suitable estab- 
 lishment for what we should call a gentleman. Nero's 
 prefect, Pedanius Secundus, maintained four hundred in his 
 house; Scaurua is said to have had four thousand, and 
 C. C. Claudius Isodorus, a freedman in the time of Augustus, 
 left behind him upwards of four thousand one hundred. 
 The assertion of Athenseus, that many Roman families 
 owned between ten and twenty thousand slaves, is doubtless 
 an exaggeration ; but such a one as undoubtedly proves the 
 magnitude of the thing exaggerated. The immense increase 
 in the census of Roman citizens, which had risen from 
 450,000 under Julius Caesar to 6,944,000 under Claudius, 
 was mainly attributable to the enfranchisement of the slave 
 class, rendered necessary by considerations of state policy. 
 A complaint was made in the Senate that, were the free 
 men distinguished from the slaves by an external badge, 
 " the free-born would be found in a lamentable minority." 
 " Rome," sai d Tacitu s,* " trembled in the presence of a slave 
 population, which multiplied day by day, while the free 
 population diminished." A vague and jealous terror of a 
 servile insurrection haunted the minds of the best-informed 
 men in Rome, as we may imagine it to haunt the minds 
 of the slave-holding seignors of the southern states of the 
 American Union. If the emperor feared a man, he in- 
 * Tacitus, Ann. xiii. 27. , 
 
RELATIONS OF SLAVE AND MASTER. 95 
 
 stantly suspected him of a design to raise the standard of 
 revolt by holding forth the promise of enfranchisement. In 
 the time of Tiberius, an experiment of the kind was made, 
 which was mainly supported by the shepherds of the 
 Apennines. The terror of the capital was boundless. The 
 attempt was, by great good fortune, put down; but its 
 memory remained as a perpetual menace to society. When 
 it was proposed in the Senate that the slaves should resume 
 their distinctive costume, the proposition was negatived, lest 
 its adoption should reveal to the obnoxious class their num- 
 bers and real power. Tiberius himself "ce grand justicier," 
 that ablest of mere administrators, with statesmanlike 
 perspicacity, placed his finger upon the sores which ex- 
 hausted the body politic, and clearly pointed out the three 
 great evils of the Empire, — the inability of Italy to support 
 itself with food ; the depopulated rural estates ; and the 
 tribes of slaves (servorum nationes) who occupied the land. 
 And yet it was from this very source that the citizens of 
 the imperial city were recruited. The Roman people, deci- 
 mated by the tyranny of their rulers and the debauchery of 
 their own lives, would soon have become extinct, had it not, 
 from time to time, been replenished by a hardier race, whom 
 a purer atmosphere, moral as well as physical, permitted 
 to follow the law of natural increase. How then, we may 
 ask, did the dominant class act with this slumbering volcano 
 beneath their feet ? How did they bear themselves towards 
 that vast multitude in their streets, and within their doors, 
 more numerous, more energetic and intelligent than them- 
 selves, whose very presence was a standing menace to their 
 political and personal existence ? "What was the character 
 of the relation which they deemed it politic to maintain 
 towards men who, without exaggeration, may be said to 
 have held their destiny in their hands ? You will find a 
 sufficient answer to the question in the excellent article 
 upon the Law of Master and Slave written by Mr. G. Long, 
 
96 THE FALL OF EOME. 
 
 for that standard work the "Dictionary of Greek and 
 Roman Antiquities." To that I must refer those who re- 
 quire special information. But one well-known fact will, I 
 think, cast light enough upon the subject to satisfy our 
 present purpose. The law did not look upon the slave 
 even as a personage of subordinate and degraded social posi- 
 tion. It did not recognize his claim to be considered as a 
 moral agent, to be a man at all. When the bystander 
 remonstrated with the lady in Juvenal, who was cruelly 
 torturing her slave for some trifling fault, upon the ground 
 that it was shameful so to treat a human being, — "A human 
 being !" she replies, "call you that creature a human being? 
 He is a slave." The law re-echoed, in grave judicial tones, 
 the bitter words of the passionate woman. He was secun- 
 dum hominum genus, a " second sort of human being ;" he 
 could acquire no rights, social or political, he was incapable 
 of inheriting property, or making a will, or contracting a 
 legal marriage ; his value was estimated like that of a brute 
 beast ; his death or mutilation punished in the same way. In 
 one word, he was not a person, he was a thing. In justice to 
 Roman jurists, it must be admitted that this was no novel 
 view. Such seems to have been the universal sentiment of 
 antiquity. Aristotle, who has never been accused of wanting 
 either good sense or humanity, expressly defines the slave 
 as an opyavov sfixljvxoy, " an instrument," or " piece of fur- 
 niture possessed of life." But whatever may have been the 
 theory of the Greek, he did not carry out the practice with 
 the consistent brutality of the Roman slave-holder. Origi- 
 nally, the latter, as master, held absolute command over 
 the person, and even over the life of his slave ; neither was 
 protected, in the slightest degree, by law ; and no one, I 
 think, can even read over the plays of Plautus without per- 
 ceiving that some protection was sadly wanted. At a later 
 period, some attempt at legal interference was made, just as 
 an attempt was also made to curb immorality and extrava- 
 
CRUELTY TO SLAVES. 97 
 
 gance, and to restrain the license of the gladiatorial shows. 
 But, as has been justly said in the article to which I have 
 referred, " the general treatment of the slave was probably 
 little affected by legislative enactments." He was his mas- 
 ter's property to scourge, to brand, to chain up, to torture, 
 to crucify ; nor was it seldom that his master or his mistress 
 exercised this terrible power. The well-known passages of 
 Juvenal will, of course, be accused of exaggeration ; but 
 they are borne out in the main by all contemporary litera- 
 ture and by facts. There seems little reason to disbelieve 
 the story of Pollio's fishponds, where the lampreys fattened 
 upon the flesh of slaves, a practice of which the humane 
 Augustus expressed a mild disapproval. Another cruelty, 
 of almost equal enormity, was undoubtedly practised upon 
 the younger and more comely victims of the slave-dealer's 
 cupidity, and the salons of Rome were crowded by beings 
 of whom we only think in the seraglios of the East. But, 
 perhaps, the wholesale legal butcheries to which they were 
 subjected indicate, more clearly than anything else, the 
 miserable condition of the class. If a wealthy proprietor 
 died under circumstances which created suspicion of foul 
 ])lay, his whole household, of many hundred slaves, were 
 instantly put to the torture, one and all. Tacitus tells a 
 story, in his graphic way, which brings the aboxgiu able 
 character of the law, and the entire unconsciousness of its 
 administrators that it was abominable, most vividly before 
 our eyes. A man of consular rank had been murdered by 
 a slave. Forthwith every slave in his possession was con- 
 demned to death, and led out to execution. The cruelty 
 and injustice of the sentence were too glaring even for a 
 Boman mob : some opposition was offered to the officers of 
 justice ; the lictors were assaulted in the execution of their 
 duty. The Senate immediately took alarm, and a debate 
 was held upon the subject. A lingering sentiment of 
 hu inanity called forth even there an attempt to mitigate 
 
 H 
 
98 THE FALL OF EOME. 
 
 the severity of the law. It was instantly overruled by the 
 reasonings of a learned jurist, who quoted precedent, and 
 insinuated the peril which would result from measures of 
 mercy. "There must be some injustice done," said he, "in 
 every great example ; but the injustice inflicted upon a few 
 is amply compensated by the benefit to the many." * 
 
 I have dwelt at some length upon the condition of the 
 slave population, because the subject is one of infinite im- 
 portance to our purpose. Michelet has been praised for the 
 "late discovery that slavery caused the fall of the Eoman 
 empire." I know not whether he deserves that praise ; but 
 you cannot, I think, reflect upon the facts whiph I have 
 brought forward, without being disposed to agree in his 
 conclusion. There are, however, two or three consequences 
 directly resulting from the state of things described, which 
 it is necessary to see before we can fully understand what 
 is meant by the assertion. 
 
 We must remember, in the first place, that the mainte- 
 nance of a large retinue of slaves was a costly luxury. The 
 death of the proprietor, or the failure of his fortunes, or, 
 again, their own depreciation in utility or value, threw vast 
 numbers of these men from time to time into the prole- 
 tariat. Destitute and degraded, without a sesterce and 
 without a friend, they swelled the helpless and useless rabble 
 who lived only by the largess of the emperor, and consumed 
 the vitals of the state. Amalgamated in time with the 
 remains of the old plebeian order, and the colluvies of na- 
 tions which crowded to the capital of the world, they formed 
 a vast multitude whom the Empire could neither elevate in 
 character, employ, feed, or get rid of; and they hung like 
 an incubus upon its destinies. t For, among other evils, 
 they produced this — they necessitated a despotism, and a 
 despotism of the most iron kind, as in our own time abso- 
 lutism is the off*spring of the barricades. " The despotic 
 
 * Tacitus, Ann. xiv. 42. f See Livy, xli. 8 ; Petronius. c. 57. 
 
MILITARY COLONIZATION. 99 
 
 government,*' says Count de Champagny, " came to tlie 
 rescue, as the only possible government, on the one hand, 
 to keep in check these masses of slaves and proletarians 
 irritated by suffering, and, on the other, to coerce beneath 
 a sceptre sanguinary and ignominious, the remains of an 
 aristocracy ambitious, but divided, aspiring after power, and 
 ever ready to raise the ensigns of civil war."* 
 
 There was another result, no less grave. A melancholy 
 change had taken place in the condition of Italy since the 
 days when her peasants had been summoned to the head of 
 armies from the plough, and the warlike races who dwelt 
 beneath the shadow of the Apennines lived the free, old, rural 
 life, with their chaste matrons and robust ofispring, which 
 the poets loved, not altogether idly, to depict. Rome had 
 been an exacting mother, — her armies conquered the world ; 
 but in the process her sons had left their bones to bleach in 
 every climate under heaven. The Italian legionary crossed 
 the sea with his eagles, and spent his life beneath their 
 shade : they were his household gods, his home, his civil 
 polity, his all. From the morasses of Germany and the 
 sands of Syria he rarely returned to visit his paternal fields. 
 And thus the peasant race died out. The massacres of Sylla, 
 and the boundless consumption of human life occasioned by 
 the civil wars, finished the depopulation which a short- 
 sighted policy had begun. Augustus, imitating the example 
 of Sylla, made an attempt to colonize Italy with his dis- 
 charged soldier}'-, and occasioned much suffering among the 
 few rustic proprietors who remained. Every educated man 
 in Europe remembers the immortal strains in which 
 Meliboeus laments the presence of the rude centurion in his 
 ancestral farm. But the veterans of Pharsalia and Philippi 
 were as little adapted to form an agricultural population as, 
 in all probability, those of Austerlitz and Waterloo would 
 have been. The experiment, if it was intended for one, 
 * Les Cdsars, vol. ii. p. 209. 
 H 2 
 
V 
 
 100 THE FALL OF EOME. 
 
 entirely failed. The writers of the age are lond in their 
 lamentations on the depopulation of Italy. Large tracts 
 were left altogether without cultivation, a prey to barren- 
 ness and miasma. Even Cicero's letters are filled with com- 
 plaints respecting the solitude of vast districts, the insalu- 
 brity of once healthy localities, the properties of doubtful 
 title altogether abandoned. Strabo informs us that in 
 Samnium, once the most flourishing part of the whole 
 Peninsula, but two towns remained. " The plains once 
 tilled by the sturdy Sabine," says Pliny, " have been de- 
 livered over to the branded faces, the fettered feet, and 
 manacled hands of slaves." The lands, where cultivated at 
 all, had fallen into the hands of great proprietors, who 
 indulged their extravagant taste by covering whole districts 
 with piles of building and wildernesses of pleasure-ground. 
 Outside these fantastic realms roamed the wild shepherd of 
 the Apennines, the hunted runaway, and the outlaw, veri- 
 table progenitors of the brigand of the Abruzzi. Within 
 toiled the slave, under the superintendence of other slaves, 
 accountable in their turn to the villicus, or bailiff, himself 
 also a slave. " The agriculturists, as well what were called 
 freedmen as slaves, were almost all barbarians by birth, 
 without any interest in a social order, which only oppressed 
 them, without courage for its defence, and without any 
 pecuniary resources for themselves."* No free man wielded 
 mattock or spade, or sped the plough. The employment 
 of Cincinnatus, the employment lauded by Cicero as the 
 most gentlemanly, the most honourable, the most worthy 
 of human arts, would have been held to degrade the insolent 
 hands of those who bore the dishonoured name of Roman 
 citizens. What was the result ] There could be but one. 
 
 *' A bold peasantry, their country's pride, 
 When once destroy'd, can never be supplied." 
 
 The quotation is a trite one ; so trite, indeed, that we are in 
 * Sismondi, Hist. Ital. Eep., ch. 1, 
 
DANGER OF SLAVERY. 101 
 
 some danger of forgetting that it is true. But never was 
 its truth more forcibly illustrated than in the decadence of 
 the Roman empire. " It does not appear," says Sismondi, 
 " that there was any prosperous manufactory in Italy. All 
 manual labour, as well in towns as in the country, was exe- 
 cuted by slaves." * For we must remember that what was 
 the case with the agricultural labourer, was also the case with 
 the artisan. All the arts of civilized life which call forth 
 the skill and energy of the modern workman, develop his 
 intelligence, and make him valuable to his country as a 
 citizen and a man, were universally repudiated by the 
 citizens of the Empire, and handed over unconditionally 
 to the slave. The inference, as I told you, is patent 
 enough. Eviscerate a nation of its middle class — the heads 
 that plan, the hardy hands that execute all the material 
 appliances of its civilization ; confine the name and privi- 
 leges of citizen to the idler and the prodigal, too proud to 
 dig, and yet ashamed to beg ; too ignorant for intellectual 
 labour, and too sensual for virtue ; — do this, and, believe 
 me, you need enter upon no elaborate theories and nice 
 investigations to determine the causes of its decline and 
 fall. That I may conclude with more emphasis and au- 
 thority than any views of my own could command, allow 
 me to quote the language of an able modern historian upon 
 this point. I am the more anxious to do so, as it refers 
 especially to the last result of the slave system which I can 
 venture to bring before you. 
 
 " Tyranny, the tyranny of the princes and the tyranny of 
 the magistrates, — different in kind and far more burthen- 
 some, — was not the principal cause of the ruin of the 
 Empire. The real evil which undermined it proceeded 
 neither from the government nor from the administration. 
 Had it been simply of an administrative nature, so many 
 good and great emperors would have found a remedy for it. 
 * Sismondi, Hist. Ital. Rep., ch. 1. 
 
102 THE FALL OF EOME. 
 
 But it was a social evil, and its source was not to be dried 
 up by less than an entire renovation of the social system. 
 Slavery was this evil. The other ills of the Empire — most 
 of them, at least, as the all-devouring taxation and constant 
 demands of military government — were only, as we shall 
 see, a consequence, a direct or indirect effect." He goes on 
 to trace the substitution of slave for free labour throughout 
 the Empire, and the gradual deterioration of the former, 
 as Greeks, Syrians, and Carthaginians were replaced by 
 Thracians, Germans, and Scythians, who could only imitate 
 rudely the works left by their predecessors. " Objects, the 
 fabrication of which required any industry, soon becoming 
 imitations of imitations, grew ruder and ruder ; and as the 
 workmen who could achieve them became fewer and fewer, 
 their price was consequently on the rise. The salaries of 
 those dependent on the state ought to have been raised in 
 the same proportion ; and what marvel if the poor soldier, 
 who had to pay fifty sous of our money for the pound of 
 meat, and twenty-two francs for the commonest shoes manu- 
 factured, was bent on seeking any alleviation of his wretched- 
 ness, and ready to make revolutions in order to attain it. 
 It was worse when Diocletian created another army of civil 
 functionaries. Till his time there existed a military power 
 and a judicial power, which have been too often confounded. 
 He created, or at least completed, the administrative power. 
 This highly necessary institution was, nevertheless, at the 
 beginning an intolerable charge on the already ruined 
 Empire. Ancient society, very different from ours, was not 
 incessantly reproducing riches by industrial means. Always 
 consuming, but, since the destruction of the industrial classes, 
 never producing, the land was consequently required to yield 
 more, while its cultivators daily dwindled in numbers and 
 skill." 
 
 Well, then, may Michelet declare that history presents no 
 more terrible picture than that left us by Lactantius of the 
 
PEOXIMATE CAUSES OF THE FALL. 103 
 
 murderous struggle between the hungry treasury and worn- 
 out people, who could suffer and die, but could not pay ; and 
 well, also, may the Professor of Modern History at Oxford 
 urge, in reply to Mr. Congreve : " Under the able reign of 
 Diocletian the earth swarmed with the consuming hierarchy 
 of extortion, so that it was said that they who received 
 taxes were more in number than those who paid them ; and 
 from the general misery infanticide was common."* To 
 this subject, and to the testimony of Lactantius, we shall be 
 compelled to recur when we come to speak of the condition 
 in which the barbarians found the provinces upon their first 
 contact with them. It is not my intention to pursue into 
 particulars the secondary and proximate causes of the fall of 
 the Empire ; the moral effect of the edict of Caracalla ; 
 the oriental character of Diocletian's administration; his 
 abandonment of Rome ; his partition of the government 
 into separate satrapies, with divided interests; the trans- 
 ference of the capital to Byzantium by Constantine ; the 
 decay of the military spirit ; the diminution and altered 
 organization of the legions; the decadence of the old religion; 
 the enlistment of barbarian recruits ; the defenceless position 
 of Rome, compared with that of Constantinople, behind the 
 Balkan and the Bosphorus; the political sc|iism into an 
 Eastern and Western Empire ; the number and ferocity of 
 the invaders, who came rolling ever onward from the steppes 
 of Central Asia, like the ceaseless swell of the mighty 
 Atlantic upon the seaboard of Europe ; these, and many 
 other things, may have contributed to the great catastrophe; 
 but they can only be deemed developments, or results of the 
 one original cause — the extinction of the national life pro- 
 duced hy the dissolution of domestic manners, and the con- 
 sequent demoralization of society. Rome, as a people, was 
 dead. What boots it to speculate upon the exact accidents 
 which at last detached the sceptre of empire from the 
 * Oxford Essays, 1856, p. 303. 
 
104 THE FALL OF ROME. 
 
 fingers of a corpse ! The signs of her coming fate were 
 inscribed in a language which all might read upon the social 
 aspects of the world. The fingers of a hand came forth and 
 wrote upon the wall : " God hath numbered thy kingdom, 
 and finished it. Thou art weighed in the balances, and 
 found wanting. Thy kingdom is divided, and given to 
 another race." * 
 
 Note. — I have not thought it necessary to give a separate and distinct 
 reply to the theory of Mr. Congreve, that Roman imperialism was the 
 type of all good government, and a desirable precedent for ourselves. 
 Those who feel any penchant for the notion, I should strongly recom- 
 mend to read the answer of Professor G. Smith, in the Oxford Essays 
 for 1856, which is as complete and crushing as that gentleman's per- 
 formances usually are. But in order to convey to the uninitiated some 
 idea of the state of society under Csesarean rule, and which a Csesarean 
 rule, so far as mere government is concerned, if it does not produce, 
 has never shown any tendency to prevent, let us give reins to imagina- 
 tion for a moment, and picture to ourselves a few social and political 
 analogies in our own England of the nineteenth century. 
 
 An entire revolution has taken place in our principles, manners, and 
 form of government. Parliaments, meetings, and all the ordinary ex- 
 pressions of the national will, are no longer in existence. A free press 
 has shared their fate. There is no accredited organ of public opinion ; 
 indeed, there is no public opinion to record. Lords and Commons have 
 been swept away, though a number of the richest old gentlemen in 
 London meet daily at Westminster to receive orders from Buckingham 
 Palace. But at the palace itself has broken out one of those sanguinary 
 conspiracies which have of late become unceasing. The last heir of the 
 house of Brunswick is lying dead with a dagger in his heart, and 
 everything is in frightful confusion. The armed force of the Capital 
 are, of course, " masters of the situation," and the Guards, after a 
 tumultuous meeting at Windsor or Knightsbridge, have sold the throne 
 to Baron Rothschild, for a handsome donation of twenty-five pounds 
 apiece. Lord Clyde, however, we may be sure, is not likely to stand 
 this, and in a few months will be marching upon London at the head 
 of the Indian army. In the mean time the Channel fleet has declared 
 for its own commander, has seized upon Plymouth and Portsmouth, 
 and intends to starve out the metropolis by stopping the imports of 
 "bread-stuffs" at the mouth of the Thames. And this has become 
 quite possible ; for half the population of London, under the present 
 state of things, subsist upon free distributions of corn dispensed by the 
 occupant of the throne for the time being. But a more fatal change 
 than even this has come over the population of the capital and of the 
 whole country. The free citizens and prentices of London ; the sturdy 
 labourers of Dorsetshire and the eastern counties ; the skilful artisans 
 
 * Daniel, v. 26, 27, 23. 
 
NOTE. 105 
 
 of Manchester, Sheffield, and Birmingham ; the mariners and ship- 
 wrights of Liverpool, have been long ago drafted into marching regiments, 
 and have left their bones to bleach beneath Indian suns and Polar 
 snows. Their place has been supplied by countless herds of negro 
 slaves, who till the fields, and crowd the workshops of our towns, to 
 the entire exclusion of free labour ; for the free population, or rather 
 the miserable relics of them, disdain all manual employment : they 
 divide their time between starvation and a degrading debauchery, the 
 means for which are sedulously provided by the government. The 
 time-honoured institutions of the bull-bait, the cock-pit, and the ring, 
 are in daily operation, under the most distinguished patronage. Hyde 
 Park has been converted into a gigantic arena, where criminals from 
 Newgate "set to" with the animals from the Zoological Gardens. Every 
 fortnight there is a Derby day, and the whole population pour into the 
 Downs with frantic excitement, leaving the ciiy to the slaves. And 
 then the moral condition of this immense mass ! Of the doings of 
 people about the palace we should be sorry to speak. But the lady 
 patronesses of Almack's still more assiduously patronize the prize fights, 
 and one of them has been seen within the ropes, in battle array, by the 
 side of Sayers himself. No tongue may tell the orgies enacted, with 
 the aid of French cooks, Italian singers, and foreign artistes of all 
 sorts, in the gilded salons of Park Lane and Mayfair. Suffice to 
 say, that in them the worst passions of human nature have full swing, 
 unmodified by any thought of human or divine restraints, and only 
 dashed a little now and then by the apprehension that the slaves may 
 rise, and make a clean eweep of the metropolis with fire and steel. 
 But n'importe — Vive la hagatellel Mario has just been appointed 
 prime minister, and has made a chorus-singer from the opera duke of 
 Middlesex and governor-general of India. All wise men and all good 
 men despair of the state, but they are not permitted to say anything, still 
 less to act. Mr. Disraeli lost his head a few days ago ; Lords Pal- 
 merston and Derby lie in the Tower under sentence of death ; Lord 
 Brougham, the archbishop of Canterbury, and Mr. Gladstone, opened 
 their veins and died in a warm bath last week. Foreign relations make 
 a still greater demand upon the reader's imagination. We must con- 
 ceive of England no longer as 
 
 ** A precious stone set in the silver sea, 
 Which serves it in the office of a wall. 
 Or as a moat defensive of a house ;" 
 
 but rather as open to the inroad of every foe whom her aggressive and 
 colonizing genius has provoked. The red man of the West, the Caffre, 
 the Sikh, and the Sepoy, Chinese braves, and fierce Orientals of all 
 sorts, are hovering on her frontiers in " numbers numberless," as the 
 flakes of snow in the northern winter. They are not the impotent 
 enemy which we know, but vigorous races, supplied from resourceless 
 founts of population, and animated by an insatiate appetite for the gold 
 and silver, purple and fine linen, rich meats and intoxicating drinks of 
 our efi"ete civilization. And we can no longer oppose them with those 
 victorious legions which have fought and conquered in all regions of 
 the world. The men of Waterloo and Inkermanu are no more. We 
 
106 THE FALL OF EOME. 
 
 are compelled to recruit our armies from those very tribes before whose 
 swords we are receding ! 
 
 Doubtless the ordinary reader will believe this picture to be over- 
 charged, drawn with manifest exaggeration and somewhat questionable 
 taste. Every single statement tvhicli it contains may be paralleled by the 
 circumstances and events of the decadence of the Roman empire. 
 The analogous situation was with the subjects of this type of all good 
 government, always a possible, often an actual, state of things. We 
 thiiik this disposes of the theory of Mr. Congreve. With it may 
 advantageously be contrasted the opinion of a man of more statesman- 
 like mind. " The benefits of Despotism are short-lived ; it poisons the 
 very springs which it lays open : if it display a merit, it is an excep- 
 tional one ; if a virtue, it is created of circumstances ; and when once 
 this better hour has passed away, all the vices of its nature break forth 
 with redoubled violence, and weigh down society in e\ery direction." 
 So writes M. Guizot.* Is it the language of prophecy as well as of 
 personal experience ? 
 
 * History of Civilization in France, Lect. ii. 
 
LECTUEE III. 
 
 THE BAEBARIAN RACES. 
 
 " Now these are the generations of the sons of Noah, Sham, Ham, 
 
 and Japheth : and unto them were sons born after the flood 
 
 By these were the isles of the Gentiles divided in their lands ; 
 every one after his tongue, after their families, in their nations." — 
 Qen. X. 1, 5. 
 
 Synopsis. — ^The complexity of the subject. — Its comprehension as- 
 sisted by the study of Ethnology. — The science rests on three bases: 
 the physiological, the historical, the linguistic. — Its conclusions point 
 (i.) to the Armenian table-land, (ii.) to the plateau of Ir^n, as the 
 local origins of the human race. — Its division into three classes : the 
 Turanian or Mongol ; the Semitic or Aramaic ; the Japhetic or 
 Indo-European. — Migrations of the latter, east and west.— Course of 
 the western migrations. — Division of its members into Celts, Slaves, 
 and Teutons. — The physical and moral characteristics of the first ; of 
 the second ; of the third. — The same of the Mongols. — Early opinions 
 at Rome respecting this barbarian world. — Reasons why its action on 
 the Empire was so long delayed. 
 
 We have already asked the question, What lay outside 
 the Eoman empire, its provinces, dependencies, and allied 
 states 1 The answer is, " The barbarian world." The words, 
 I am sure, convey to many of us an exceedingly indistinct 
 image, or, perhaps it would be more correct to say, a num* 
 ber of images, forming a complex whole, whose limits and 
 characteristic marks are so indefinite that it becomes im- 
 possible to combine them into a single, well-composed, and 
 intelligible picture. The Celt, the Teuton, the Goth, and 
 the Hun ; the Yandal, the Avar, the Slave, and the Bul- 
 garian j the Frank, the Burgundian, and the Saxon ; German 
 
108 THE BARBARIAN RACES. 
 
 warriors, Scandinavian pirates, and the wild nomad races of 
 central Asia, pass before the mind's eye like the fantastic 
 fi^jures in a masfic lantern, which confuse the sight when 
 present, and are undistinguishable in the memory when past. 
 This, however, is a defect inherent in the nature of the 
 subject, or, rather, in our own power of comprehending it ; 
 and as such, I fear, can never be completely remedied. No 
 one can hope to surpass Gibbon in lucid arrangement ; yet, 
 with most of the students who have attempted to collect 
 and classify their ideas, after perusing the pages of the 
 Decline and Fall, the result is something like that which I 
 have described. Perhaps some training in the science of 
 ethnology would do more than anything else to clear our 
 conceptions, and impress them permanently on the recol- 
 lection. I do not of course mean that the student of 
 history would be in duty bound to master the whole science 
 of ethnology, even had ethnology reached that stage when 
 it could be taught as a positive branch of human knowledge. 
 But an acquaintance with its elements would, at any rate, 
 give us a few striking landmarks, which might serve to 
 guide our steps amid the perplexing labyrinth of events 
 through which we have to pass. 
 
 Chronology and Geography have long been described, with 
 universal consent, as the handmaids of History. Ethnology 
 is her mother, and has, therefore, a still greater claim upon 
 those whose attention the daughter has attracted. Or, to 
 drop all metaphor, the origin of the separate races of the 
 human family has obviously the closest possible connection 
 with the history of those races, whether we regard the 
 simple narrative of their rise and progress as human 
 societies, or whether we examine more closely the moral 
 and political influences which have been found to flow from 
 some peculiarity in the national temperament and character. 
 The agency of race in the reciprocal action of peoples upon 
 each other has been immense; and even yet must be re- 
 
IMPORTANCE OF ETHNOLOGY. 109 
 
 garded as very considerable. With the other agencies of 
 law, locality, and religion, it forms one of the great social 
 influences which 
 
 " In quaternion run, 
 And mix and nourish all things." 
 
 In it we may trace the germ of migration, colonization, and 
 conquest ; and from the law of its action in these, the main 
 instruments of civilization, we may, to a certain extent, 
 deduce the law of human progress, and guess at the future 
 destinies of the world. The question of race forms one of 
 the largest elements in that important problem of modem 
 politics at which sophists sneer, and which empirical state- 
 doctors despise, but which every real statesman who is 
 acquainted with the past and present of Europe, and who 
 cares for its future, will never venture to neglect — I mean 
 the Balance of power. The ethnological affinities of the 
 various nationalities in Europe not only are intimately con- 
 nected with the right understanding of its past, but, in 
 some degree, they involve its future ; calling forth or 
 checking the ambition of potentates, modifying the policy of 
 governments, and contributing to the political strength or 
 weakness of the great nations of the world. The allegiance 
 of the Slavonic races, hovering between Austria and the 
 empire of the Czar ; the Teutonic sympathies which alien- 
 ate Holstein from Denmark, and attract it to Germany ; 
 the common origin of the Romaic peoples, which from time 
 to time seems inclined to ignore the natural ramparts of 
 the Alps and the Pyrenees, and which has expelled the 
 "Tedeschi" from the Lombard plains ; — these are all cases 
 in point. " Government has no power," writes Dr. Ansted, 
 " in uniting races whose blood is different. Language may 
 conceal for a time, but cannot obliterate, their permanent 
 character ; and for at least thirty centuries there have been 
 as well-marked and important distinctions between the 
 bearded and the beardless man, the red man and the white, 
 
no THE BAEBARIAN RACES. 
 
 and the true Ethiopian and the negro, as there are at this 
 day; while the essential points of distinction are clear 
 now as they were at that distant period."* The diversity of 
 physical type has not failed to be accompanied by a variety 
 of moral characteristics, themselves also of a very perma- 
 nent nature. " All the recent events in history," says an 
 able writer in the Noi^th British Review j "as well as the 
 tendency of opinion in all enlightened men, in all countries, 
 who have been bred up under their influence, point to the 
 conclusion that there is an original and indelible difference 
 in the character of the different races of man ; and that 
 each will best find its highest point of social advancement 
 by institutions which have grown out of its ruling dispo- 
 sitions. This is but an exemplification of the profound 
 observation long ago made by Montesquieu, that no nation 
 ever rose to durable greatness, except by institutions in 
 harmony with its spirit." A living writer, who is mainly 
 distinguished for the unhesitating contempt with which he 
 treats opinions, principles, men, and facts, when they cannot 
 be accommodated or tortured into conformity with his own 
 theories, speaks in sneering terms of this as of many other 
 generally accepted convictions. t But as he seems to admit 
 the results, while he questions the causes, further contro- 
 versy may for the present be dispensed with ; and I shall 
 assume the practical value of ethnology, both in history and 
 politics, as a truth which has not been as yet disproved. 
 Let me, then, very briefly direct attention — I can do no 
 more — to some of its best-established conclusions, in so far 
 as they cast a light upon the subject of European history. 
 Only let us remember this, the science is a difficult one 
 because it is as yet in such an unsettled state. A few 
 words at the commencement of a lecture may easily mislead 
 
 * Manual of 'Geographical Science, p. 397. 
 t Buckle, History of Civilization. 
 
THE BASES ON WHICH IT RESTS. Ill 
 
 the student, if he does not pursue his inquiries further. 
 Though I have devoted some time and attention to the 
 study, I feel most strongly — perhaps this is the reason why 
 I do feel strongly — that I am in no wise qualified to be its 
 exponent. Still, as something must be done, I will try, for 
 the sake of those to whom the subject is a novel one, to set 
 before you a few of those points which will best repay further 
 examination. 
 
 The science of ethnology may be approached in three 
 diflferent ways : more properly speaking, it reposes on three 
 distinct foundations. These may be described as the 
 historical, the physiological, and the philological. In other 
 words, if we want to distinguish between the varieties of 
 the human species, we may interrogate History as to the 
 evidence which she affords of their division into families 
 and nations, with their subsequent changes of locality j or 
 we may seek from physical and anatomical science, the 
 information it can give concerning the differences of bodily 
 form and structure which the nations of the world exhibit ; 
 or, lastly, we may discover, from a careful analysis of lan- 
 guage, the broad varieties of dialect which imply a variety 
 of origin among the populations where they are spoken. 
 The first method needs no explanation ; it differs in no 
 respect from all other rightly conducted investigations into 
 the matter which historical records contain. The second 
 may easily be understood from the familiar illustration of 
 colour. The white European, the black negro, the yellow- 
 tinted Tatar, the red Indian of North America, carry in 
 their very aspect, even to the most unscientific eye, a 
 remarkable evidence of the diversity of blood and race.* 
 You must not, however, imagine that physiological science 
 rests satisfied with this test — a test which by no means 
 universally proves ethnological relationship. It has estab- 
 
 * Latham, Man and his Migrations, p. 159. 
 
in THE BABBARIAN RACES. 
 
 lislied others : the hair ; the skin ; the bone ; the position 
 of the ^^ foramen ovcde^^ or aperture through which the spinal 
 cord is connected with the brain ; the formation of the pelvis, 
 and the facial angle, or, popularly speaking, the extent to 
 which the forehead falls back from the root of the nose ; — 
 all these are taken into account by the ethnologist who 
 proceeds to construct a classification on physiological prin- 
 ciples. The third, or philological method, perhaps owes 
 its origin to the comprehensive genius of Leibnitz, which 
 appears to have included almost all the subjects of human 
 knowledge within its grasp. He composed an interesting 
 treatise on the language of the Basques ; a matter of violent 
 controversy, which has received within the last few months 
 very valuable elucidation from the splendid work of Prince 
 Lncien Buonaparte. I must not, however, digress into the 
 history of this method, or of its most distinguished professors ; 
 I can only shortly state results. Philologers maintain the 
 existence of three main classes, into which nearly all the 
 dialects spoken by men may be divided. 
 
 First. Languageswithout any proper grammatical structure 
 whatever. The roots of such are found to be monosyllabic. 
 They cannot, however, enter into combination with each other, 
 and therefore have no grammatical organization, properly so 
 called. Neither have they particles to remedy this defect. 
 The words are naked signs, and their significance is deter- 
 mined only by their position. The Chinese is generally said 
 to be the most remarkable example. 
 
 Secondly. Languages, the roots of which are also mono- 
 syllabic, but which are capable of composition, and therefore 
 possess a grammar, and an organization which depends upon 
 the special character of their combination in each particular 
 case. In this class it is said that the leading principle 
 of the formation of words lies in the connection of verbal 
 and pronominal roots ; and herein is found the body and soul 
 of the language. To this class belong the Sanscrit and all 
 
PHYSIOLOGICAL, HISTOEICAL, LINGUISTIC. 113 
 
 its affiliated dialects, as the Greek and Latin ; in short, all the 
 languages of the Western world with which you have any 
 acquaintance ; our own among the number. 
 
 Thirdly. Languages whose roots are verbal only, and con- 
 sist of two syllables. They require, three consonants to be 
 the vehicle of their primary meanings. The grammatical 
 forms are not produced solely, as was the case with the last 
 class, by the composition of verbal and pronominal roots : a 
 simple modification of the root is in itself sufficient. These 
 are the Semitic languages, as they are called ; the most fa- 
 miliar example of which is the Hebrew. 
 
 We may readily understand how complicated the consi- 
 deration of these several particulars, historical, physiological, 
 and linguistic, becomes, especially when the facts supplied to 
 us from all these sources have to be sifted, compared, and 
 reconciled. There is, however, this advantage — when all 
 three agree, we seem to have reached a secure standing-place, 
 and are enabled to pronounce, with some degree of certainty, 
 upon a conclusion in which all coincide. If, for instance, 
 we find certain peculiarities of physical structure distin- 
 guishing the great body of the inhabitants of the south-west 
 of Asia from the South-European nations ; if, in examining 
 their languages, we discover that those spoken by the former 
 fall under the third-mentioned class, with consonantal and 
 dissyllabic roots, while those spoken by the latter, possess 
 monosyllabic roots, capable of combination and grammatical 
 construction, and therefore belong to the second ; if, finally, 
 History in her obscure records points to a distinct parentage 
 for these two families of nations, assigning one, for instance, 
 to Shera, the eldest son of Noah, and another to Japhet, his 
 youngest-born ; and if, still further, the hints afibrded by 
 legend and tradition upon the subject of the migrations of 
 mankind, corroborate what is thus far probable, ethnology 
 may venture to employ the precise and positive language of a 
 science, and distinguish the Semitic from the Japhetic races, 
 
 I 
 
114 THE BABBARIAN EACES. 
 
 as distinct varieties of the human family. Such, then, is the 
 method -which ethnology employs. I must, in the next 
 place, state some of the results at which it has arrived by 
 this method, premising that I would not be understood to 
 speak dogmatically upon points still the subject of contro- 
 versy, although to enter at present upon such controversy 
 is altogether beyond my purpose, and indeed beyond my 
 power. 
 
 All tradition and all historical research concur with Scrip- 
 ture in pointing to the great table-land of Armenia as the 
 local origin of the nations of the world. From the hoary 
 summit of Ararat descended the venerable fathers of the 
 human race. And indeed, even before the Noaic deluge, 
 there is reason to believe that the same region was the cradle 
 of all human beings. Dr. Donaldson, whom no one will 
 suspect of too servile an adherence to the tradition of the 
 Bible, distinctly says, " I am inclined to attach much more 
 importance than some other ethnographers to the geography 
 of Eden as given in the book of Genesis; and I believe that 
 the first seats of the human race are strictly defined by the 
 four rivers there mentioned." Despite the aqueous action 
 of " the waters covering the face of the earth," he is inclined 
 to recognize the four rivers of Paradise in the Tigris, the 
 Euphrates, the Oxus, and the Volga ; whereof the two last 
 discharge themselves into the Caspian Sea. It is probable 
 that the area now covered by that vast inland lake was in 
 antediluvian times the seat of a dense population. However 
 these things may be, the great Armenian plateau, so far as 
 we can now conjecture, was the first dwelling-place of the 
 survivors of the flood. The earliest movements of its in- 
 habitants must of necessity have been towards the west and 
 the south-east j that is to say, towards the peninsula of Asia 
 Minor and the Mesopotamian plains. During this period, 
 we have no trace of any variety in language or distinction 
 in race. I agree with those ethnologists who believe that a 
 
TURANIAN, SEMITIC, HAMITIC. 115 
 
 population speaking languages of the Turanian type was at 
 first spread over all this space ; that is to say, I think them 
 right in holding that this was the earliest stage of all lan- 
 guage, and that the different dialects of the Haraitic and 
 Semitic, as well as those of the Japhetic or Indo-European 
 class, were rather posterior developments than contempora- 
 neous varieties of human speech. The tribes speaking what 
 we have called the Turanian languages, are sometimes 
 designated as " Sporadic," sometimes as "Allophylian;" terms 
 intended to designate their entire want of social organiza- 
 tion, and the absence of any positive law under which their 
 languages may be connected or arranged. " The character- 
 istic marks of union ascertained for this immense variety of 
 languages are as yet very vague and general." This is the 
 judgment of Professor Max Miiller, undoubtedly the best 
 authority in this country; and, resting upon this authority, 
 we may venture to affirm that the various Turanian tongues 
 cannot as yet be considered as evidence sufficient to prove 
 the ethnical relationship of the tribes who speak them. 
 Their character is, however, sufficiently distinct, as a whole, 
 to separate them from that other class of languages which 
 have been called the Semitic, and which seem to have de- 
 veloped themselves out of the other under some particularly 
 favourable conditions, both social and linguistic, which have 
 been long placed beyond the reach of human cognizance. 
 The same remark must be repeated in reference to the third 
 great development of race and language, — the Japhetic or 
 Arian, or Indo-European, the local origin of which may be 
 traced to the country of the Medes and Persians, just as the 
 local origin of the Semitic tongues may be traced to Meso- 
 potamia and the borders of Syria and Arabia. We have, 
 then, the following state of things in the earliest ages of tho 
 world, so far as ethnology can recover the picture. First, 
 like the primary strata of geology, a vast number of sporadic 
 tribes, extending from the Ural Mountains to the Indian 
 
 I 2 
 
lie THE BARBARIAN RACES. 
 
 peninsula, perhaps we might say covering all Asia, who 
 spoke a language of the rudest and most primitive character, 
 which has been perpetuated down to modern ages in the 
 tongues of the Tatar and Mongol tribes of Asia, and in those 
 of the Laps and Fins of Europe. Next, a more advanced 
 social and linguistic organization, developing itself, ethnolo- 
 gists say, about the 20th century B.C., on the banks of the 
 Euphrates and the Nile. This was the rise of the combined 
 Hamitic and Semitic races and languages ; the former being 
 perhaps the earlier and the more imperfect element. On 
 this point, however, no small controversy exists. Great 
 names in philology, such as Bunsen and ISIax Miiller, are in 
 fkvonr of considering Hamitism as nothing more than a 
 special form of Semitism, and altogether unconnected with 
 the Turanian family. Others again, as Colonel Rawlinson, 
 are inclined to regard it as the Turanian in its intermediate 
 stage, when developing into a Semitic form, or, at any rate, 
 decidedly Turanian in character. It will, perhaps, be for 
 ever impossible to deteimine accurately the relations be- 
 tween the two ; we can only say that everything yet ascer- 
 tained confirms the Scripture statement,* that the descend- 
 ants of Shem and Ham long continued in connection, and 
 appear to have interchanged localities by conquest and 
 migration. At present we are only concerned with the fact 
 that these second strata of population, the Semitic and 
 Hamitic combined, extended themselves, the first over 
 Assyria, Mesopotamia, Syria, Palestine, Arabia, part of Asia 
 Minor, and some of the -^gean islands ; the second, over 
 Egypt, Ethiopia, and detached portions of the Asiatic con- 
 tinent. These then, are the homes of the Semitic races, or 
 race, sometimes also called Aramaic, from Aram, son of 
 Shem. Except in the case of the Hebrew people, they have 
 not deeply influenced the ultimate destiny of the world. In 
 modern history, as we shall have to deal with it, they play 
 * Gen. X. 10, ad Jinem. 
 
JAPHETIC, OR INDO-EUROPEAN. 117 
 
 an insignificant part, save in one signal instance, where they 
 blazed forth with the devouring fire of Islamism, and " the 
 naked locust-eaters of the Arabian desert, the rear guard of 
 the Semitic race,"* dashed out from their native sands to 
 carry fire and sword, and the banner of the faith, far over 
 Africa, and into the very heart of Europe. 
 
 We have next to speak of a family of nations whose destiny 
 has been very different, and whose connection with ourselves 
 is much more intimate and important. In central Asia 
 lies what has been called the plateau of Iran. It is a region 
 lying easL of the Euphrates, with the Caspian Sea and the 
 Oxus on the north-east, the Indus and Indian Sea on the 
 east and south, and the Persian Gulf on the south-west. 
 Here, geogi-aphers assure us, was a rich and pleasant land, 
 abounding in all those material necessaries, and even luxuries 
 of life, which are calculated to engender and support a 
 teeming population. That it presents a very different 
 aspect at the present time, may be explained by the fact, 
 that it was originally irrigated by artificial means, and that 
 the barbarian conquerors who, generation after generation, 
 have swept across its surface, by destroying the watercourses, 
 have reduced it to sterility. This plateau may be con- 
 sidered to consist of two distinct regions — Upper and Lower 
 Irania. Upper Irania lies to the south, and comprises all 
 those mountain-chains which were the seat of that Persian 
 race whose valour gained for them the dominant power in 
 the second great empire of the world. Lower Irania was 
 the seat of the race whom they supplanted — the Medes. It 
 must not, however, be supposed that the term " Low " neces- 
 sarily means a low-lying locality ; for the table-land of 
 Media often rises to a great elevation, and the fertile valleys 
 which intersect its hills were probably filled with a wealthy 
 civilization, which excited the cupidity and ambition of the 
 founders of the Persian monarchy. Be this as it may, the 
 * Michelet. 
 
118 THE BARBARIAN RACES. 
 
 region which we have described, undoubtedly saw the first 
 development of the languages once called Indo-Germanic, 
 because a common basis can be traced for them in the 
 tongues spoken between the Ganges and the Rhine. Further 
 philological inquiry has detected the same element in 
 nationalities not belonging to the German stock. The 
 westerly Celts of Connaught and Brittany, and the in- 
 habitants of all the Romaic countries, have been reduced 
 under the same class, which is now, therefore, styled the 
 Indo-European ; and may, perhaps, some day claim even a 
 wider name. The period of the first development of these 
 languages in the Iranian plateau is antecedent to known 
 history. We can only say, that it was, in all probability, 
 gradually matured among a people who were undisturbed 
 by the struggle taking place more towards the west, between 
 the Hamite, Semitic, and Turanian populations. In point 
 of time, therefore, this linguistic type may be considered 
 third in order ; and where it has come in contact with the 
 others, is, like a third geological stratum, overlying the other 
 two, except where the disturbing force of local circumstances 
 has caused the primary and secondary to crop up. AVhat 
 seems certain is, that from this race and region were thrown 
 out, eastward and westward, at successive eras, great waves 
 of population, some of whom spread over the Punjaub, or 
 country of the Five Rivers, into the Indian peninsula, while 
 others forced their way to Europe, and formed the basis of 
 all the civilized nations of the West, both in ancient and 
 modern times. The times and manner of these migrations 
 are involved in an obscurity which no historical research 
 has as yet been able to remove. There are, therefore, 
 several hypotheses concerning their order, which, except in a 
 work professedly devoted to ethnology, it would be impossible 
 to discuss. The fact of an eastern migration into the lands 
 beyond the Indus, rests upon the evidence of comparative 
 philology. The primitive language of this district presents 
 
COURSE OF MIGRATIONS. 119 
 
 so many, and, to the philologist, such unmistakable traces 
 of an origin common to itself and the languages of Europe, 
 that no one doubts the identity, at some very distant period, 
 of the races whose speech they were. Beyond this, our 
 knowledge does not extend ; nor is it necessary for our 
 present purpose to dwell upon the point. We are mainly 
 concerned with the migrations to the West, but here again, 
 unfortunately, we can only speculate and guess. Two narrow 
 passes or " gates," may have enabled the inhabitants of the 
 Iranian plateau to pass onward into the northern and western 
 world — the Pylse Caspise, and the Pylae Syrite. By the 
 former, perhaps, a migration swept round the north of the 
 Caspian Sea, and, leaving few traces of itself in Asia, passed 
 into the eastern parts of Europe, and formed the first element 
 of peoples of which few, if any, traces can now be discovered 
 in our European commonwealth. The " Syrian gates," 
 which in later ages gave a passage to Alexander into the 
 heart of Asia, most probably presented a path whereby a 
 second Iranian migration, making their way between the 
 Taurus and the Mediterranean, assailed the Semitic popula- 
 tions in Asia Minor, drove them into its mountain-fastnesses, 
 and, ultimately crossing the Dardanelles, effected a settlement 
 in Southern Europe, as their brethren had done in the 
 North. Several interesting questions meet us here ; and 
 there are but few indisputably ascertained facts to aid 
 us in answering them. The great families of the European, 
 or Western Iranian migration, have been clearly determined 
 by ethnologists; as the Celtic, the Slavonian, and the 
 Teutonic. Now, of these, the Celts, Cymry, or Gaels, have 
 been driven onward before the rest into the extreme western 
 corners of the continent. Scotland, Ireland, the Isle of Man, 
 Brittany, and the north-west corner of Spain, alone exhibit 
 anything like unmixed relics of the great Celtic race and 
 language, which must at one time have been spread far and 
 wide over Central and Southern Europe. History, there- 
 
120 THE BARBAKIAN EACES. 
 
 fore, and analogy show that the Celts were the earlier 
 occupants of the territory which they have been compelled 
 to abandon ; for a conquering race, like the Saxons in 
 England and the Moors in Spain, are ever found to force 
 the conquered into their remote strongholds and mountain- 
 fastnesses. The Celts were most probably followed by the 
 primitive ancestors of the present Slavonian tribes — Russians, 
 Poles, Servians, lUyrians, Carinthians, Styrians, Hungarians, 
 Slovaks, Bohemians, Tsheks, and Gallicians.* These Sla- 
 vonians, Sarmatians, or Scythians, are found beside the Celts 
 in all their earliest settlements. They appear, however, to 
 have clung to the flatter and more eastern portions of 
 Europe, and not to have effected any permanent lodgement 
 in the highlands of Germany or the Alps.t The consider- 
 ations which induce us to believe that this second great wave 
 of Asiatic migration was of Slavonian character, are too com- 
 plex for enumeration here ; for the present we may accept the 
 conclusion, upon good ethnological authority. The third, and 
 final Iranian migration, was, what we have called the 
 Teutonic. There is, with respect to the tribes composing 
 this migration, the singular circumstance that they divide 
 themselves into two classes, speaking what are called the 
 High and Low Iranian dialects respectively ; and that the 
 peculiarities of each are undoubtedly reproduced in the High 
 and Low German tongues with which we are ourselves 
 acquainted. The migration was, therefore, probably two- 
 fold in character. First came the Low Iranians, breaking 
 through the Slavonian population which had preceded them 
 from Asia, and finally settling in the north-west of Europe, 
 where they formed the basis of the peoples who speak, or 
 have spoken, Low German tongues ; the old Gothic, the 
 Scandinavian dialects, Anglo-Saxon, Frisian, Flemish, and 
 Dutch. They were followed by the High Iranian branch 
 
 * Latham, Man and his Migrations, p. 166. 
 f Donaldson, New Cratylus, § 72. 
 
DIVISION INTO CELTS, SLAVES, TEUTONS. 121 
 
 of the same migration, who probably followed the 
 same course, and, coming in contact with their brethren in 
 Eastern Europe, partially displaced them, or modified the 
 character of their central settlements. But on the south 
 and west, they soon became predominant, peopling the 
 highlands of Germany, and becoming the progenitors of 
 the nations who now speak the High German dialects, and 
 immensely influencing the character of others, when, for 
 instance, as Franks and Burgundians, they crossed the 
 Rhine. One curious fact I will mention with respect to 
 these High and Low German languages, which correspond, 
 as I have said, the first, to the High Iranian, or Persian type 
 of the original stock ; the second to the Low Iranian, or 
 Median. Undoubted affinities connect the former with the 
 Greek, while the Latin is evidently akin to the second, or 
 even the Slavonized portion of the second. From this, it 
 follows that the Latin language is the elder of the two, 
 and that their common origin is to be sought at a point 
 much further back in the world's history than was formerly 
 supposed. But on this and many other matters of interest, 
 as I am not lecturing upon ethnology, I cannot enlarge. I 
 will only add, that if, as in respect of the Turanian 
 and Semitic races, we also ask with regard to the great 
 Japhetic, or Indo-European race, with its three families, 
 Celtic, Slave, and Teutonic, — What has been its influence 
 upon the world of modern history ? the answer must be — 
 It has peopled that world ; it has made that history ; it 
 occupies, if we except the waning empire of the Crescent* 
 and the insignificant Turanian subjects of Bussia, the whole 
 of Europe ; it has retained in Asia nearly all India, Persia, 
 and extensive regions of Asia Minor ; it is now extending 
 more or less over Northern Africa, and working its way 
 upwards from the settlements of the Cape of Good Hope, 
 and Tasmania ; it has nearly expelled the aboriginal in- 
 habitants of the two mighty American continents ; it has 
 
122 THE BABBARIAN EACES. 
 
 appropriated another great continent in the southern 
 hemisphere ; it is spreading day by day throughout the 
 countless islands of the Pacific. The whole course of cir- 
 cumstances into which the destiny of mankind is cast, all 
 the objects of human policy, all the results of what is idly 
 called accident, are working out the prophetic promise 
 spoken to the race of old : " God shall enlarge Japheth, and 
 he shall dwell in the tents of Shem, and Canaan shall be his 
 servant." * 
 
 This digression into matters connected with the science of 
 ethnology, however brief and superficial, must, I fear, have 
 appeared somewhat tedious, perhaps inappropriate to our 
 purpose ; but if it gives a somewhat more connected and 
 coherent notion of that barbarian world whose relations 
 with Rome form the prelude to modern history, I do not 
 think our time will have been thrown away. It will, at 
 any rate, enable us not only to classify, in some degree, the 
 tribes by contact with which the Empire was harassed or 
 overrun, but also to attach more definite ideas to what such 
 classification implies, and to retain it in the memory. I 
 shall, therefore, in the remainder of this lecture, endeavour 
 to give some idea of the original locality and national 
 character of those barbarian races which we have already 
 described, the Celts, Cymry, or Gael; the Teuton ; the Slavo- 
 nian ; and the wild nomads of the Turanian or Mongol stock. 
 
 First in order come the Celts, or, as in their relations to 
 Rome we shall prefer to call them, Gaels, or Gauls. Were 
 we merely speaking of the fall of the Roman empire, it 
 would be unnecessary to treat of a race who, themselves long 
 previously Romanized in institutions, feelings, and manner 
 of life, may be rather said to have shared in that grand 
 catastrophe, than to have caused it. Early in her history, 
 Rome succumbed before the Gaulish foe with whom she 
 disputed the north of Italy. Brennus planted his standard 
 * Gen. ix. 27. 
 
THE CELTS. 123 
 
 on the Capitol ; his gigantic followers hewed down the 
 venerable fathers of the state on their seats in the senate- 
 house ; the barbarians were undoubted lords of the city of 
 the Seven Hills ; and long did legend and song recall the 
 terrors of that memorable day. But the Republic, with that 
 indomitable energy which she exhibited under circumstances 
 of peril, more perhaps than any ancient or modern state, shook 
 off the Gaulish yoke ; and though the Gaulish name in- 
 spired a vague alarm, and, in the days of Marius, brought a 
 real danger to the doors of Italy, the bloody and unsparing 
 wars of Caesar, in which fell so many thousands of the race, 
 for ever prevented the Celts from menacing the destinies of 
 Kome ; or, rather, we should say, amalgamated them with 
 her own fortunes and her fate. With her fate, it is hardly 
 correct to say ; for the Gaulish spirit and character has 
 survived the fall of the Empire, and formed perhaps the 
 largest element in the national character of the first people 
 of continental Europe ; nay, has doubtless materially modi- 
 fied our own. This, therefore, must plead our excuse for 
 recurring a moment to the portraiture of the Gauls, as it 
 was drawn by those before whose eyes they appeared as a 
 distinct nationality. Their physical aspect was imposing ; — 
 gigantic stature, long yellow hair, eyes of a grey or 
 greenish -blue, a complexion so wondrously fair to the 
 sight of the swarthier dwellers in the south, that the 
 very name of Gael, or Gaul, has been derived from yaXa, 
 the Greek word for milk, and immense muscular strength, 
 were their most striking characteristics. These were in- 
 creased in their effect by the fondness for personal decora- 
 tion which is so often found in the savage mind. Massive 
 collars of gold, and chains of the same material, hung upon 
 their huge white necks and chests ; parti-coloured garments, 
 of the most brilliant dyes, the origin of the Gaelic plaid, 
 concealed their tall bodies and stalwart limbs. " They wear 
 bracelets and armlets, and round their neck thick rings, all 
 
124 THE BARBABIAN RACES. 
 
 of gold, and costly finger-rings, and even golden corselets," 
 says Diodorus Siciilus. The same author speaks of their 
 *' dyed tunics, flowered with colours of every kind, and 
 trews, and striped cloaks, fastened witli a buckle, and 
 divided into numerous many-coloured squares.* We all 
 remember Virgil's description : — 
 
 " Fair golden tresses grace the comely train, 
 And every warrior wears a golden chain ; 
 Embroidered vests their snowy limbs enfold, 
 And their rich robes are all adorned with gold." 
 
 Their appearance in line of battle, naked but for their 
 arms and golden trappings, was admitted by the Roman 
 historians to have been terrible ; and their martial prowess, 
 when well commanded, equalled their appearance, as the 
 legionary, on many occasions, found to his cost ; more espe- 
 cially when opposed to the Gaulish auxiliaries who followed 
 Hannibal across the Alps. The moral characteristics of the 
 race were not less remarkable or distinctive. Vainglorious, 
 talkative, quick in temper and perception, restless and im- 
 patient of rule, eager after political change, credulous, fickle, 
 and licentious in their pleasures, — they struck strangers by 
 the loudness of their tones, their boasting, their passionate 
 fondness for news, and their gullibility, their sudden quar- 
 rels, disregard of oaths, and desire for revolution and war. 
 Such is the general impression to be derived from the lan- 
 guage of Caesar, Strabo, Diodorus Siculus, and Livy. The 
 firstt gives an amusing account of the manner in which they 
 seized upon a stranger entering one of their towns ; stood 
 round him in a circle, and compelled him to recount the 
 news, which generally consisted of " wars and rumours of 
 wars " among neighbouring chiefs and states. These were, 
 of course, skilfully accommodated to the taste of the 
 audience ; and as they instantly proceeded to deliberate 
 upon what they heard, and act upon their deliberation, 
 
 * Diod. Sic. lib. v. + Bell. Gall. iv. 5. 
 
CHARACTERISTICS OF THE CELTS. 125 
 
 Caesar informs us that, very naturally, they were perpe- 
 tually getting into hot water. I subjoin the passage from 
 Strabo, with which Michelet commences the history of the 
 great people who so largely share their blood, with his own 
 commentary upon it. 
 
 " The Gauls," says Strabo, following the philosopher 
 Posidonius, "are, universally, madly fond of war, hot in 
 temper, and quick to fight ; in all other respects simple, 
 and void of malice. Hence, when provoked, they march 
 multitudinously, openly, and incautiously, straight against 
 the enemy, so as to be easily out-generalled ; since they may 
 be drawn on to engage where and when one chooses, and for 
 any cause, being ever ready for battle, even though armed 
 only with their own natural strength and audacity. Yet 
 they are easily persuaded to useful employments, and sus- 
 ceptible of culture and literary instruction. Presuming on ' 
 their gigantic build and numbers, they soon collect in large 
 multitudes, of their own free-will and accord, and at once 
 take side with the injured party." Thus far Strabo. The 
 historian adds : " Such is the first glance cast by philosophy 
 on the most sympathetic and perfectible of the races of 
 man." The genius of these Gauls, or Celts, is at first a mere 
 restless activity, prompting to attack and conquest. It was 
 through war that the nations of antiquity came into con- 
 tact, and intermingled. A warring and noisy race, they 
 overran the world, sword in hand ; led on, it would seem, 
 less by greed, than by a vain and uneasy desire to see, know, 
 and busy themselves with everything, bursting and destroy- 
 ing, through mere inability to create. With their large, 
 fair, soft, and succulent bodies, they are the infants of the 
 nascent world ; elastic and impulsive, but neither enduring 
 nor persevering ; fierce in their joys ; vast in their hopes ; 
 and vain ; for, as yet, nothing has withstood them.* 
 
 Who does not recognize the characteristics of the modem 
 * Michelet, Hiatoire de Fiance, i. 1. 
 
126 THE BARBARIAN RACES. 
 
 Celt, however much they may have been modified by prox- 
 imity of place, or admixture of blood, with races of the 
 German stock, the Saxon, or the Frank ? 
 
 The religion of this singular people — Druidism — is 
 perhaps the most interesting of its traditions, — interest- 
 ing, at least, to us, the busy Anglo-Saxon race, who 
 have covered with forges and manufactories the lonely 
 glens of the Druids' holy isle, where for many genera- 
 tions he reared the massive " cromlech," or cut with a 
 golden sickle the heaven-descended mistletoe from the 
 bough of the sacred oak. Of Druidism, Csesar* has given 
 us a very full account ; and, though disgraced by rites of 
 savage cruelty, it is entitled to a high place among barbarian 
 cults, from its adherence to the great doctrine of the im- 
 mortality of the soul, and the character for poetic genius 
 and general intellectual culture possessed by the leading 
 members of the order. This, it is true, was counterbalanced 
 by the horrid practice of almost wholesale human sacrifice, 
 wherein large wicker figures were filled with human beings — 
 generally criminals, but innocent persons if criminals could 
 not be obtained, — and subsequently destroyed by fire. 
 
 But the instinct of expiation breaks out, more or less, in 
 all barbarous superstitions, under very terrible forms j and 
 few are marked by the redeeming features which may be dis- 
 covered in the religion of the Gauls. Druidism, moreover, was 
 also a political, as well as a religious institution. Diodorus 
 tells us, " Not only in the concerns of peace, but even of 
 war, — not friends alone, but enemies also, chiefly defer to 
 the Druids and composers of verses. Frequently during 
 hostilities, when armies are approaching each other with 
 swords drawn and lances extended, these men, rushing 
 between them, put an end to their contentions, taming 
 them as they would wild beasts." t We cannot dwell 
 longer upon the history and character of the Gaulish tribes. 
 * De Bello Gallico, lib. vi. 13. f Hist. lib. v. c. 31. 
 
THE TEUTONS. 127 
 
 Let me refer you to one of the best-known, as it is certainly 
 one of tlie beat, works of the modern school of French 
 historians, the "Histoire des Gaulois," by Amedee Thierry, 
 from whom I will only quote a sketch of the personal 
 characteristics of the race, which will be found to agree 
 with what I have collected above from original sources : — 
 " The salient features of the Gaulish family, those which, 
 in my opinion, determine its difference from the other 
 families of the human race, are these : a personal bravery, 
 quite unequalled in the ancient world ; a spirit, frank, 
 impetuous, open to all impressions, gifted with pre-eminent 
 intelligence ; but, along with all this, an extreme restless- 
 ness, no fixity of purpose, a marked repugnance to. those 
 ideas of order and discipline so powerful among the Ger- 
 manic races, much ostentation, and, in short, a great deal 
 of disunion, the result of inordinate vanity. If one was to 
 compare summarily the two races, one might say that the 
 sentiment of personality — the / — was developed too much 
 among the Gauls, and not sufficiently in the Germans. So 
 it is that in every page of the history of Gaul we find 
 original characters, who vividly excite our sympathies, and 
 concentrate it upon themselves, inducing us to forget the 
 masses ; while, on the other hand, in German history, it is 
 generally the masses who produce all the effect."* 
 
 Beyond the E-oman and Romano-Celtic world, lay the 
 German and Slavonian tribes. The latter, as we have 
 already pointed out, were probably the first to approach the 
 west of iEurope from the Asiatic steppes ; but the former 
 undoubtedly broke through and passed beyond them ; so 
 that they long anticipated their contact with the Empire, 
 as they also surpassed them in all the higher attributes of 
 social life. The two races, however, were by no means 
 separated from each other by the decisive demarcation 
 which distinguished both of them from Romanized Gaul. 
 * Am. Thierry, Hist. Gaul. Introduction. 
 
128 THE BARBAEIAN RACES. 
 
 Michelet remarks upon the vague and indeterminate nature 
 of their mutual boundaries. " On our side," he says, " the 
 frontiers of the German language and population run down 
 into Lorraine and Belgium. Eastwards, the Slavonic fron- 
 tier of Germany has been upon the Elbe, then on the Oder, 
 and then as unsettled as this capricious stream, which so 
 often changes its course. Through Prussia and Silesia, at 
 once German and Slavonic, Germany dips towards Poland 
 and towards Russia ; that is to say, towards the boundless 
 world of barbarism."* The description will tolerably well 
 apply to the period of which we speak. The vast region 
 contained between the Baltic and the Danube on the north 
 and south, the Rhine on the west, and the Vistula and 
 Oder to the east, may be described, with tolerable accuracy, 
 as the locale of the Teutonic tribes. They may be divided 
 in Suevic and non-Suevic, answering nearly to the High 
 German, or Southern, and Low German, or Northern, 
 populations. The former occupied the south-eastern, the 
 latter the north-western, division of this large space. The 
 Suevic nations stretched from the Baltic and southern 
 Scandinavia to the Carpathian Mountains ; the non-Suevic 
 eventually touched both banks of the Rhine, and reached 
 beyond the Elbe. Of the former, the largest and most 
 important tribe were the Goths. " Intrusive above all the 
 other populations of the earth, the branches of the Gothic 
 tribes have brought themselves into contact and collision 
 with half the families of the world." t Starting from their 
 home in the Scandinavian peninsula, they pressed upon the 
 Slave populations of the Vistula, and, by a rapid course of 
 conquest, established themselves in Southern and Eastern 
 Germany. J Here they divided themselves into two distinct 
 
 * Histoire de France, ii. § 1. 
 f Latham, Man and his Migrations, ch, v. 
 
 X Jornandes, de Eebus Geticis. See, however, Latham's Ethnology 
 of Europe, ch. ix. 
 
SUEVIC TEUTONS. 129 
 
 nationalities, between which rolled the broad waters of the 
 Borystheaes. To the east, as their name imports, lay the 
 Ostrogoths, The Visigoths, or West Goths, on the opposite 
 bank of the river, extended their outposts to the Danube ; 
 and thus came into more immediate and earlier contact with 
 the Roman empire. The second great Suevic tribe, or federa- 
 tion of tribes, were the Alemanni (All-men), who impressed 
 their influence so strongly upon their neighbours that they 
 have given their name to the whole territory beyond the 
 Bhine — "Allemagne." The Romans found them clinging 
 to the banks of the Neckar and the Maine, from which 
 well-wooded regions they perpetually descended upon the 
 imperial provinces so vainly defended hy the rampart-wall 
 of Probus. North-east of these, towards the Baltic and the 
 Vistula, were found, when history first notices them, two 
 smaller tribes, which were, however, destined, in after-times, 
 to win by their swords the richest regions of Italy and 
 France, and bequeath to them a name in perpetuity — the 
 T^ango-bardi, or Lombards, and the Burgundians. The 
 Suevi proper, from whom the aggregate federation derived 
 their name, formed part of the Alemanuic league, and lay 
 immediately to the east of this people. The Vandals 
 originally occupied the ground between the Goths and the 
 Alemanni ; but we subsequently find them in the Roman 
 provinces of Pannonia and Illyricum, where Constantine 
 the Great, for the sake of withdrawing them from the 
 Gaulish frontier, had, by a very questionable policy, per- 
 mitted them to effect a lodgement. These were the Ger- 
 mans who, under Ariovistus, so boldly confronted Caesar in 
 Gaul, and gave to the Roman armies the first taste of those 
 terrors, which were to be repeated, in more degenerate days, 
 with such disastrous results. Caesar candidly confesses that 
 his soldiers were panic-struck with the accounts which they 
 received of their new adversaries, — their gigantic stature, 
 marvellous valour and skill in arms, and the terrible flashing 
 
 K 
 
130 THE BARBARIAN RACES. 
 
 of their eyes in the day of battle, which no foe had ever 
 yet withstood. The whole camp was paralyzed with alarm ; 
 the oldest centurions counselled retreat ; all who could find 
 a decent pretext slunk away, one after another, from the 
 eagles ; the remainder passed the time in unmanly lamen- 
 tations ; many actually shed tears ; nearly every man made 
 his will ;* — evil omens for the future relations of Rome 
 with those stout warriors of the Teuton woods, who 
 boasted that they would not yield to the immortal Gods 
 themselves ; that for years they had never slept beneath a 
 roof; and that they could support the heaven upon their 
 spears, t 
 
 We next come to the second, or non-Sue vie division of 
 the German race. Here, without doubt, the confederation 
 of the Franks, or Freemen, occupies the first place. We 
 must be careful to remember that the name did belong to a 
 confederation, not to a single people, and that this confedera- 
 tion varied in members and influence for perhaps a period of 
 several centuries. Generally they occupied the regions west 
 of those already specified, and were found between the 
 Rhine, the Maine, the Weser, and the Elbe. The Chauci, the 
 Sicambri, the Bructeri, with many others whose names may 
 be found in any good map, but will scarcely linger in the 
 memory, formed that memorable league which has succeeded 
 in impressing its name upon the first country of continental 
 Europe. Dr. Latham has a notion that the name " Frank " 
 denoted any German who repudiated Roman supremacy. 
 This theory, however, seems untenable, if it were only from 
 the fact that " Franks " often formed the best troops of the 
 imperial armies, and occasionally the bodyguard of the 
 emperor. Indeed, they as often declared for Rome as for 
 Germany ; and it was portion of the Frankish confederacy 
 which made a brave but ineffectual stand against the irruption 
 of the Suevi, Alani, Yandals, and Burguadians, which Gibbon 
 * Caesar, de Bello Gallico, i. 39. t J^id- iv. 7. 
 
NON-SUEVIC TEUTONS. 131 
 
 has characterized as " the fall of the Roman empire in the 
 countries beyond the Alps."* About the period when the 
 Prankish league begins to play a prominent part in history, we 
 find them divided into two great bodies, whose names will 
 frequently recur. The Salii, or Salian Franks, on the west and 
 south, were more exposed than their brethren to the influence 
 of Koman civilization ; and this fact, as we shall hereafter see, 
 materially modified their character. The Ripuarian Franks, 
 on the right bank of the Rhine, long retained stronger traces 
 of the German spirit and German life ; and the difference 
 between the two tribes produced results of no small importance 
 in the modern history of Gaul. To the non-Suevic division 
 also belonged the Angles and Saxons, or Anglo-Saxons, as 
 they are sometimes called in combination, and the Jutes, 
 who spread over the Danish peninsula, Sleswig-Holstein, and 
 the Frisian provinces of Holland. The nature of their posi- 
 tion determined their character and fortunes — fortunes so 
 important for ourselves and for the world. Debarred by 
 distance and the intervention of powerful tribes from any 
 development in the direction of Gaul and Germany, they 
 turned their energies to the sea, and ravaged in predatory 
 and piratical excursions both shores of the British Channel. 
 Hence, at no distant day, the galleys of Hengist and Horsa, 
 following a well-known route, appeared in the waters of the 
 Thames at the critical moment which Dr. Arnold has 
 termed the true birthday of English history, and beneath 
 the banner of the white horse inauo^urated that Anfflo- 
 Saxon empire, which has overspread the world. These are, 
 however, matters which belong, to a later era. At present, 
 we are concerned with the character and life of the Teuton 
 people at the period when they were preparing unconsciously 
 to overthrow the Empire. 
 
 Rome had assimilated the Celt ; and, doubtless, from 
 this new blood she derived fresh energy and vigour, 
 * Gibbon, v. 224. 
 K 2 
 
132 THE BARBARIAN RACES. 
 
 perhaps some centuries of life. She could not assimilate 
 the Teuton : he was made of sterner stuff. One of the 
 most interesting fragments of antiquity is that in which 
 the Roman's first impressions of Germany have found a 
 voice ; it is a cry of mingled astonishment, admiration, and 
 disdain. The pen of Tacitus has recorded the feelings with 
 which a thoughtful Roman of the decadence regarded the 
 men who were to overthrow and yet regenerate the civiliza- 
 tion of his age. His little treatise on the manners of the 
 Germans — written as an excursus to his " Histories " — is 
 not conceived in a scientific spirit, for the times knew nothing 
 of the elements of social and political science, or of ethnology ; 
 nevertheless it forms the most valuable repertory of facts, to 
 which those who subsequently discussed these subjects have 
 had recourse. It contains many false notions, and perhaps 
 ascribes specially to German savage life some things which 
 are common to all savage life ; but it also distinctly points out 
 the great characteristic features of the Teutonic mind, which 
 may be said still to remain among all the nations which 
 have received the German impress upon their social habits 
 and political institutions. The proud spirit of independence, 
 and free personality, the feeling of individualism, so to speak, 
 as distinguished from the social spirit which made it impos- 
 sible for the Greek or Roman to conceive of himself except 
 as the constituent of a state ; the reverence for the dignity 
 of woman, which lies so deep beneath the best institutions 
 of modern times ; the spirit of clan, combining with and 
 modifying the spirit of personal independence, and thus 
 rendering colonization and foreign conquest a possibility ; 
 the love of battle from the mere instinct of blood, and a cer- 
 tain tendency to intemperance in food and intoxicating 
 drinks, engendered in the damp forests of their native land, 
 but unknown to the dwellers in the light and dry atmosphere 
 of the countries bordering upon the Mediterranean ; a genial 
 hospitality, arising in some degree from this vicious tendency, 
 
MENTAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE TEUTON. 133 
 
 and so in some degree also humanizing and refining it ; — these 
 are the most marked attributes of the Teuton character as 
 it presented itself to the philosophic historian of the Empire, 
 and they reproduce themselves more or less in the habits 
 and history of all the great nations which spring from the 
 Teuton stock. One other attribute must be added to the 
 foregoing. We should very imperfectly estimate the cha- 
 racter of the German mind, if we did not take into account 
 a quality which Tacitus was perhaps unable to detect 
 or comprehend. A sentiment of imaginative mysticism, 
 indefinite and vague — and if this language be obscure, it is 
 because we are speaking of what in itself is shadowy and 
 intangible — seems to have entered deeply into the mental 
 constitution of the dwellers in the dim aisles of those gigantic 
 forests which once overspread the whole of central Europe. 
 This is what Michelet calls " the profound impersonality of 
 the German genius," * which he professes to recognize in the 
 ancient sculptures which represent the race, and in the in- 
 decision of look which characterizes their most eminent men. 
 It has ever clung to their descendants, and is the source of 
 what, by a singular accident, has received the misnomer of 
 the romantic s})irit in poetry and art, as opposed to the more 
 clearly-defined conceptions, and more systematic execution 
 which distinguish the products of intellect and art in the 
 southern or classical nations. What perhaps most struck, by 
 the force of contrast, the Roman mind, was the sanctity of 
 domestic ties, the purity and chastity of manners which dis- 
 tinguished these dwellers in the wild and solitary forest. 
 The tone of Tacitus is that of a man who bitterly feels how 
 much greater, after all, as a moral being, the barbarian may 
 be than the civilized man, when civilization recognizes no 
 higher aim than mateiial splendour and that utility which 
 subserves material wants. Other civilizations than that of 
 the Empire may read a lesson in those brief pages where the 
 * Histoire de France, liv. ii. § 1, note. 
 
134 THE BAEBAKIAN KACES. 
 
 philosopher of a worn-out world records his impression of the 
 races from which that world was hereafter to be reconstituted. 
 A striking result of the superior purity of barbaric life and 
 manners was also visible in the physical aspect of the progeny 
 to which they gave birth. In the lapse of ages, this has been 
 greatly modified, and we seldom now recognize beyond the 
 E-hine those men of flaxen hair, blue eyes, and gigantic 
 stature, overtopping the Italian and the Gaul, who cowed 
 the bold centurions of Csesar, and left the legions of Yarns a 
 prey to the wolves of the Hercynian forest. The German 
 historian Menzel mentions that bones of an enormous size 
 have been found in ancient burial-places, justifying the tra- 
 dition of heroes who were seven feet high ; and that examples 
 of extraordinary stature are still to be met with on the shores 
 of the Baltic, and among the German Alps. " The gigantic 
 shepherd of Sens," he says, " braving the Alpine regions of 
 Berne and Unterwalden, presents the truest image of our 
 forefathers. Csesar said that the Gauls fled at the sight of 
 the Germans, and the emperor Titus, when commending 
 them, said, * Their bodies are great, but their souls are 
 greater.' "* From this greatness of soul was born liberty, — 
 liberty in the modern sense of the word ; that liberty for 
 which so many martyrs have bled, and are perhaps still to 
 bleed. " Liberty," says Montesquieu, "that lovely thing, was 
 discovered in the wild forests of Germany ; " and Lucan had 
 said, sixteen centuries before him, " Liberty is the German's 
 birthright." Our own great historians have not been slow 
 to add their testimony to the fact. " If our part of the 
 world," is the recorded judgment of Hume, "maintains 
 sentiments of liberty, honour, equity, and valour, superior 
 to the rest of mankind, it owes these advantages to the 
 seeds implanted by those generous barbarians ; " and Gibbon 
 no less positively declares, " The most civilized nations of 
 modern Europe issued from the woods of Germany j and in 
 * Menzel, Hist. Ger. i. § 8. 
 
SOCIAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE TEUTON. 135 
 
 the rude institutions of those barbarians we may still dis- 
 tinguish the original principles of our present laws and 
 manners." The same writer accordingly devotes the ninth 
 chapter of his first volume to the consideration of these 
 institutions. Our plan does not admit of such detail, we 
 can only indicate a few salient points, a few great principles, 
 from which the rest were evolved. 
 
 In the Persian language, " Irman " signifies a " brother in 
 arms :" we have already seen that the Teuton was a cognate 
 offshoot of the Iranian stock ; in his language, " Germanus" 
 bears a similar import ; and, among the features of German 
 life upon which Tacitus has most strongly dwelt, is the 
 " Comitatus," or " brotherhood in arms." This notion of 
 common and equal brotherhood seems to have distinguished 
 from the first the Teutonic from the other Iranian and the 
 Semitic races. With the latter, the feeling of patriarchal 
 reverence for the head of the family or tribe appears to have 
 acquired a predominating influence, which developed into 
 submission to individual supremacy, and found its external 
 expression in those colossal halls and magnificent palaces 
 which the people of the East have ever delighted to rear for 
 the head of the race and state, and of which the excavations 
 at Nimroud exhibit so memorable a specimen. Very dis- 
 tinct from this was the free German spirit, which, starting 
 from the notion of brotherhood rather than that of parental 
 authority, maintained an equality of position and privilege 
 among all the warriors of the tribe, even when the exi- 
 gences of migration or conquest had united them under the 
 command of a single chief. " Every one enjoyed personal 
 freedom, and had an exclusive right over his own proi3erty. 
 In the popular assemblies of each district, the eldest man 
 present presided, and the majority decided. It was only 
 during war that they obeyed a leader, whom they selected 
 by raising him on their shield."* In these assemblies it is 
 * Menzel. i. § 7. 
 
136 THE BARBARIAN RACES. 
 
 easy to see the germ of Witeimgemotes and Parliaments, the 
 parents of all free institutions. And in the same spirit, 
 doubtless, originated the different orders and societies of 
 knighthood ; the guilds and corporations of free citizens so 
 common in the Middle Ages. Menzel is therefore right in 
 saying that the free intercourse between citizens possessed of 
 equal privileges, and bound by the same duties, was the soul 
 of the ancient German communities, and the foundation on 
 which their whole history rests. Gibbon and Tacitus will 
 supply more particulars ; it is only needful to say one word 
 in conclusion, upon the somewhat controverted question of 
 the religious instincts and practices of the Teutonic tribes. 
 Perhaps the partiality of their descendants has attributed 
 too high and pure a character to their idea of the Divine 
 Being, and the right mode of approaching him. Tacitus 
 recognized members of the Roman Pantheon in the gods 
 principally worshipped by the Germans, most probably 
 Woden, or Odin, and Thor, from whom are derived the days 
 of the Saxon week ; but he bears testimony to a nobler 
 conception of the nature of the Divine Being subsisting 
 among them, than is to be found in the Theogony of Greece 
 and Italy. "They deem it unworthy of the dignity of 
 heavenly beings to inclose their gods within walls, or to 
 fashion their forms under human similitude."* Gibbon in- 
 dulges in a characteristic sneer at the improbability of a 
 nation unacquainted with the arts of architecture being 
 enabled to think or act otherwise. t But this argues little 
 acquaintance on his part either with the history of religious 
 worships, or the character of the savage mind. We may, at 
 least, ascribe to the Teuton a religious instinct far above the 
 ordinary fetichism of barbarian tribes and the practice of 
 other races of common origin. And we are led to the same 
 conclusion by the feeling with which they regarded their 
 women ; a feeling founded, perhaps, on a superstition, but 
 * Tac. German. § 9. f Decline and Fall, ch. 9. 
 
TEUTONIC RELIGION. 137 
 
 certainly an ennobling one, the germ of mucli that is 
 generous and graceful in modern life. Often, says Tacitus, 
 in the day of battle, the flight of armies has been arrested by 
 the earnest entreaties, the bared breasts and dishevelled hair 
 of the women whom defeat would have consigned to slavery. 
 "They believe that something of the divine, some prescient 
 power, dwells within them, and they never neglect either 
 their advice or their prophetic answers."* For the rest, the 
 Germans were not, it is to be feared, free from the common 
 follies, superstitions, and enormities of heathenism. They 
 were devoted to divinations and augury of all sorts : it is 
 more than probable that they were degraded by human 
 sacrifices. Traces may be discovered of an inroad upon the 
 old and more rude Polytheism of ancient Germany by the 
 Odin- worshipping tribes, the Goths, Burgundians, and Lom- 
 bards, which imparted a more exalted character to the 
 religious instincts of the national mind. " It gave to the 
 Sueves a higher civilization, and bolder and more heroic 
 aspirations. For, although the system of Odin was un- 
 doubtedly far from having reached the elevation it subse- 
 quently attained, particularly in Iceland, it already contained 
 the elements of a nobler life and deeper morality. It pro- 
 mised the brave immortality, a paradise, a Walhalla, where 
 they would battle the whole day, and at eve sit down to the 
 feast of heroes; whilst on earth it spoke to them of a sacred 
 city of the Asi, Asgard, a happy and hallowed spot, from 
 which the Germanic races had been formerly driven forth, 
 and which was to be the object of their wanderings over 
 the world. It is not improbable that the emigrations 
 of the barbarians were in some degree prompted by this 
 belief, and had in view the discovery of the sacred city, 
 as another holy city was, at a later age, the object of 
 the Crusades." t Mr. Kingsley, in his interesting novel, 
 
 * Tac. German, ch. 8. 
 
 t Micbelet, Histoire de France, book ii. ch. 1. 
 
188 THE BAEBAEIAN RACES. 
 
 " Hypatia," has gracefully availed himself of the supersti- 
 tion, and familiarized it in many quarters where it was 
 probably altogether unknown. Such were our German 
 progenitors, who, two thousand years ago, spread them- 
 selves over the central regions of Europe, living a wild, 
 free life, which has often been compared to that of the 
 red-men whom the Anglo-Saxon has expelled from their 
 ancestral hunting-fields in the North- American continent. 
 And in fondness for the chase, strange alternations between 
 great physical exertion and torpor, intemperance in food, 
 and disinclination to agricultural and other labour, the 
 parallel is sufficiently exact. But the German life exhibited 
 some peculiarities, distinguishing it on the one hand from 
 that of mere hunters or nomads, and on the other from 
 the settled habits of civilized men. " It is well known," 
 Tacitus tells us, "that the Germans are not dwellers in 
 cities : they do not even allow contiguous abodes ;" a feeling 
 which has long distinguished the Anglo-Saxon from the 
 descendants of the southern races. "They live scattered 
 and apart, as some fountain, field, or spring has attracted 
 their fancy. Their villages are not constructed like ours, 
 with houses combined into continuous rows ; each man sur- 
 rounds his residence with a space of unoccupied ground," — 
 the origin of the famous Salic land, — "either owing to 
 ignorance of the art of architecture, or as a protection against 
 fire."* To the women they generally left the labours of the 
 field; they loved the bath, and were addicted to beer ; dined 
 together upon occasions where the interests of war or peace 
 demanded consultation ; were of all nations the most profuse 
 in hospitality, the most madly enslaved by the passion of 
 gambling ; were indulgent to their slaves ; did not vindic- 
 tively pursue the homicide to death ; granted favours with 
 freedom, but neither imputed them to others as obligations, 
 nor regarded them as such themselves. Who cannot re- 
 * Tac. Germania, c. 16. 
 
BATTLE BETWEEIl ROMANS AND GERMANS. 139 
 
 cognize traits of character which neither lapse of time nor 
 change of locality has obliterated, or perhaps will ever 
 obliterate 1 
 
 After all, however, we should have but an imperfect 
 picture of the Teuton, if we failed to see him in the day 
 of battle ; nor could any account of that which is the main 
 object of our work — his collision with the Empire — be 
 considered complete, without a brief sketch of one among 
 those terrible conflicts which, for centuries, this collision 
 almost every month called forth. Stout old Ammianus is 
 telling us, with all the spirit of an eye-witness and a com- 
 batant, how he fought the Alemanni under his beloved 
 commander Julian : — " At the brazen blast of the trumpet, 
 both sides, in great strength, moved forward to the combat. 
 Flights of missiles were discharged to herald their approach : 
 the Germans coming on with more speed than caution, with 
 • swords drawn, and yelling frightfully, enveloped our cavalry : 
 more than ordinarily furious, they shook their horrid hair, 
 rage flashed from their eyes ; while our resolute fellows, 
 protecting their necks and breasts with their bucklers, 
 and giving point with their swords, or brandishing their 
 death-dealing weapons, menaced the advancing foe. The 
 combat thickened j the cavalry steadily closed their ranks ; 
 the infantry strengthened their flank, and protected their 
 front with a thick serried row of shields ; dense clouds of 
 dust whirled upwards in the air ; charges were made on all 
 sides, as, in the ebb and flow of battle, our men pushed 
 forward or gave way. Some of the enemy's most skilful 
 warriors, by pushing with their knees, endeavoured to force 
 back the opposing line ; but, by their excessive efforts, be- 
 came so involved with their enemies, that hand was locked 
 with hand, and shield with shield. Heaven rang with the 
 shouts of those who conquered and those who fell. Our 
 cavalry are thrown into disorder ; they retire for support 
 upon the foot ; their leader is slain ; the Cuirassiers (Cata- 
 
140 THE BARBARIAN, RACES. 
 
 phracti) leap from their horses, and make confusion worse 
 confounded ; but the steadiness of the legionaries, the per- 
 sonal coolness, gallantry, and exhortations of the emperor, 
 restore the fight. The Alemanni, upon the repulse of the 
 cavalry, imagining the day to be their own, charge vehe- 
 mently against our front line. But the Eomans stand fast ; 
 the combat is equally maintained on both sides ; the Cornuti 
 and Braccati, men of a hundred fights, attempt to daunt 
 their enemy with frightful gestures, screams, and yells;* 
 the tumult, commencing in a whisper, as the fury of the 
 combatants gathers strength, swells into a mighty roar, like 
 that of breakers lashing an iron-bound coast ; the air, hissing 
 over-head with the nish of missiles, is darkened with dust ; 
 it is impossible to see a yard in advance ; weapons and men's 
 bodies are thrust upon each other in hopeless confusion. And 
 now the fury and violence of the baibarians blazed forth 
 like a conflagration, and strove to force an entrance into the 
 densely-serried square of shields {testydo), at which they 
 hewed in all directions with desperate strokes. In the mean 
 time, the volleys of missiles never ceased ; the iron-tipped 
 arrows flew in clouds, though sword-blades were hacking 
 one another/ in close encounter ; breastplates were being 
 cloven asunder ; and the wounded who had not quite lost 
 all their blood, struggling up to strike again. Both parties 
 had met their match : the Alemanni were superior in 
 strength and stature, the legionaries in discipline, expe- 
 rience, and skill ; the former savage and tumultuous, the 
 latter cautious and calm ; the one trusting to their enormous 
 physical force, the other to their courage. Over and over 
 again the Roman, forced back by the mere weight of the 
 shock, recovered his ground ; while the barbarian, as his 
 limbs failed him, supported himself on his left knee, and in 
 this position provoked the blow of his adversary, — an indi- 
 
 * The word in the original is "hairitus" which denotes the noise 
 nlade by an elephant. 
 
THE SLAVES. 141 
 
 cation of unyielding obstinacy carried to its highest pitch. 
 A band of chosen warriors forfaing themselves into a circle, 
 among whom their kings were distinguishable, and dashing 
 forward, broke through our front, and, followed by the multi- 
 tude, reached our reserved line, which, composed of men in 
 closer array, stood like a tower against the foe, and renewed 
 the combat with fresh spirit : waiting their opportunity, 
 they followed up the enemy, as the Mirmillo chases the 
 Retiarius ; and as in his blind fury he exposed his sides, they 
 pierced them with their swords. The barbarians, recklessly 
 throwing away their lives for a chance of victory, strove 
 hard to break our compact formation. We mowed them down 
 by whole ranks at a time ; but fresh combatants took their 
 place ; the ceaseless groaning of the dying at last shook 
 their courage. Thoroughly broken in spirit by their losses, 
 and reserving all their remaining energy for flight, they 
 quitted the field in all directions at the top of their speed. 
 As the passengers and crew from a wreck are driven hither 
 and thither by the storm through the boiling eddies of the 
 deep, so disappeared the barbarian host, — a result which no 
 man who was there that day will deny, was to be wished 
 rather than to be expected."* I have been compelled to 
 compress the account of this interesting and somewhat 
 difficult author, yet I have endeavoured faithfully to render 
 every expression of importance. Even from this rude at- 
 tempt, the reader may picture to himself how our fathers 
 fought for the empire of the world, and estimate the justice 
 of M. Guizot's criticism, when he declares that Ammianus 
 is a rude old soldier, destitute alike of imagination and of 
 taste. 
 
 But we must turn to another race, — the Slavonian. t 
 
 * Ammianus Marcellinus, xvi. 36 — 51. 
 
 f I have preferred this spelling to "Sclavonian," — an attempt to 
 givft the peculiar aspirate of the tongue. But as this seems to be 
 gradually disappearing from the more refined dialects, it is perhaps 
 best to omit it. 
 
142 THE BARBARIAN RACES. 
 
 This also has its special interest, for there are not 
 wanting political prophets 'who declare that in its turn 
 the Slavonian race will exercise a predominant influ- 
 ence upon Europe and the world, and whose confidence in 
 the ascending star of the Muscovite has not been shaken 
 by the repulses which Russia has of late received in her 
 progress to universal empire. " A great deal is said about 
 the future prospects of this stock," writes Dr. Latham, " the 
 doctrine of certain able historians being, that as they are the 
 youngest of nations, — a term somewhat difficult to define, — 
 and have played but a small part in the world's history 
 hitherto, they have a grand career before them, a prospect 
 more glorious than that of the Romano-Celtic French, or the 
 Germanic J]nglish cff the Old and New World. I doubt the 
 inference, and I doubt the fact on which it rests."* There is 
 but little in the character of the race itself which fits it for 
 achieving so high a destiny; but the conception is not new 
 to the ambitious spirit of its leaders. The Russian nation is 
 in its origin half Asiatic, half Slave. " The nucleus of this 
 grand empire," says Thierry, "destined to experience so 
 many revolutions of fortune, was attempted to be formed in 
 the sixth century, on the borders of Asia and Europe, by the 
 alliance of two barbarian races conspiring against the Roman 
 empire. Its first object was the pillage of the valley of the 
 Danube, its first war-cry, ' To the City of the Csesars ! ' 
 Has it materially changed since then ? "t Significant words, 
 to which we shall have occasion to recur. The Slavonian 
 tribes, then, or Sarmato-Slavonians, — for Sarmatian seems to 
 have the best title to be considered the generic name, 
 though, chronologically speaking, of earlier advent in Eurojie 
 than the Teutons, appear to have suffered displacement by 
 the latter in more than one instance, and generally to have 
 succumbed to the superior warlike energy of their neigh- 
 
 * Man and his Migrations, ch. v. 
 
 + Attila et ses Successeurs, vol. i. p. 397. 
 
ORIGIN OF THE NAME SLAVE. 143 
 
 bours, of whatever stock. Their principal representatives in 
 modern Europe are the Russians, with the various Polish 
 nationalities, the Servians, the Hungarian Slovaks, the 
 Slaves of the Austrian empire, such as the Illyrians, Styrians, 
 Carinthians, and the Tcheks of Bohemia. A large infusion 
 of Slavonic blood has also taken place among the modern 
 Greeks, a fact which accounts for the Russian sympathies of 
 this spurious Hellenic race. A controversy has been main- 
 tained respecting the origin of the name. The fact that, 
 like Lydian, Phrygian, or Cappadocian in ancient times, it 
 has become among ourselves the synonyme of servitude, does 
 not of course determine its real meaning. Those who bear 
 it, naturally dignify its import and themselves by assigning 
 to it the signification of "glory ;" — the Slavonians to them- 
 selves are, therefore, "the glorious race." But the truth 
 seems to be, that "Slava," in its primitive meaning, was 
 nothing but "speech,** and that the secondary notions of 
 "fama," "gloria," followed from this, as it does in other 
 tongues.* Now, every nation are to themselves and their 
 own notions, the speakers of intelligible language ; while 
 strangers are Bap€apoij "barbarians,** speakers of unknown 
 tongues. Slave or Slavonian was, therefore, nothing more 
 than the gentile appellative, derived from the use of the 
 national tongue, and intended as antithetical to " foreis^ner.** 
 In the ancient historic world, the Slaves played an insignifi- 
 cant part. Some have identified them with the Scythians 
 of Herodotus, who, when they came into more immediate 
 contact with the Greeks, received the name of "Everoif 
 which the Latins transformed into Veneti, and the Germans 
 into Wenden, or Vanar. They called themselves Serbi, or 
 Servi, a name retained by their modern descendants the 
 Servians. Like the Celts, they seemed destined to be driven 
 into corners in the old world. We hear in Csesart of Yeneti 
 on the Atlantic sea-board, where, doubtless, they were min- 
 * 1 Cor. xiv. 11. t r>e Bell. GaU. ii. 34 ; ill. 8. 
 
144 THE BARBAEIAN RACES. 
 
 gled with Celtic tribes ; and other Veneti have acquired 
 historic glory for the name, by settling beside the northern 
 angle of the Adriatic, in a district where afterwards arose 
 the beautiful and glorious city of Venice. We are, however, 
 more concerned to determine their locality in the fourth 
 century after Christ, when, in combination with members of 
 the Mongol or Turanian stock, they broke in upon the Roman 
 frontier. A vast triangular space between the Baltic and 
 the Black Sea, having its apex at the Carpathian Mountains, 
 and for its base a very indefinite line, bisecting European 
 Kussia from N.W. to S.E., may serve to indicate in general 
 terms the situation of the Slavonian tribes at this era. But 
 being hard pressed by the Teutonic populations on one side, 
 and the wild nomads of Asia, the Bulgarians, Avars, and 
 Huns, upon the other, they do not seem to have succeeded 
 in establishing free nationalities of their own, but were more 
 or less in subjection to their neighbours. After the death of 
 Attila, being released from subservience to the Huns by the 
 disruption of their empire, and neglected by the Germans, 
 who were pouring hotly over the Balkan and Alps, they 
 acquired a degree of independence which they never pre- 
 viously enjoyed, and we hear of their forming alliance 
 with a portion of the Huns, and with the Bulgarians, 
 against the Greek empire.* Of the Slaves themselves, we 
 hear of three principal branches, or aggregates of tribes. 
 The most eastern were the Antes, who stretched over the 
 Euxine, and extended into the country between the Dnieper 
 and the Don. These are, most probably, the progenitors of 
 the great Russian people. The western group were Veneti, 
 Venedi, or Wends, who rested upon the Baltic, and reached 
 to the Carpathians. It is with this particular portion of the 
 Slavonian family that the Greeks and Romans, as we have 
 said, were acquainted. Between them were the Slovenes or 
 Sclavenes, who appear to have possessed less organization 
 * See the next Lecture. 
 
CHARACTERISTICS OF THE SLAVES. 145 
 
 and gentile coherence (if we may use the expression) than 
 the other two, and are found mingled sometimes with the 
 eastern and sometimes with the western branch, in their 
 migrations and enterprises. The future fortunes of the 
 Slavic race will be briefly touched upon in another lecture. 
 Their personal and social characteristics are distinguishable 
 from those of the Teuton and the nomad Mongol of the 
 Asiatic steppes, who severally bowed their neck beneath the 
 yoke. Long servitude is not favourable to the development 
 of the nobler qualities of our nature, and the Slave, less fiery 
 than the German, and less ferocious than the Avar, the 
 Bulgarian, or the Hun, exhibited in the hour of triumph a 
 subtle cruelty which has identified with his name some of 
 the most terrible tortures ever inflicted upon humanity. An 
 unclean race, dwelling in miserable hovels of mud and reeds, 
 which were scattered at rare intervals among impervious 
 forests and morasses, they lived a life of promiscuous inter- 
 course, and were either entirely naked within doors, or 
 clad themselves in the skins of beasts, or a suit of dark 
 tissue woven by the women, from which the nation derived 
 a particular name. They are said to have smeared their 
 bodies with soot, and to have eaten the flesh of all sorts of 
 animals, even the most noisome and disgusting. As they 
 loved enjoyment, they possessed some of the virtues of hos- 
 l^itality, and in exhibiting these to the stranger, they were 
 distinguished for the veracity and good faith which marks 
 the actions of the Bedouin of the desert under similar cir- 
 cumstances. But a very diflferent picture is drawn of the 
 Slave when engaged in war. There, duplicity, cunning, and 
 cruelty were his characteristic attributes. Armed with a 
 long lance, a bow, and a quiver of poisoned arrows, the 
 Slavonian warrior stole warily upon his enemy, and never 
 missed his mark. He is described as being skilled in all the 
 stratagems with which the Mohican or the Iroquois wars 
 upon hostile tribes, creeping for miles upon his belly under 
 
146 THE BARBARIAN RACES. 
 
 brushwood, crouching for whole days in ambush behind a 
 rock, or concealing his entire body for hours beneath the 
 water, while he breathed through a hollow reed. His moral 
 and religious instincts were of the lowest kind. Of marriage 
 he scarce had any notion ; his worship was a fetichism oi 
 the ordinary sort practised among savages, mingled with 
 sorcery. Some writers speak of a singular dualistic religious 
 theory subsisting among certain tribes, which, in its Mani- 
 chsean character, strongly recalls the East, and is no slight 
 indication of their Iranian origin. They believed in the 
 existence of a Good and Evil Being, but paid adoration to the 
 last alone, having, as they supposed, nothing to apprehend 
 from the beneficence of the first, or White Divinity. Their 
 Black God, or Zernaboch, as likely to do them more harm, 
 they regarded with abject terror, and appeased with horri- 
 ble rites. 
 
 Such is the picture of the Slaves, as drawn by their 
 terrified enemies, the later historians of the Empire,'"' 
 and therefore, in all probability, exaggerated. But it 
 contains much which may be recognized in less offensive 
 form among the modern representatives of the race. 
 These, like their ancestors, are, generally speaking, sallow- 
 skinned, with long, lank, dark hair, and small deep-set eyes, 
 of finely-formed frames, though not exhibiting the stalwart 
 chest and shoulder which marks the Teuton and the Celt. 
 The cunning in. all species of deception, ambuscade, and 
 stratagem, of which Procopius speaks, is still discernible in 
 the national character, and has also its more favourable 
 development in productive skill, and a very remarkable 
 faculty of imitation. Their courage is more passive than 
 active in its character, and the Slavonian blood is deficient 
 in that fiery ardour, the elan which precipitates the Frank 
 and his kindred races upon the foe. The wild but plaintive 
 spirit of the hereditary bondman yet lives in his national 
 * Procopius, &c. 
 
TURANIANS OR MONGOLS. 147 
 
 music, as it breaks upon the ear, in the low, melancholy 
 wail of the wind-instruments from the bands of Croat and 
 Slavonian regiments on the Glacis of Yienna. Whether 
 these are the attributes of a conquering and dominant race, 
 time alone can prove, and we will not anticipate by con- 
 jectures the disclosure. Yet it is hard for us, who come from 
 a stock distinguished by a more expansive genius, a more 
 indomitable blood, to believe — whatever be the faith incul- 
 cated at St. Petersburg — that the Slavonian shall ultimately 
 rule the world. 
 
 But beyond the Teuton, beyond the Slave, beyond the 
 limits almost of what was deemed the habitable world, lay 
 another world of barbarism, more wild and terrible stilL 
 The steppes of northern and CMitral Asia have from 
 immemorial time projected on the West vast hordes of 
 hardy horsemen, attracted by the charms of a softer climate 
 and more fertile land. They belonged to the great Turanian 
 or Mongol family of nations, terms not exactly identical ; 
 for Dr. Latham has observed, that, as a linguistic appella- 
 tive, the former has a larger range ; whereas in anthropology, 
 the second is the wider class. It is needless to repeat the 
 questions connected with their ethnology, of which we have 
 already treated. The fourteenth chapter of Gibbon will 
 give you a classification of their tribes, and an interesting 
 account of their movements, so far as they are connected with 
 European history. In modern days they are best known as 
 Tartars or Tatars. The former designation they derived 
 from the pious aspiration of St. Louis, that the armies of 
 Christendom might be successful in consigning to their 
 native Tartarus the hordes of Tchenghis-khan. Four great 
 divisions of this family have played a conspicuous, if not a 
 lasting part upon the theatre of the world, — conspicuous for 
 devastation and for blood. The Mongols proper, the Fins, 
 the Turks, and the TJgrians have arisen from time to time, 
 as a marvel or a terror to the Western world. Of one of these 
 
 L 2 
 
148 THE BARBARIAN RACES. 
 
 formidable races, and their still more formidable leader, we 
 
 shall soon have occasion to speak at length. Attila, king of 
 
 the Huns, has won for himself a name in history which 
 
 stands beside that of Caesar and Napoleon, though nnillu- 
 
 mined by the light of posthumous glory which gilds the 
 
 memory of those children of victory. To the ecclesiastical 
 
 writers of succeding times, he appeared, as Thierry has 
 
 called him, an emissary of Providence, a Messiah of 
 
 misery, suffering, and ruin, sent to chastise tlie crimes of 
 
 Rome. In their imaginations, excited by mysticism and 
 
 suffering, his personality was merged in his mission, and they 
 
 affixed to him the name of the "Scourge of God," by which he 
 
 has ever since been known to the Christian world. Like a 
 
 destroying angel, he came and went from the great wall of 
 
 China to the Atlantic Ocean ; and where that terrible 
 
 deluge of horsemen had once passed, nothing was left but a 
 
 confused debris of the civilization it had overwhelmed ; no 
 
 roof-tree remained standing ; no grass was ever seen to grow ; 
 
 the land was as a howling wilderness, ungladdened by the 
 
 sight of 
 
 " Flocks, or herds, or human face divine." 
 
 The hearts of men between the Volga and the Pyrenees 
 quailed for generations after his death, at the thought of 
 Attila the Destroyer, and three separate streams of tradition 
 have brought down to modern Europe the terrors of that 
 memorable name. 
 
 The Huns will serve for us as an ethnological type of 
 all those tribes of Turanian stock — Avars, Bulgarians, 
 Turks — who appeared, each with more appalling aspect 
 than the other, from behind the Ural Mountains and 
 the Caspian Sea, on the frontiers of the falling empire. 
 Long ages before, their redoubtable character, and the 
 miseries which attended on their steps, had been sketched 
 by the inspired eloquence of the prophet Joel. " A great 
 people and a strong : there hath not been ever the like, 
 
SIDONIUS APOLLINAEIS. 149 
 
 neither shall be any more after it, even to the years of 
 many generations. A fire devoureth, before them, and 
 behind them a flame burneth : the land is as the garden of 
 Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness ; 
 yea, and nothing shall escape them. The appearance of 
 them is as the appearance of horses ; and as horsemen, so 
 shall they run. Like the noise of chariots on the tops ot 
 mountains shall they leap, like the noise of a flame of fire 
 that devoureth the . stubble, as a strong people set in battle 
 array. Before their face the people shall be much pained ; 
 all faces shall gather blackness. They shall run like mighty 
 men ; they shall climb the wall like men of war ; and they 
 shall march every one on his ways, and they shall not break 
 their ranks : neither shall one thrust another ; they shall 
 walk every one in his path ; and when they fall upon the 
 sword, they shall not be wounded. They shall run to and 
 fro in the city ; they shall run upon the wall ; they shall 
 climb up upon the houses ; they shall enter in at the win- 
 dows like a thief. The earth shall quake before them ; the 
 heavens shall tremble : the sun and the moon shall be dark, 
 and the stars shall withdraw their shining."* It is curious to 
 compare with this singular passage the language of contem- 
 poraries. A Romanized Gaul, or Gallo-Roman, one Caius 
 Sollius, had been elected bishop of Clermont, in Auvergne, 
 in the fifth century, when the alarm caused by the Hunnic 
 invasion was at its height. In accordance with the literary 
 fashion of the times, he received the name of Sidonius 
 Apollinaris, and it is under this appellation that Montesquieu, 
 Gibbon, and Guizot all alike refer to his descriptive notices 
 of the age in which he lived, as equally graphic and trust- 
 worthy. His character was a strange mixture of heathen 
 scholar and Christian priest, his abilities above the common 
 average, his taste and style of composition thoroughly arti- 
 ficial, and full of false glitter and affectation. Still it cannot 
 * Joel, ii. 2—10. 
 
150 THE BARBARIAN RACES. 
 
 be denied tliat he was mixed up with some of the most im- 
 portant political transactions of his time ; that he possessed 
 a keen power of observation, and no little skill in picturesque 
 description. Both Goth and Hun passed before his eyes, and 
 he has daguerreotyped them both. I should despair of con- 
 veying in an English version, the peculiar character of the 
 Latin hexameters, written about the year 4:68 A.D., in which he 
 paints the ferocious followers of Attila; but the main features 
 agree with the accounts of more prosaic historians. " They 
 are a nation," he says, " fierce in soul and frame. Even 
 from the face of the infant, newly-born, looks forth the 
 native horror of the race. Their thick bullet skulls rise 
 into a peak at the top ; their eyes are invisible in twin 
 caverns beneath their brows, yet their sight is keen and 
 reaches far. The mother flattens, with bandages, the infant's 
 nose, lest hereafter it should be in the helmet's way,* and so 
 the affection of the mother deforms the child she has borne 
 for war alone." t 
 
 Ammianus Marcellinus, a stout old soldier who met them 
 in the field, is equally exact, and not more complimentary. 
 His account was written about one hundred years pre- 
 viously, A.D. 375, and conveys the first impressions made 
 by this wild race upon the men of Western civilization. 
 " The Huns," he says, " surpass in barbarism and ferocity all 
 that we can conceive of barbarous and ferocious. From earliest 
 infancy they seam their faces with long gashes made by some 
 iron instrument, to prevent the growth of hair, so that they 
 grow up to old age beardless and of most uncomely aspect. 
 Their body is short and thick-set, their neck and shoulders 
 
 * A sufficiently absurd reason. It was probably done to keep up 
 the physical characteristics of the dominant part of the race, and so 
 became a badge of aristocratic birth. So Thierry : ** II est plus sense de 
 croire que les Mongols, ^tant devenus les dominateurs des Huns, leur 
 physionoinie eut tout le prix qui s'attache aux distinctions aristocra- 
 tiques : on tint h, honneur de se d^fornier pour sembler de la race des 
 maltres." — Histoire d' Attila, vol. i. p. 9, note. 
 
 f Sidon. Apoll. Pan. Anthem, v. 245. 
 
THE HUNS. 151 
 
 imineBse, their limbs firmly knit together, and their whole 
 appearance such, that you would imagine them brute creatures 
 on two legs, or the rudely-fashioned images hewn out of logs 
 of wood, which are sometimes placed on the parapet of a 
 bridge. They do not live like men, but like animals, and 
 make no use either of fire or any sort of cookery for their 
 food. It consists either of the roots of wild plants, or 
 more than half-raw meat, which they warm in riding, 
 between their thighs and their horses' backs. Of wheeled 
 carriages they make no use, and have not even huts for 
 dwelHng-places ; for they would never consider themselves 
 in security beneath a roof. Ever traversing the mountain 
 or the forest, they are inured from earliest infancy to all 
 possible hardships, — hunger, thirst, and cold. In their 
 migrations they are followed by their flocks and herds: 
 the women and children are inclosed in covered carts. 
 Were you to ask these wild beings where they came from, 
 or where they were born, they could not tell you ; they 
 do not know. Their dress consists of a coarse linen tunic, 
 and a sort of helmet made of the skins of wild rats patched 
 together. The tunic is dark-coloured, and rots upon 
 their persons ; for while it lasts, it is never changed. A 
 sort of hood, or casque, which they carry on their necks ; 
 buckskins rolled round their hairy legs, complete their 
 equipment. Their shoes, shapeless and of huge size, are so 
 inconvenient that they Cannot walk in them, and, conse- 
 quently, are quite incapable of fighting on foot ; " a fact 
 which gives to Jerome ground for one of his bitterest re- 
 proaches to the degenerate Roman legionary who quails 
 before such a foe. " To see them, you would think they 
 were glued to their little horses, which are extremely ugly, 
 but unwearied, and swift as lightning. It is on horseback 
 that their whole lives are spent. Sometimes they sit astride ; 
 sometimes like women. On horseback they hold their as- 
 semblies j there they buy and sell, eat and drink, or sleep 
 
152 THE BARBAEIAN RACES. 
 
 and dream,* reclining on the necks of their steeds. In 
 battle they rush on without j^lan or order, under the leading 
 of their different chiefs, and pour upon the enemy with 
 frightful cries. If they meet a resolute resistance, they 
 disperse for the moment, but return to the charge with the 
 same rapidity, overturning and sweeping before them every- 
 thing in their path. They have no idea of escalading a 
 fortified place, or carrying an intrenched camp by storm. 
 Nothing, however, can equal the skill with which they 
 discharge, at a prodigious distance, their arrows, tipped with 
 pointed bone, as hard and deadly as steel. They fight at 
 close quarters, with a sword in one hand and a net in the 
 other, with which they envelop their enemy while he is 
 engaged in parrying their blows. The Huns are fickle, 
 faithless, changeable as tlie wind; a prey to the furious 
 impulse of the moment : they know no more than brute 
 beasts the distinction between right and wrong. Their 
 language is obscure, tortuous in construction, and full of 
 metaphor. As for religion, or religious instinct {religio 
 vel superstitionis reverenti(i\ they have none ; nor do they 
 practise any form of worship. Gold is the object of their 
 passionate adoration." t I have preferred to translate the de- 
 tailed account of a contemporary, a man of sense and obser- 
 vation, who had seen and fought with this famous race, 
 rather than any of the perhaps more highly-painted pictures 
 which may be found in writers of later date. We must 
 not, however, omit the earliest notice which occurs of the 
 European branch of the family. Tacitus, it seems, had 
 heard of the Fins ; and he tells us, undoubtedly from hear- 
 say, " They are a marvellously savage race, and have 
 neither arms, horses, nor household gods : their food is 
 herbage ; their clothing skins ; their sleeping-place the 
 bare ground : their only hope of sustenance rests in their 
 
 * ** In altum soporem ad usque vaiietatem effunditur somniorum." 
 f Amm. Marcell. xxxi. 2. 
 
THE CAPITAL OF ATTILA. 153 
 
 arrows, which, from want of iron, they point with bones."* 
 With respect to the question of their religion, or rather 
 the absence among them of all religion, Thierry is right in 
 remarking that this did not prevent their devotion to 
 sorcery and magic in its grossest forms. They practised 
 certain peculiar modes of divination, wliich were found by 
 European travellers of the fifteenth century still in vogue at 
 the court of the successors of Tchenghis-khan. The course 
 of conquest and contact with a higher civilization than 
 their own, taught the rude nomads some of the arts, and 
 inspired them with some of the tastes of more settled life. 
 Their encampments on the emerald meadows which skirt 
 the Danube assumed the appearance of regular villages, gay 
 with fluttering streamers, and the painted roofs and walls 
 of their wood-built huts. The royal residence did not dis- 
 dain the accessories of art. Priscus, a Greek historian, 
 who accompanied Maximin, the ambassador despatched to 
 the court of Attila by the Greek emperor Theodosius, has 
 left, in an interesting book, which will well repay perusal, 
 an intelligent account of all he heard and saw at the Hunnic 
 capital in central Hungary. His description of the stone 
 baths erected for Attila by Onagesius, a Greek architect, 
 and of the elaborate architecture of the wooden palaces of 
 Attila and his queens, has been somewhat pompously given 
 by Gibbon ; but even the greater simplicity of the original 
 
 * Tac. Germania, c. 46. It is scarcely worth while to translate the 
 very similar description of Claudian ; but, for the sake of the curious, 
 we append it : — 
 
 " Est genus extremes Scythias vergentis in ortus 
 Trans gelidum Tanain, quo non famosius ullum 
 A.rctos alit : turpes habitus, obscoenaque visa 
 Corpora ; mens duro nunquara cessura labori ; 
 Praeda cibus, vitanda Ceres, frontemque secari 
 Ludus, et occcisos puichrum jurare parentes. 
 Nee plus nubigenas duplex natura biformes 
 Cognatis aptavit equis : acerrima nullo 
 Ordine mobilitas, insperatique j-ecursus." 
 
 CLAUDiAir, in Eujinum, i. 323. 
 
154 THE BARBAEIAN EACES. 
 
 is sufficient to show that the artists who constructed these 
 buildings — very much in the same manner, it would seem, 
 as the Swiss now carve their wooden toy -houses — had ad- 
 vanced far beyond the tastes or the wants of the rude 
 " sleepers on horseback," as they first emerged from their 
 Asiatic deserts. In commerce they were as little advanced 
 as in the other arts of life ; yet one branch of them appears 
 to have originated the trade in furs, which they procured in 
 the Siberian forests.* 
 
 Such were the barbarians who, beyond the Teutons of 
 Tacitus, beyond the Slavonic tribes who lay outside of them, 
 nay, far beyond " the limits of the world," were for many 
 ages connected, in the Roman mind, with nothing more 
 than grotesque or superstitious associations. The tales of 
 happy Hyperboreans ; Oxiones, with the heads of human 
 beings strangely wedded to brute forms ; Agathyrsians, 
 with blue streaming hair ; and savage dwellers in gloomy 
 twilight, where the sun never rises upon the Rhipaean 
 mountains, may have amused the gossips of the Forum, or 
 sometimes, in more philosophic circles, have given rise to 
 speculation concerning these strange beings and remote 
 realms; but it was long before they caused real political 
 alarm. In the Augustan age, under the complete adminis- 
 trative system of Tiberius, — even in those perilous days 
 when the conflicts between Otho, Galba, and Vitellius 
 disclosed, perhaps for the first time, the inherent weakness 
 of imperial rule, — the dark thundercloud of barbarian war 
 which hung upon the horizon of the Empire was as yet 
 " no bigger than a man's hand." The eagles were still, in 
 the proud language of the Roman historians, " the gods of 
 the battles." The legionaries, though recruited in Britain, 
 Gaul, or Spain, still upheld the glorious traditions of the 
 Republic among the hills of Wales, in Armenia, in Pales- 
 tine, on the Rhine. The splendid ritual of Paganism still 
 * Jornand. E. G. 24. 
 
EOME UNCONSCIOUS OF HER FATE. 155 
 
 dazzled the eyes of the multitude, although its inner life 
 was gone j — 
 
 " The oracles were dumb ; 
 No voice nor hideous hum 
 Ean through the arched roof in tones deceiving ; ** 
 
 but the snowy steer still fattened in the pastures of Cli- 
 tumnus, to fall at the altar of Capitolian Jove ; still, with 
 the silent virgin the pontiff scaled the Capitol, unconscious 
 how soon he was to surrender his time-honoured name 
 to the minister of a more ambitious system, and more 
 widely dominant faith ; — still the long triumph wound its 
 glittering coils far up the Sacred "Way, and showed to the 
 vainglorious rabble of the Circus and Suburra, the spoils of 
 barbaric nations, and the persons of captive kings ; — still 
 Janus sent forth his degenerate sons to war, and at the 
 return of peace the temple-gates were solemnly closed, and 
 Mars Gradivus crowned beside the shrine ; and still, though 
 the days of the Empire were numbered, and the spoiler at 
 her gates. Terminus stood fast where Rome's first fathers, 
 with reverent hands, and minds prophetic of her mighty 
 destinies, had fixed his place. At the very hour when 
 destruction was impending, how could these things be? 
 When her limbs were almost collapsing, and the dews of 
 death were already on her brow, how could the Queen of 
 the nations preserve her ancient and imperial mien 1 
 
 It is not difficult to discern some of the causes which, for 
 a time, maintained the cohesion of the Empire, and pre- 
 vented its disintegration, by the forces which had begun to 
 act upon it from within and from without. " Several causes 
 preserved the Empire in unity and strength, in spite of the 
 obvious defects of its organization. The Huns and the 
 Scythians were still hidden in their wastes ; and, with the 
 single exception of Judaea, the foreign nations which com- 
 posed the Roman dominions were either decrepit or im- 
 mature. The exhausted provinces of the Seleucidae ; the 
 
156 THE BARBARIAN RACES. 
 
 decayed kingdom of the Ptolemies ; the worn-out common- 
 wealths of Greece ; the effete barbarism of Gaul and Spain ; 
 and the rude chaos of Celtic Britain, had no elements of 
 national strength to oppose to the united and vigorous race 
 which, from the Alps to the end of Colchia, formed the 
 sovereign people of Rome. And, as the Empire was now 
 established thoroughly in these countries by means of colo- 
 nies or of military garrisons, there was no alternative in the 
 general weakness but that of submission to its domination. 
 But, though fear was as yet the main bond of the Roman 
 empire, the provinces, if politically subject, had few reasons 
 to regret their fate. They had, most of them, escaped a 
 much worse servitude : their governors, however despotic 
 they were, usually respected their religion and general 
 institutions ; they retained their social rights and domestic 
 laws ; and, occasionally, some of their higher citizens were 
 raised to eminent places in the Roman state. And, although 
 they were feeble as separate nationalities, they yielded all 
 the elements of power to bold and energetic masters ; and 
 the youth of Gaid, of Spain, and of Asia Minor, when 
 broken in to the Roman discipline, formed immense and 
 perfectly organized armies entirely free from patriotic ideas, 
 with no hope but that of rising in the service, and with no 
 country but that within sight of their eagles. Hence, the 
 Empire was very often at peace ; and in war was able to 
 crush its foes, although it pressed on a mass of subject 
 nations as yet deprived of political freedom. 
 
 " Again, the double administration of the Senate and the 
 Caesars was not so destructive as might be imagined, 
 although we think it was injurious to the Empire. As 
 head of all the armies of Rome, the emperor wielded the 
 power of the sword throughout a feeble and demoralized 
 world ; and, though forced to delegate it to his lieutenants, he 
 remained their military chief and superior, and inspired them 
 with a fear and respect peculiarly strong in the Roman breast. 
 
EEASONS WHICH DELAYED THE FALL OF ROME. 157 
 
 Even in the provinces of the Senate he was the real 
 arbiter of affairs ; he ruled, if he did not appoint, the pro- 
 consuls ; and, virtually, he was the source of law and 
 authority. Throughout his own provinces he was quite 
 supreme ; in them no check upon him could exist, and his 
 legates and procurators were wholly his instruments. As 
 regards Italy, he commanded the praetorians in person, and 
 thus he was her military despot ; at Rome, either by himself 
 or his agents, he was consul, censor, and tribune of the 
 people ; and thus he centralized the executive government 
 in himself. He had an undefinable control over the Senate ; 
 he was the legal champion of the Plebs ; he had by law much 
 legislative and judicial authority ; and he could always 
 throw the sword into the balance. Against this vast and 
 unlimited power, the Senate had nothing to oppose but its 
 ancient majesty and legal rights ; and thus, though it was 
 called an imperial estate of the realm that made a partition 
 of the sovereignty, it was in fact altogether subordinate. 
 Hence, the real constitution of the Empire at this period 
 was a military monarchy, veiled under the form of a part- 
 nership : there were but few efficient checks on despotism, 
 and the double administration of the Senate and the Caesars 
 was a delusion. Accordingly, the Empire to a great extent 
 was preserved from the anarchy of two independent govern- 
 ments ; though it seems to us that the name of the double 
 administration was now injurious to the state j and that the 
 worthless restraints upon the Caesars were only a cause of 
 irritation or revolution. * The image of the Republic,' as 
 Tacitus calls it, alarmed the visions of these despots ; and 
 this was the reason why so many of them hallooed on the 
 vile mob of Rome against the Senate, and so often proscribed 
 its best and noblest members. So, too, the 'majesty of the 
 Senate ' was the name inscribed on the banners of Galba and 
 Yitellius, and thus a mere incapable phantom became an 
 instrument of revolution. Hence we cannot regret that, 
 
158 THE BARBARIAN RACES. 
 
 henceforward, since a free government was no longer possi- 
 ble for Kome, the influence of the Senate becomes -weaker 
 and weaker, and that the unity and power of the Empire 
 are made more perfect by the complete sovereignty subse- 
 quently attained by the emperors."* 
 
 * The Times, December 29, 1859. 
 
LECTURE IV. 
 
 THE COLLISION— THE CELTS— THE TEUTONS— ATTILA 
 AND THE HUNS— THE AVARS. 
 
 ** Quum barbaries penitus commota gementem 
 Irrueret Rhodopen, et mixto turbine gentis. 
 Jam deserta suas in nos transfunderet Arctos ; 
 Danubii totae vomerent quum proelia ripae, 
 Quum Geticia ingens premeretur Mysia plaustris, 
 Flavaque Bistonios operirent agmina campos." 
 
 Claudian, de Quarto Conmlatu ffonorii, 49 — 54. 
 
 Synopsis. — The Celts : — Their first descent upon Italy to attack 
 the Etrurians ; besiege Rome under Brennus ; join the expedition of 
 Hannibal. — The Cimbri and Teutons repulsed by Marius. — Gaul com- 
 pletely subdued by Caesar.— Romanized under the Emperors. — The 
 Teutons : — Germans defy Caesar under Ariovistus ; slaughter the 
 legions of Varus ; never subdued by Rome. — Their various relations 
 to the Empire till the irruption of the Barbarians, a.d. 376. — This 
 year the Visigoths cross the Danube ; forced onward by the Huns. — 
 Sketch of the Gothic empire : its history. — War with the Eastern 
 empire. — Battle of Adrianople : its results. — The Turanians and 
 Slaves : — The Huns in Central Asia divide into two branches ; the 
 western branch occupy the land of the Goths. — Relations with the 
 Empire till the time of Attila. — The history of Attila ; his quarrel 
 with both Empires ; establishes a barbarian empire of his own ; loses 
 the great battle of Chalons ; again invades Italy ; dies ; his empire 
 broken up. — Reappearance of Turanians in Europe, under the name of 
 Avars; receive tribute from the Greek emperor ; are piu:sued by the 
 Turks ; establish a powerful kingdom under Baian ; reduce the Slaves ; 
 at war with the Greeks ; form an alliance with the Persians ; lay siege 
 to Constantinople, and are repulsed. — Kingdom broken up by a revolt 
 of the Slaves under Samo. — Slavonians settled in South Europe by 
 the Greek emperor. — Turanians reappear in the ninth century. — 
 Hunugara and Maygars. 
 
 With this immeasurable mass of external barbarism, 
 Home came into contact by slow degrees. Many centuries 
 elapsed during the process, which began by the conquest 
 and assimilation of Gaul, and terminated by the collapse of 
 
160 THE COLLISION.— THE CELTS. 
 
 Italy under the pressure of the Germanic tribes. With the 
 former, we have but little to do. The history of the Celtic 
 Gauls had already terminated by absorption into that of 
 their conquerors, even before the " origines " of modern 
 history commence. The whole history of the Celtic race 
 has been divided by their able historian, M. A. Thierry, into 
 four periods. The first was that of nomad existence, when 
 Asia, Europe, and Africa were alike visited by their ro\dng 
 bands. Their name became a terror to the world ; they 
 burnt Rome, plundered Delphi, settled themselves in the 
 peninsula of Asia Minor, were found upon the banks of the 
 Nile, laid siege to Carthage. The second period was that of 
 national development and settled life. Their social charac- 
 teristics were singular in themselves, and produced singular 
 results. '* One might deem," says Thierry, " that the theo- 
 cracy of India, the feudality of the middle ages, and the 
 democracy of Athens, had met in the same soil, and asserted, 
 one after another, their supremacy." In Cisalpiue Gaul this 
 national life was affected by intercourse with Rome ; in 
 southern Gaul it was materially modified by Greek civiliza- 
 tion ; in the remaining part of the same country it partook 
 of the gloom and rigour of the north. The third period 
 comprises their struggle for existence with Rome, and their 
 fall. Everywhere the Roman sword was the instrument 
 employed by destiny to achieve their ruin. After two cen- 
 turies of resistance, Italian Gaul at last succumbed. The 
 Galatse still bravely struggled in Asia Minor, when all the 
 other nations of the East had accepted the yoke. It was 
 only after a long and sanguinary war, after immense suffer- 
 ings, and heroic efforts of patriotism, that Gaul proper 
 bowed to Caesar's exterminating sword. Beyond the ocean, 
 the great Britannic leaders, Caractacus, Boadicea, Galgacus, 
 renewed and continued the strife. Yet all this was only 
 preparatory to the fourth period, — the period of the organ- 
 ization of Gaul into a Roman province, and of the complete 
 
BEENNUS OX THE CAPITOL. 161 
 
 assimilation of the Celtic race. Of this we shall hereafter 
 speak ; at present we are to glance briefly at the relations 
 of the Celts to Italy and the Roman empire. Tradition, as 
 we just remarked, records the movements of warrior bands 
 of Celts at early periods, even in what we are accustomed to 
 regard the ancient history of Greece and Rome. Etnirian 
 civilization was probably anterior to that of either, yet 
 Etrurian civilization was disturbed by the roving Celts, who 
 scaled the mighty barrier of the Alps and descended upon 
 the fertile vales beneath. Under the name of Isambi'a, they 
 settled in the basin of the Po, and spread their populous 
 villages — towns they cannot be called — over its rich alluvial 
 soil. Fresh tribes poured through those mountain-passes, 
 which have ever been regarded as the gates of Italy, and 
 surged up against the Cyclopean walls of the Etrurian cities. 
 Suffering under one of those terrible inundations, Etruria 
 called upon her rival, Rome. The young Republic, like an 
 infant Hercules, defied the men of the north ; she paid the 
 penalty of her scorn in the defeat of her armies on the field 
 of battle, and the slaughter of her senators and matrons in 
 the Capitol. The Roman historians, with that national 
 vanity which is perhaps pardonable when it forms a large 
 ingredient in national greatness, assert that the celebrated 
 Camillus avenged his countrymen, and put the Gauls to the 
 sword. in the very hour of victory, amid the devastation they 
 had made. It is but little probable. There are traces of 
 their presence for nearly twenty years upon the banks of 
 the Tiber, and they did not depart without gold and spoil. 
 Henceforth, for many years, the Gaul was a terrible reminis- 
 cence and a dangerous foe to Rome. A long and sanguinary 
 struggle, in which her armies were often in peril, at last 
 freed the Republic from the presence of these unwelcome 
 strangers ; but it required the skill and valour of one of her 
 best soldiers, — Marcellus, the sword of Rome, — to effect the 
 deliverance. The Gauls, however, were not destroyed, nor 
 
 II 
 
162 THE COLLISION.— THE CELTS. 
 
 even intimidated. The best and foremost of the soldiers of 
 Hannibal, they nearly repeated, after the fatal field of 
 Cannae, the exploits of Brennus within the walls of the 
 capital. After the Punic wars, Kome, inspired with ven- 
 geance and perhaps with alarm, turned and smote fiercely 
 her ancient enemy. She carried the war beyond the Alps, 
 and employing the Greek colony of Massilia, or Marseilles, 
 as a pied cb terre, pushed steadily her political influence 
 among the tribes of the various Gallic confederacies. But 
 now an unforeseen event, "immense and appalling as a 
 second deluge," says Michelet, arrested the progress of Bome, 
 and nearly swept her not only from Gaul, but from Italy 
 itself The Baltic, owing to some unknown convulsion of 
 nature, burst its barriers. Flying before its waves, Gauls 
 and Germans, Cymry, or Cimbri, and Teutons, rolled on- 
 ward in immense multitudes towards the south. To their 
 natural courage was added the stern goading of necessity and 
 the fury of despair. Defeating a Eoman army which attempted 
 to bar their passage, they poured in to Gaul to the number ot 
 300,000 warriors, exclusive of aged men, women, and chil- 
 dren, who brought up the rear in the rude waggons of their 
 nation. The living torrent passed on, leaving famine and 
 desolation behind, sufierings so bitter that the wretched 
 inhabitants in their dire extremity fed on human flesh. 
 Arrived at the banks of the Bhine, they found themselves 
 face to face with the Boraan empire, that Boman empire 
 which they or their kinsmen had encountered on the distant 
 Danube, in Macedonia or in Thrace, and which seemed to 
 their untutored minds to fill the world. Awestruck by the 
 grandeur of the imperial image, they shrunk back with 
 superstitious fear, and humbly asked the Bomans to grant 
 them lands which they were willing to purchase with the 
 service of their swords. The request was refused ; the 
 Bomans crossed the Bhine, and paid for tReir temerity by a 
 defeat. Then, one consular army after another was cut to 
 
THE CELTS IN PEOVENCE. 163 
 
 pieces. Nothing but ignorance and a lingering dread of the 
 great empire of the south kept these capricious barbarians be- 
 yond the Alps and saved the capital. But a terrible tragedy, 
 enacted in Provence, soon excited as much alarm in Rome as 
 if their standards could have been descried from the Jani- 
 culum. The Koman consul, C. Servilius Csepio, about this 
 time cruelly sacked Tolosa, now Toulouse, a town belonging 
 to the Tectosages, a Gallic tribe who had cried for help to 
 the kindred invaders. The booty he attempted by treachery 
 to appropriate to his own use. This caused a quarrel with 
 his colleague, and in the opinion of the age called down 
 upon his devoted head the anger of the gods. Be this as it 
 may, he chose to fight alone. In one of the most furiously- 
 contested conflicts known in history, the Gauls exterminated 
 him and his army of 80,000 soldiers, slaying every liviag 
 being they found in either camp, and casting gold, silver, 
 arms, and even horses, into the Rhone. 
 
 Italy was at their mercy. Happily for Rome and for the 
 civilized world, the fascination which the south exercises 
 upon northern minds, attracted them to the Pyrenees rather 
 than to the Alps. But Rome knew that the descent upon 
 Italy must come, and come at an early period. In her 
 alarm, she called upon one of her most famous sons, Marius 
 the Arpinate, who had been serving in Africa, to deliver 
 her from this hitherto invincible enemy. " This hardy sol- 
 dier, almost as terrible to his own country as to the enemy, 
 and savage as the Cimbri he was about to oppose, was to 
 Rome a saving god."* He wearied and outmanoeuvred the 
 barbarians in the south of France. They broke into two 
 bodies ; the Cimbri taking the road through Helvetia and 
 Noricum, while the Teutons intended to carry the in- 
 trenched camp of Marius by storm, and, passing over the 
 dead bodies of its defenders, to enter Italy by the passes of 
 the maritime Alps. The general rendezvous was in the 
 * Michelet. 
 M 2 
 
16i THE COLLISION.— THE CELTS. 
 
 Lombard plains. It was on the latter body that the bolt of 
 Boman vengeance first fell, and it was as sudden and as 
 terrible in its effects as if it had really fulminated from the 
 throne of Capitolian Jove. The Teutons, repulsed in a pre- 
 liminary skirmish and reproached by their women, who 
 themselves from the top of their waggons drove back the 
 Roman legionaries, were wrought up to a pitch of frantic 
 and fatal excitement. They precipitated themselves into a 
 river. The Romans took them in the rear, and the battle 
 soon became nothing but wild flight and exterminating 
 slaughter. At the lowest computation, a hundred thousand 
 men perished upon these bloody plains, which to this very hour 
 retain in their appellation a signal memorial of that day of 
 butchery. The traveller from the north who visits 
 Pourrieres, in Provence, the Campi putridi of the 
 ancients, is reminded by a name redolent of corruption and 
 the charnel-house, that his step is on the grave of his Ger- 
 man sires. Nor are there wanting other memorials of the 
 strife. The peasant long dressed his vines with the thigh- 
 bones of the gigantic Teutons who fell upon that memorable 
 field. A temple to Victory had been erected immediately 
 after the battle ; on its site arose the church of St. Victoire, 
 and up to the era of the French revolution, an annual pro- 
 cession commemorated the deliverance of Rome. A pyramid 
 raised in honour of Marius remained till the fifteenth century, 
 and the town of Pourrieres took for its municipal arms the 
 Triumph of Marius as represented on a Roman bas-relief. 
 
 Meanwhile, the Cimbri were slowly winding their way 
 through the defiles of the Noric Alps. They reached 
 the neighbourhood of the rendezvous in the valley of 
 the Adige ; but their brethren were not there ; they 
 were feeding the raven and the kite in Gaul. The 
 Cimbri, in ignorance of their fate, determined to await 
 their arnval, and unhappily for themselves, omitted the 
 opportunity of following the army of Catulus, which fell 
 
MAJIIUS DEFEATS THE CIMBRI AND TEUTONS. 165 
 
 back behind the Po. During this delay, the softer climate, 
 the -wines, and luxurious food of Italy, produced their usual 
 effect upon the hardy frames of the northern savages. And 
 what was still worse, Marius had time to throw bimseli 
 between them and the capital. With true barbarian sim- 
 plicity, they sent an embassy to Marius, and asked lands for 
 themselves and their brethren. " Your brethren have the 
 lands we have given them," said the Roman, " and will keep 
 them for ever!" He then produced the captive Teutons 
 who had followed his camp from Gaul. The Cimbri undis- 
 mayed, bid him name the day and the place where he would 
 fight for Italy. He appointed the third day, and some open 
 ground near Vercelli. The Cimbri, utterly devoid of strategic 
 skill, allowed themselves to be decoyed into a position with 
 the sun and wind in their faces. The result was what 
 Marius anticipated. Choked by the rolling clouds of dust 
 and dazzled by the sun, the barbarians soon became an un- 
 manageable mass, and with their crowded columns and rude 
 weapons, which bent after the first stroke, made but an 
 ineffectual resistance to the serried ranks of Rome, armed 
 with that well-tempered and terrible broadsword which had 
 cleft its way from the Latian plains to the Persian Gulf, 
 and to the Pillars of Hercules. The men were cut to pieces. 
 They had still to deal with the women; an easy prey it 
 might seem to victorious legionaries. But the women were 
 cast in no less heroic mould. Preferring death to dishonour, 
 they first strangled their children, casting them beneath the 
 wheels of their waggons, and then hung themselves, fasteniug 
 the noose to the horns of their oxen to insure being trampled 
 to pieces. Even the dogs of the horde fought to the death ; 
 it was necessary to call out and employ the light 
 troops, who destroyed them with arrows. Thus did 
 Rome escape her first great peril from the barbaric world. We 
 have dwelt upon it, because it was the first, an antetaste of 
 those dire and bloody struggles which were in after-ages to dye 
 
166 THE COLLISION.— THE CELTS. 
 
 the plains of Italy with BomaD blood, and avenge long centu- 
 ries of cruelty and crime. And we have also dwelt upon it 
 because it explains the cause of that which is not well un- 
 derstood, — the determined and sanguinary perseverance with 
 which Rome carried the sword amongst the Gallic tribes, 
 and the successful efforts which she made to assimilate them 
 to herself. Influenced by the remembrance of this alarm, 
 and anxious to prevent its recurrence, or fired perhaps by 
 the traditionary glories of his jiredecessor in the leadership 
 of the popular i arty, the great Dictator descended from the 
 Al^ s, resolved by fair means or by foul, to destroy all chance 
 of peril for the future, and set his heel upon the neck of 
 the advei'sary of Rome. To carry out this object he was 
 ashamed of no subterfuge, and spared no blood. And 
 indeed it is to the existence of this fixed purpose in his 
 resolute mind that we are indebted for the birthday of our 
 own civilization. He was told that Gaul perpetually de- 
 rived aid from an island whose white cliffs were visible 
 across a storm-tossed ocean from her northern shore. Here 
 was the sacred seat of her religion, the stronghold of those 
 fanatic priests, who could at any moment excite the savage 
 Celtic race to a sanguinary fury. Hence then the determi- 
 nation of the Roman to extirpate the evil at its root, and 
 hence the dawn of that long day of civilization and glory 
 which has since shed its splendour upon the white-cliffed 
 isle. Caesar completely succeeded ; but to do so he fought 
 fourteen years without intermission, won battles on the Jura, 
 among the volcanic passes of Auvergne, in Belgium, and in the 
 Armorican peninsula ; led large armies twice to the shores of 
 the Western Ocean, and once across the Rhine, and 
 * * * is said to have sacrificed two millions of men. Then 
 he changed his policy. He favoured Gaul and the Gauls 
 in every possible way. Even the tribute which he was com- 
 pelled to levy, he disguised under the honourable appellation 
 of military pay. He enlisted the bravest Gallic warriors 
 
THE CELTS LATINIZED. 167 
 
 under his standard, and they followed him fearlessly over 
 the Alps and across the Rubicon to the gates of Rome. 
 One distinguished legion was entirely composed of Gauls. 
 From the crest which they wore upon their helmets, they 
 were styled the " Legion of the Lark," no unfit symbol of the 
 gaiete de ccrw with which the Celtic warrior so often rushes 
 upon death.* Henceforward no real opposition was organized 
 by the Celtic race against Rome. Druidism in the time of 
 Tiberius made a final effort under Sacrovir, a name 
 which is perhaps only the Latin representative of 
 "Druid;" but this, though aided by the Belgae, said by 
 Caesar to be " the bravest of the Gauls," was speedily put 
 down by the armies of the Rhine. The war waged in the 
 time of Vespasian can hardly come under the category of 
 revolt. It was a struggle for empire; but the empire would 
 still have been Roman even had it rested in Gallic hands. 
 Civilis, indeed, a Batavian, hated Rome with the hatred of 
 a Hannibal, to whom he was fond of comparing himself, and, 
 aided by the German national prophetess Velleda, obtained 
 some considerable advantages over the Roman forces. A 
 wild report that the Capitol had been burnt in the struggle 
 between Otho and Vitellius, spread rapidly through the pro- 
 vinces, and the Druids, declaring that the Palladium of Rome, 
 the pledge of her eternal existence, had perished, proclaimed 
 that Gaul was to take her place as mistress of the world.f 
 But when the armies sent against Civilis had disbanded ; 
 when tributaries and allies had joined the revolt ; when 
 the peril of Rome was imminent, and no Roman appeared 
 to stem the torrent, the Empire was saved by a man of alien 
 blood. Another Batavian, Cerealis, by displaying the eagles, 
 soon renewed the allegiance of the recreant legionaries, and 
 reduced both Civilis and Yelleda to submission. Thoroughly 
 cowed, they disclaimed the intention of carrying 
 out any national movement, and alleged that ^•^•^^* 
 * Suetonius, Vit. Julii, c. 25. f Tacit. Hist. iv. 54. 
 
168 THE COLLISION.— THE CELTS. 
 
 they had only taken up arms in favour of Vespasian 
 against Vitellius. Henceforward the influence of Gaul upon 
 the Empire was as great as that of the Empire upon Gaul. 
 Indeed, it had already been as great. Koman laws, customs, 
 social habits, and political institutions, even the Roman 
 language, were dominant in Gaul, properly so called, and 
 nearly dominant in Britain. The only portion of the Celtic 
 i"ace who retained their independence and national character- 
 istics were the hardy Pictish and Scottish mountaineers, 
 who, under Galgacus, bared their painted breasts to the 
 Koman broadsword, or in after-days descended from the 
 Grampians upon the debateable land which lay between the 
 walls of Hadrian and Antoninus, and pursued the retreating 
 steps of Roman civilization to the very shores of the sea 
 which rolled between them and Roman Gaul. There the 
 Celt had become completely Latinized in feeling as well as 
 in manners. His national sentiment was merged in the 
 prouder sentiment of Roman citizenship; a magnificent tem- 
 ple arose at Lyons to the divinity of Augustus, and sixty 
 statues, symbolizing the sixty states of Gaul, surrounded the 
 statue of the emperor. The emperor Claudius, who was 
 himself a Gaul by birth, readmitted, after Csesar's example, 
 Gauls into the Senate.* To furnish Germanicus with men, 
 money, and horses, against the German enemy, was esteemed 
 in Gaul an act of most exalted patriotisni. The hardy races 
 who for four-and-twenty years had resisted the sword of 
 Caesar, and extorted from him no scanty encomiums upon 
 their energy and valour, are described by the historians of 
 the Empire, as " rich and lazy." " Southern Gaul is not a 
 province, it is Italy itself," says Pliny. Many of the men 
 most distinguished for literature, politics, and arms in the 
 
 * "The oration which he pronounced upon this occasion, a.D. 48, and 
 which is still preserved at Lyons on tablets of bronze, is the first 
 authentic monument of our national history, the patent of our admis- 
 sion into this vast initiation of the world." — Michelet, Ilisloire de 
 France, i. 3. 
 
C^SAR AND ARIOVISTUS. 169 
 
 late Koman annals were Gauls. Cornelius Gallus, the friend 
 of Virgil, was a native of Frejus. M. Antonius, the leading 
 orator of Rome, the teacher of Cicero and Csesar, was a 
 Gaulish slave. His countrymen ever after maintained a 
 leading reputation for eloquence in the Koman courts. 
 Trogus Pompeius, the first compiler of a universal history, 
 was of Gaulish origin. Petronius, the father of Romance, was 
 born near Marseilles. Nor were Gauls without a more direct 
 influence upon the political destinies of the Empire. Vindex, 
 who dethroned Nero, was a native of Aquitaine. Vespasian 
 owed his elevation to " Baccas," or " Bee," born at Toulouse. 
 Provence gave birth to Agricola, the first soldier and ad- 
 ministrator of post-Christian Rome. Nismes gave to her the 
 best emperor who ever sat upon the seat of the Csesars, 
 Antoninus Pius. 
 
 Rome then completely Latinized the Celt, assimilated him, 
 made him her own. The Teuton was, morally speaking, of far 
 less malleable materials, and was never assimilated to his foe. 
 The relations of Rome with Germany were always those of 
 war, generally war to the knife. Caesar found in Ariovistus 
 a spirit as haughty as his own, and soldiers as bi-ave as the 
 legionaries, prepared to contest the dominion of Gaul. His 
 star did not desert him ; he had his usual fortune 
 in the conflict, and gained a victory. But, so far 
 as Germany itself was concerned, the victory was a barren 
 one. His laborious and skilful passage of the Rhine, un- 
 dertaken with the object of spreading the terrors of the 
 Roman name through all the central tribes of Germany, 
 did not for a moment dismay those resolute savages, who 
 boasted that they could uphold the heavens upon their 
 lances, and had not slept beneath a roof for years. They 
 renewed the struggle, and continued it until they stood 
 as conquerors upon the Capitol. The darkest disaster in 
 the Roman story, — a disaster which destroyed the pres- 
 tige of her hitherto invincible arms, broke the heart of the 
 
170 THE COLLISION.— THE TEUTONS. 
 
 successful master of the world, and inspired the Roman mind 
 
 with an alarm never afterwards wholly calmed, — 
 
 was wrought by the sword of Arminius upon the 
 
 helpless legions of Varus, in the dark recesses of the Teuto- 
 
 burger Wald. 
 
 It was something more than the loss of a certain number 
 of men, good and tried soldiers though they were, which 
 weighed upon tlie mind of Augustus on his deathbed. It 
 was a foreboding of what was to come, — a sort of prophetic 
 sentiment, which dimly saw, in these untamed sons of the 
 forest, the inheritors of all his labours and of all the long 
 glories of the Eoman name. 
 
 Impressed with these ideas, he had, during his life- 
 time, sent the princes of the blood royal to combat on 
 the German frontiers. After his death, Tiberius, who had 
 won his own best laurels in this strife, continued the same 
 policy. The ablest, most promising, and most popular 
 prince of this era owed the greatest part of his reputa- 
 tion to the exploits on the banks of the Weser, from which 
 he derived the surname of Germanicus. Many military 
 operations, which may be partly traced in the chronological 
 appendix at the close of this volume, show that the struggle 
 between Rome and Germany was continued, with brief inter- 
 missions, during the three first centuries of the Empire. 
 And although, as we have already seen, there was during this 
 time no apprehension of the ultimate result, yet there is 
 sufficient to show that the nations beyond the Rhine had 
 begun to excite an attention not altogether unmingled with 
 alarm. The very existence of the treatise of Tacitus, " De 
 Moribus Germanorum," is a proof of this. And, indeed, in 
 his other works the same writer uses language which shows 
 that he did not altogether underrate the valour and exploits 
 of these formidable neighbours. " Arminius," he says, " did 
 not, like other monarchs and chiefs, assail the infancy of the 
 Roman people ; he assailed them at the summit of their 
 
THE DEFEAT OF VARUS. ^71 
 
 power and glory, often holding his own in battle, and never 
 vanquished." * 
 
 "Twice, and twice only," exclaims Suetonius, "did 
 Augustus suffer grievous and disgraceful defeat, and both 
 times in, Germany." t The historian Florus admits, with 
 candour, that the Germans might rather be described as con- 
 quered in action, than subdued in war. " Upon the Roman 
 empire," he says, " unbounded even by the ocean, the defeat 
 of Varus imposed the limit of the Rhine." { And in the 
 same spirit Tacitus speaks of the Roman emperors as cele- 
 brating triumphs over the Germans, rather than conquering 
 them, a conquest, he adds, truly long in the achieving. More 
 passages might easily be adduced, but these are sufficient to 
 show that the force of the German genius and the German 
 sword was not altogether unknown at Rome. And Rome 
 in two ways indicated her appreciation of both. She availed 
 herself of the turbulent character of the first to apply the 
 Machiavellian maxim, " Divide and rule." " Oh that our 
 foes would ever thus be ready to cut each other's 
 throats ; since in the declining destiny of an empire, for- 
 tune can grant no greater boon than the discord of its 
 enemies." § And the same philosophical observer acknow- 
 ledges that to the prosecution of a policy like this, Rome 
 owed more than to the force of arms.|| The second, the 
 German sword, she bought off with gold, and employed in 
 her own service. Even the great Dictator had done this. 
 His Germanic legionaries won the battle of Pharsalia. For 
 a long series of years the throne of those who succeded 
 him was girt by the Goth and Frank, and guarded by their 
 sturdy swords. The Praetorian life-guards of the emperor, 
 in the time of Tiberius, according to the narrative of 
 Tacitus, were Germans. IT Many writers have condemned 
 
 * Ann. ii. 88. t Vit. Oct. § 23. 
 
 t Flor. iv. 12. § Tac. Ger. 33. 
 
 II Ann. ii. 26. U Ann. i. 24. 
 
172^ THE COLLISION.— THE TEUTONS. 
 
 this practice of barbari£|,ii enlistment, and seen in it one of 
 the causes of the fall of the Empire. They do not see that 
 it was a simple necessity. It may have taught the disci- 
 pline of Eome to the enemies of Eome ; but, without it, 
 Rome could not have held Italy for a month. The de- 
 generate rabble of foreigners and freedmen who filled her 
 streets would not have stood a single shock of northern war ; 
 it would be as reasonable to array the Lazzaroni of Naples 
 against the German or English bayonet. 
 
 Such, then, — and so widely different from those which she 
 bore to Gaul, — were the relations of Eome to Germany, during 
 the four centuries and a half that preceded the 
 gi-eat crisis which historians have generally agreed 
 to call the " Irruption of the barbarians." In the one race 
 we may detect the elements of a vigorous natural life — 
 development, progress, and dominion ; in the other, the 
 seeds of a national death — corruption, feebleness, decay. 
 Gibbon has endeavoured to sneer away the virtues of our 
 Teutonic ancestors ; Adelung has visited them with a still 
 more ungenerous and systematic depreciation ; but there 
 is no reason to dispute the general conclusions of a late 
 writer : — 
 
 " That the Germans possessed a pre-eminent capacity for 
 development, progress, and dominion, might be gathered 
 from other works of Tacitus, even though the ' Germania' 
 had not been written. The attitude which the Germans 
 assumed towards the Romans on their first meeting in Gaul, 
 and in their subsequent intercourse, was never that of mere 
 savages. They did not, indeed, undervalue the Roman 
 power ; they knew that it was terrible, that it had hitherto 
 been irresistible. They neither recklessly sought a collision 
 with Csesar, nor did they timidly shrink from it, when they 
 thought their rights invaded ; for they had a proud con- 
 sciousness of what was in themselves. They were not 
 overawed by the superiority which long ages of wealth and 
 
EELATIONS OF EOME AND GERMANY. 173 
 
 civilization had conferred upon their opponents. They did 
 not, as is the custom with mere savages, slink away before 
 the face of those who came armed with the power of know- 
 ledge, and adorned by the arts of life ; nor did they seek to 
 denationalize themselves by slavishly aping what they could 
 not readily acquire. They looked their superiors boldly and 
 calmly in the face ; they kept up their pride in their own 
 race and name, and considered the XJbii degraded by the 
 adoption of the Roman dress and manners. They quickly 
 learned from their enemies what it suited their purpose to 
 know. In the service of the Empire, they became the most 
 skilful soldiers ; they formed the bravest legions ; they 
 decided the fate of the most important battles ; they 
 furnished the ablest generals and statesmen, — men who, 
 single-handed, sustained the imperial throne, yet, in the 
 very heart of the emperors palace, never ceased to be 
 Germans. And when at last they threw themselves upon 
 the Roman empire, with the determination to take posses- 
 sion of its fairest provinces, no difficulties and no disasters 
 could deter them. Though often defeated, they were 
 never conquered; a wave might roll back, but the tide 
 advanced ; they held firmly to their purpose till it was 
 attained; they wrested the ball and sceptre from Roman 
 hands, and have kept them until now."* 
 
 Our purpose does not require that we should particularize 
 every incident in the relations of Rome to the external 
 world between the final subjugation of Britain 
 by Agricola, when she may be regarded as most 
 strong, and the passage of the Danube by the Visigoths, when 
 she was already on the brink of ruin. During this 
 long period the barbarian world, like a cauldron, 
 seething and foaming with its waters in a strange agitation, 
 dashed race against race, throwing some up to the surface, 
 and overwhelming others in a vortex of strife. The Alans 
 * The Franks, by W. C. Perry, ch. i. ad finem. 
 
174 THE COLLISION.— THE TEUTONS. 
 
 appear in the east, and assail the Parthian empire, which 
 calls upon its ancient rival for aid. The Dacians cross the 
 Danube, and are bought off by the gold of Domitian. Far 
 in the depths of Central Asia the Huns begin to stir and 
 divide into two great hordes. On the shores of the Baltic 
 the ocean quits its bed, and produces a physical convulsion, 
 which results in a like disturbance and displacement of the 
 surrounding tribes. Sarmatians, Marcomanni, Quadi, Van- 
 dals, are forced southward, and, spreading far and wide, 
 overleap the natural barriers which guard the 
 sacred soil of Italy, and appear under the walls 
 of Aquileia. Marcus Aurelius dies combating the last-named 
 tribe. 
 
 Soon the Franks are seen for the first time upon the 
 Rhine. In the year 241 a.d., the great 
 Aurelian, the future conqueror of the East, 
 overthrows them near Mayence. In 254: a.d. they in- 
 vade Gaul, and make their way through Spain as far as 
 Mauritania. Probus defeats them twice in 277 A.D., and 
 settles some of them by the Black Sea. But the daring 
 exiles set off in their frail barks, and, sailing up the Medi- 
 terranean, plunder all before them. They pass the Pillars 
 of Hercules, and arrive at the mouth of the Bhine, where 
 they disembark in safety. History records no more romantic 
 exploit. In 293 a.d. Constantius settles a colony of them 
 in Gaul. Julian has hard fighting with them in 358, but 
 subdues the Salians. 
 About the middle of the third century, the terrible Goths are 
 for the first time seen in force upon the fron- 
 tier, and Decius dies in battle against them. 
 Another ten years sees an act of doubtful policy, pregnant 
 with danger to the destinies of Borne. In 271 a.d., Aurelian 
 allows the Goths to settle in trans-Danubian Dacia, and the 
 name of Roman Dacia is henceforward confined to part of 
 Mcesia, south of the great river. The assaults of barbarism come 
 
THE "IRRUPTION OF THE BARBARIANS." 175 
 
 thick and fast. The Alemanni, a Teuton tribe of whom we 
 have already spoken, force their way into Italy, and overrun 
 the Umbrian plains. The danger becomes too obvious to be 
 neglected, and the emperor Probus constructs that gigantic, 
 but ineffectual rampart, described in a previous lecture. He 
 exhibits towards the Franks the same timid policy with 
 which Aurelian had treated the Goths, and grants them 
 lands in GauL Circumstances rendered the transaction of 
 grave importance. The fiscal tyranny of the Empire had 
 by this time rendered life insupportable to the poorer pro- 
 vincials. Peasant insurrections, exact antetypes of the Jac- 
 querie of later times, were raging with great fury throughout 
 Gaul. Under the name of Bagaudse,* these ignorant and ^ 
 desperate men had from time to time rendered whole dis- 
 tricts a waste of bloodshed and devastation. The Frankish 
 sword, enlisted in the service of Rome, seemed to the politic 
 administrators, who, in dealing with her destinies, dreamt 
 of little but revenue, an admirable curb for these savage 
 spirits. They granted, therefore, lands to their Frank 
 auxiliaries in those fair regions, which they never after- 
 wards abandoned, and to which they have given a name 
 second to none in the annals of European nations. 
 Probus was slain in battle, notwithstanding his 
 successes and his wall. The emperor Julian repeated the 
 grant to another body of the Frankish confedera- 
 tion, who, receding before the barbarous Quadi, 
 crossed the Rhine, and obtained a location in Brabant. 
 
 We have now reached the period when historians uni- 
 versally agree that the first great and permanent impulse 
 towards its downfall was given by barbarism to the fabric 
 of Roman power. Before this era there had been irrup- 
 tions, settlements, and conflicts ; but they were partial, 
 of a mere local character, without any large and lasting 
 
 * The etymology of this word is very uncertain. See a long note in 
 Michelet, i. 3. 
 
176 THE COLLISION.— THE TEUTONS. 
 
 influence upon the destinies of the Empire. Sarmatian 
 horsemen, clad in complete steel, and stout Dacian infantry, 
 were perpetually crossing the Danube, for plundering raids 
 upon the oj^posite banks, and giving to the Roman generals 
 who repulsed them the sterile honours of a triumph, or 
 occasionally triumphing themselves, and defeating Italian 
 armies in the field ; but, upon the whole, they were 
 driven back, probably by their own brethren serving be- 
 neath the Roman eagles.* But the passage of the Danube 
 by the West Goths, in the year 376 A.D., was an event 
 of a different character ; for, from that time, Rome never 
 recovered her imperial prestige ; while the barbarian na- 
 tions steadily advanced to the position of powerful and 
 independent kingdoms. It is therefore desirable to describe, 
 with somewhat more exactness, the causes which produced 
 this memorable movement, and determined its direction. 
 
 At the period of which we are writing, the later decades 
 of the fourth century, the populations belonging to the 
 three great Teutonic, Slavonic, and Turanian or Mongol 
 races, had become intermingled, and, so to speak, interlaced 
 with each other, by the action of war and migration. In 
 general terms, the Teuton held the Scandinavian peninsula, 
 the countries on the right bank of the Rhine, the left bank 
 of the Danube, and the northern coast of the Black Sea, 
 almost as far as the river Tanais, or Don. The north-east 
 of Europe, all the great Russian steppes, to the foot of the 
 Ural Mountains, were occupied by the Turanian tribes, 
 known as Fins or Zoumi, who were unceasingly recruited 
 by exhaustless hordes, sweeping ever onward from the 
 wilds of Tartary, upon their small but hardy steeds. 
 The imagination requires some material assistance, such 
 as that afforded by contemplating the admirable de- 
 lineation of the earth's surface on the great globe of 
 Mr. Wyld, before we can form any idea of the immeu- 
 * Thc. Hist. i. 79 : iii. 46. 
 
THE HUNS FORCE FORWARD THE GOTHS. 177 
 
 sity of space included within the limits of northern and 
 central Asia, or of its capacity to pour forth such mighty 
 and unceasing tides of population. A movement of tribes 
 beyond the Caspian Sea, occasioned by war or any other 
 cause, and necessitating a change of locality, caused its 
 pulsations to be felt far onward throughout eastern, and then 
 through western Europe, to the very walls of the Roman 
 fortresses along the Rhine. Thus it came to pass that the 
 Asiatic tribes were ever exerting a pressure upon their 
 barbarous neighbours, which gradually propelled them 
 upon the Empire. The Slaves, in particular, conquered 
 and thrown back by the Teutons on the south and west, 
 felt the full weight of the Turanian migrations upon the 
 east and north, and were compressed by their adversaries 
 on both sides as within a vice, or between the legs of a 
 compass, into central Europe. Of the existence of these 
 outermost barbarians, the Romans had some small notion in 
 the first century, but little more. A few vague words of Ta- 
 citus,* already quoted, describe the Fenui or Fins, as a mce 
 of marvellous ferocity, utterly destitute of all that constitutes 
 the wealth of civilized life, clad in skins, feeding on the 
 grass of the field, and living by the use of arrows, which 
 they pointed with fish-bones for want of iron. Yet it was 
 one of these wild races which proximately caused the fall 
 of Rome. 
 
 As early as the second century of our era, the geographer 
 Ptolemyt mentions the appearance of the Xovroi, or, as the 
 Latins called them, the Hunni, among the Slave populations 
 on the banks of the Dnieper ; and another writer speaks of 
 them as camping between the Caucasus and the Caspian 
 Sea, from which inaccessible locality they extended their 
 j)lundering raids into Asia Minor. J This federation of no- 
 mad robbers appears to have gathered strength and consist- 
 ency during the next hundred and fifty years. In the fourth 
 * Germ. § 46. t Ptol. ill. 5. + Dion. Per. v. 730. 
 
 N 
 
178 THE COLLISION.— THE TEUTONS. 
 
 century we find them on both slopes of the Ural chain, 
 extending nearly from the north pole to the Caspian, and 
 ravaging at their will, Europe on the one side, and Asia 
 on the other. Jornandes, the Gothic historian of this 
 period, or, more correctly, the abridger of the great work of 
 Cassiodonis upon the annals of his countrymen, tells us in 
 his characteristic style, that the stem of the Hunnic stock 
 " budded forth into two infuriated branches " (in hifa/riam 
 populorum rahiem puUularuiit).* Of these, the eastern 
 branch, much less hideous than the other, say the Greek 
 historians, gave to themselves the appellation of White 
 Huns. Their locality was the neighbourhood of the 
 Caspian Sea. The western, or Black Huns, turned towards 
 Europe. M. Thierry, unwilling to plunge into the laby- 
 rinth of doubt and conjecture in which modern learning 
 has lost itself more than once upon this subject, states, 
 nevertheless, his conviction that the "domination Hun- 
 nique " included the Turkish tribes towards the east, the 
 Fins on the west, and a sovereign Mongol race much more 
 decidedly Asiatic in its attributes than the Fins. It is at 
 least, as we have already seen, under an exaggerated form 
 of the Mongol type, that contemporary history describes 
 Attila and his formidable horsemen. The Goths, who had 
 by this time attained to a high comparative civilization, 
 were, of all the Teuton tribes, most harassed and appalled 
 by the apparition of the Black Huns upon their borders. 
 In their alarm they indulged in the wildest imaginations. 
 Jornandes ascribes to these strangers a birth half human, 
 half demoniacal, and tells us they were at first a puny race, 
 dwelling among morasses, hideous to look upon, and pos- 
 sessing no other connection with humanity than the faculty 
 of speech. t The Goths themselves were the greatest of 
 all the barbarian tribes which overthrew the Empire, 
 whether we consider the exploits they performed, or the 
 * De Eeb. Get. § 24. f Ibid. § 8. 
 
THE GOTHS. 179 
 
 nationalities which they founded.* Other races may have 
 been more distinguished in special qualities; — the Vandals 
 for policy, the Lombards for nobleness of nature, the Franks 
 for fury in the day of battle, the Burgundians for mechani- 
 cal skill ; but the great Ostrogoth and Visigoth domina- 
 tions in Italy, Gaul, and Spain, fill a larger space than that 
 of any others in the picture which this critical period of 
 history presents ; for the Frank empire of Charlemagne seems 
 to belong to a different epoch, and to be of a different 
 character. Many writers have spoken of the Scandinavian 
 peninsula as the earliest ascertained home of the Gothic 
 tribes. It is certain that, owing to some convulsion of 
 nature or some social necessity, arising from increase of 
 numbers, they descended in company with the Gepidse, a 
 kindred people, upon the Slavic populations which lay 
 to the south of them, and from thence upon the fron- 
 tiers of the Roman empire. As this is the first formal 
 mention of them in history, their original locality has 
 generally been said to have lain on the shores of the 
 Baltic. But, as we might expect from the ethnological 
 theory of migration already explained, there are traces 
 of the Goths before they ever reached the countries which 
 we call Denmark and Sweden. They are supposed to 
 have occupied Boiohemum, as Bohemia was then called, in 
 common with the Marcomanni ; or, according to another 
 account, they were spread about the sources of the Vistula. 
 The progress of their northern conquest may be traced by 
 the names of Gothia, Codanus sinus, and Jutland ; for the 
 Jutes were only Goths under a slightly-varied appellative. 
 When, however, they re-descended to the south, they van- 
 quished the Venedi, the Burgundians, the Boxolani, the 
 Jazyges, and the Finni, extending themselves by degrees 
 
 * The etymolocry seems tolerably certain. Goth is equivalent to the 
 Saxon Guth, or Yath — " war" or " battle." Hence also Jute, Jutland. 
 From the same root comes " God," who is, iu a Teuton imagination, 
 the first and greatest of warriors. 
 
 N 2 
 
180 THE COLLISION.— THE TEUTONS. 
 
 from the Vistula and the Theiss to the Volga. They may 
 henceforth be considered as consisting of three great com- 
 munities, — the GepijisB, who dwelt to the north of the 
 two divisions of the Bastarnic Alps, or the eastern range 
 of the Carpathians ; and the Goth, properly so called. 
 The latter, upon arriving at the banks of the Borysthenes, 
 the modern Dnieper, divided into two bodies. One of 
 them, crossing the stream, and extending themselves as 
 far as the Volga, assumed the name, of East Goths, or 
 Ostrogoths. The remaining division were content to stretch 
 themselves in the opposite direction, and, under the name 
 of Visigoths, or West Goths, occupied almost all the ground 
 between the Borysthenes and the Theiss. It is beside our 
 purpose to dwell upon their relations with the Roman 
 empire before the time of their final passage of the Danube. 
 They were formidable and turbulent neighbours. More than 
 once, in the reigns of Maximin, Gordian, and 
 Decius, they crossed the frontier river, ravaged 
 the Roman territory, and even captured important cities, as 
 was the case with Philippopolis ; they imposed a 
 tribute upon the emperor Gratian, were repulsed 
 by Claudius II., and occupied part of Dacia, which the 
 Romans abandoned in despair. But, undoubt- 
 edly, their most remarkable exploit was an earlier 
 one — the conquest of the little kingdom of the Bosphorus, 
 a dependency of Rome, and the passage of the straits, in 
 flat-bottomed boats, covered with a sort of penthouse, and 
 entirely constructed without iron. The siege and capture 
 of Trebizond, whose spoils filled their ships, and whose 
 mariners, chained to the oar, navigated them back to the 
 European shore, was the chief result of this first adven- 
 turous enterprise. A second passage of the straits, with 
 increased forces, placed the rich cities of Bithynia and Asia 
 Minor in their hands. It was followed by a third, in which 
 perished the world-renowned fane of the Ephesian Diana, 
 
THE GOTHS AND THE EMPIRE. 181 
 
 ' and, as we may imagine, the vested interests of the crafts- 
 men in silver shrines who persecuted St. Paul. Almost 
 the same epoch beheld these invincible barbarians 
 traverse Greece and menace Italy ; dismantle the 
 Parthenon, and threaten to spoil the Capitol. They were 
 finally defeated, as we have said, by Claudius II., A.D. 269, 
 in several engagements, through Moesia, Thrace, and Mace- 
 donia ; and, finally, at Naissus, in Dardania, where they are 
 said to have left 50,000 men upon the field. Aurelian, 
 " restitutor orhis,'' — the restorer of the world, — vindicated 
 
 in part his title to that name by the expulsion 
 
 AD 270 
 of the Goths from Thrace. His successor Probus 
 
 claimed a similar triumph over these unwearied adversaries, 
 
 yet was constrained to build against them his celebrated 
 
 rampart from the Danube to the Rhine, still known as 
 
 the Teufels-mauer, or Devil's Wall, by the 
 
 Suabian boor. The great Constantine, 
 
 though wielding the now united forces of the Empire, and 
 
 directing them with consummate skill, can only be described 
 
 as "successful" against the Goths, whom he subdued by 
 
 policy, rather than by force of arms. Availing himself of 
 
 a war in which they were engaged against the Sarmatians, 
 
 he assisted the latter to inflict upon their and his enemies 
 
 some rude blows: but the concessions in the treaty 
 
 . . AD 332. 
 
 of peace, concluded almost immediately, do not 
 
 seem to imply any very solid success. It is, at any rate, 
 
 time for us to turn to an event which rendered nugatory 
 
 all these "successes" and "triumphs," and has justly been 
 
 regarded by historians as the " beginning of the end," — 
 
 the disastrous passage of the Danube by the barbarian 
 
 destroyers of the old Roman world. 
 
 The Visigoths, as we have seen, the nearer neighbours of 
 
 the Empire, acting sometimes as its enemies and sometimes 
 
 as its allies, gradually acquired a footing in Dacia and on 
 
 the Danube. The Ostrogoths had to deal with the bar- 
 
182 THE COLLISION.— THE TEUTONS. 
 
 barous tribes of Slavic or Sarmatian descent, who encircled 
 them on every side. By their wise policy, valour and skill 
 in war, they obtained a positive ascendancy, and founded a 
 considerable empire, long the glory of the Gothic name, and 
 widely celebrated among the traditions of their race. From 
 the Baltic to the Tanaia the name of the 
 Gothic king was feared, and his word very 
 generally obeyed. All nations have their heroic sovereign, 
 their Charlemagne, St. Louis, Alfred, Peter, Frederick the 
 Great. In ancient Ostrogoth annals this place is occupied by 
 Ermanaric, of the Amal race, whom Jornandes* compares 
 to Alexander the Great, for Iiis personal qualities and the 
 extent- of his conquests. The list of the latter, enumerated 
 by the same historian, would convey little information to 
 modern ears. We are, however, enabled to gather from it 
 that not Slaves alone, but tribes of kindred Germanic origin, 
 such as the Gepidae, and even the Visigoths, felt the weight 
 of his iron hand. As nearly as can be now made out, his 
 dominions included southern Russia, Lithuania, Courland, 
 the Polish provinces, with great part of Germany ; and the 
 Byzantine emperors were perhaps more indebted to fortune 
 than any other cause for their successful resistance to his 
 advance towards the Bosphorus. Among the tribes subject to 
 this Ostrogoth empire were the Koxolani, who dwelt beside 
 the Tanais. In the restlessness of enforced submission, they 
 intrigued with the stranger. A plot was discovered, organ- 
 ized by a Roxolan chief, having for its object the introduc- 
 tion of the Huns. The aged monarch, now upwards of a 
 hundred years old, broke out into his native fury. He had 
 the wife of the conspirator torn in pieces by wild horses. Her 
 brothers enticed the old man into an ambush, and attempted 
 to poniard him. Though of immense age, he survived the 
 attack j but while he was recovering from his wounds, the 
 
 * Keb. Get. § 23. Cf. Amm. Marc. xxxi. 3. "Ermenrichi latb 
 patentes et uberes agros bellicosissimi regis." 
 
THE EMPIRE OF ERMANARIC. 183 
 
 Huns determined to accept tlie overtures which had been 
 made to them, and commenced their advance. Such seem 
 to have been the facts of the case ; but the superstitious 
 fancy of the Goths in after-times assigned to the agency of 
 demons an event so terrible to their fortunes. An evil 
 spirit, in the shape of a hind, was said to have guided the 
 Hunnic hunters from place to place, till at last they reached 
 the Gothic frontier, when it immediately disappeared. This 
 was in the year 374 a.d. The Huns first came in contact 
 with the Alans, a pastoral people who inhabited the steppe 
 between the Volga and the Don. Incapable of offering 
 any effectual resistance, the Alans united themselves to the 
 immense hordes which formed the invading army, and then 
 this " tempest of nations," as Jornandes calls them, burst 
 upon the Ostrogoth empire.* The old king, unable to 
 sustain the ignominy of defeat, stabbed himself to the 
 heart : the nation were compelled to submit. It was next 
 the turn of the Visigoths. They attempted to defend the 
 line of the Dniester, but soon fell back upon the Prutn, 
 from which they imagined they should still find an inacces- 
 sible retreat among the Carpathian Mountains in their rear. 
 But the Visigoth kingdom was at this time a divided house ; 
 there was a Christian party and an old conservative pagan 
 party, who abominated and persecuted the Christians. The 
 sympathies of the latter were naturally directed towards 
 Rome, and they were determined to seek an asylum within 
 her dominions, " far away," writes the historian, " from all 
 knowledge of the barbarians." t Athanaric, the leader of 
 the opposite party, opposed the resolution with vehemence. 
 He had sworn an oath of eternal hatred to Rome ; he had 
 solemnly pledged himself never to set foot upon her soil. 
 But his influence was counteracted by a man very remark- 
 able in the annals of German literature, as well as in those 
 of the Christian faith. The Gothic bishop Ulphilas, de- 
 * Reb. Get. § 24. t Amm. Mar. xxxi. 3. 
 
184 THE COLLISION.— THE TEUTONS. 
 
 scend^d from some captive Roman family, and educated 
 under the eye of Christian parents, had been, at a very 
 early age, sent upon a mission to Constantinople, where 
 Constantine the Great, in pursuance of his fixed policy, 
 caused him, despite his years, to be consecrated bishop by 
 his own chaplain, Eusebius of Nicomedia. From that 
 moment the virtuous and simple-minded Goth was devoted, 
 heart and soul, to the conversion of his count?-ymen. For 
 the purpose of introducing among them a translation of the 
 Scriptures, he constructed a Gothic alphabet, based upon 
 the Greek character, which may be regarded as the origin 
 of German literature. A specimen of this singular work, 
 the earliest birth of the prolific German mind, may be seen 
 in the elegant compendium of German literature edited by 
 Professor Max MUller, of Oxford. The story of the transla- 
 tion is well known. The worthy bishop entirely omitted 
 the book of Kings, conceiving that the martial exploits of 
 the Jewish people would kindle into too fierce a flame the 
 belligerent spirit of his children, who, as the historian 
 quaintly says, " required the bit in this matter, rather than 
 the spur." To such a man, no wonder that the Danube 
 seemed a Jordan, beyond which lay a promised land of 
 peace. He therefore threw himself with eagerness into 
 the idea, and volunteered his advocacy with the Greek 
 emperor Yalens, who was then at Antioch. Yalens was 
 an Arian, and a controversialist, in an age when controver- 
 sialists would compass sea and land to make one proselyte. 
 When the poor bishop applied for aid in his dire extremity, 
 he persecuted him with discussions on the hypostatic union. 
 All along the road to Antioch he placed relays of disputants, 
 who, under pretext of civil attentions, pressed upon him 
 unceasingly the necessity of repudiating the confession 
 of Nice, and recurring to that of Rimini, which he had 
 previously recanted. The unfortunate bishop was in despair. 
 His countrymen were camped upon the banks of the Danube, 
 
PASSAGE OF THE DANUBE. 185 
 
 and suffering grievously from want of food : behind them 
 were the Huns, whose horsemen they hourly expected to 
 behold upon the horizon ; before them was a mighty river, 
 swollen with rain. Many attempted to cross, but they and 
 their frail rafts were instantly dashed to pieces by the 
 Roman military engines. Ulphilas, a simple-minded man, 
 was easily persuaded that the whole theological discussion 
 only involved metaphysical subtleties, which should not for 
 a moment be placed in comparison with the fate of a perish- 
 ing people. He assented to the emperor's proposition, and 
 engaged, upon the part of the Gothic nation, that they should 
 adopt the Arian confession, the emperor, on his part, consent- 
 ing to appoint commissioners for the purpose of assigning to 
 them lands upon the Roman bank of the Danube. Hence 
 arose for Christendom long schism and violent persecutions, — 
 for the Goths soon adopted the ordinary zeal of converts, — 
 and for Rome, a series of events which terminated in her 
 destruction. Upon the return of Ulphilas, the Roman 
 commissioners conveyed the Visigoths across the Danube, 
 according to the terms of the agreement, — first the women 
 and children, and subsequently the men without arms. The 
 unromantic old soldier who recounts the transaction, breaks 
 out into quite a poetic style. As he speaks of the "numbers 
 numberless" who night and day were ferried across the stream 
 in rafts, and skiffs, and even hollowed trees, he is reminded of 
 the hosts of Xerxes,* of the Cimbri and Teutons pouring over 
 the Alps. " They came," he says, " like ashes from Etna in 
 eruption. The individuals appointed to count the multi- 
 tudes sank hopelessly under the task. Should a man ask 
 their number, 
 
 ' Libyci velit sequoris idem 
 Discere quam multas Zephyro volvantur arense ! ' "f 
 
 Then commenced a scene which contemporary historians, 
 though accustomed to deeds of violence and depravity, re- 
 
 * Amm. Mar. xxi. 4. f Virgil, Geor. ii. 105. 
 
186 THE COLLISION.— THE TEUTONS. 
 
 cord with sentiments of marked abhorrence. The corrupt 
 Koman officials seized upon the Gothic matrons of stately 
 figure, and the fair-haired and blue-eyed maidens, for their 
 paramours. Nor was this all : many of the most vigorous 
 youths were entrapped and sold into slavery. The multitudes 
 who had crossed the stream in dependence upon the emperor's 
 promise of support, were cheated, fed upon the most unclean 
 food, furnished to them at an extravagant price, or starved 
 to death. A single pound of bread could only be obtained 
 by the payment of a slave ; a small quantity of meat was 
 sold for ten pounds of silver. Treachery was added to their 
 other wrongs. Lupicinus, the Romaft commandant, invited 
 the Gothic chiefs, Fridigern and Alavivus, to a banquet, 
 and attempted their assassination. The young men owed 
 their escape to the swiftness of their horses. Infuriated by 
 the treatment which they themselves, their countrymen and 
 countrywomen, had received, they organized an implacable 
 revolt against the Roman power. Success in several skir- 
 mishes furnished them with arms,-^indeed, they had most 
 imperfectly observed the part of the compact which provided 
 that they should lay them aside. They swept everything 
 before them with fire and sword ; plundered towns, villages, 
 and private dwellings ; and spared neither sex nor age. This 
 ravage continued for more than a year ; fresh bands crossed the 
 Danube in combination with Alans and Huns. The regents of 
 the Ostrogoths, Alatheus and Saphrax, made common cause 
 with their former foes, and joined the inroad. This news 
 roused Yalens from his theological reveries in the East ; the 
 spirit of the old soldier revived within him, and it, was farther 
 inflamed by the flattery of his ignorant courtiers, who urged 
 him to make an end of the insolent enemy, before Gratian, the 
 western emperor, who was marching to his aid, could 
 arrive to share and diminish the honours of victory. 
 On the 9th of August, the two armies met on the plains of 
 Adrianople, amid clouds of dust, and under a scorching sun. 
 
BATTLE OF ADRIANOPLE. 187 
 
 The impetuosity of Valens and his contempt of the enemy 
 ruined all. The Romans, drawn into a false position, 
 blinded and confused, were hewn down in indiscriminate 
 slaughter. The unhappy emperor either fell upon the field 
 of battle, or met with a still more miserable death upon the 
 night after the action, in a wretched cottage where he had 
 taken refuge, and which some Gothic plunderers set on fire. 
 Four counts of the Empire, with si x-and- thirty other officers 
 of distinction, were left upon the bloody field. The victors 
 attempted to capture Adrianople, but being unfurnished 
 with the means of taking the city, and, like all barbarians, 
 unskilled in sieges, they were compelled to abandon the 
 design, and advanced directly upon the eastern capital. 
 Here, however, they encountered still greater impediments. 
 Beturning, therefore, upon their steps, they ravaged the 
 provinces of Macedonia, Thrace, and Illyricum, with an 
 unrelenting cruelty, which seemed to the ecclesiastical his- 
 torians of the time the direct judgment of Heaven, as 
 denounced by the terrible language of the ancient prophets. 
 The fury of the Goths, says St. Jerome, extended to all 
 creatures possessed of life ; the beasts of the field, the fowls 
 of the air, the fish of the sea, they mercilessly destroyed 
 them all ! Such were the results of the battle of Adrianople. 
 Xo day so disastrous had dawned for Rome, say contemporary 
 writers, since the fatal field of Cannse. But from Canuse 
 she recovered with regenerated strength and splendour ; it 
 was not so in this case. The immediate efiects, indeed, of 
 the battle of Adrianople, so far as the Eastern empire was 
 concerned, were arrested by the prudence and resolution of 
 Yalens' successor, the great Theodosius ; but its effects upon 
 the empire of the West were never remedied. The Goths, 
 repulsed before the ramparts of Constantinople, which still 
 sustained the shadowy power of the Greek Caesars, turned 
 their thoughts to the fallen and more undefended West. 
 . Kor had they long to wait. Five years before the close of 
 
188 THE COLLISION.— THE TURANIANS. 
 
 the century, Rufinus, a Gaul by birth, minister of Arcadius, 
 sent the Visigoths over the Alps.* Then began that 
 " Hourra " of the Northern nations upon Rome, the recital 
 of which would form a long and terrible drama of blood. 
 Its first act concludes with fche sack of the Eternal City, by 
 Alaric, king of the Goths. But these things belong to the 
 story of Italy, upon which we shall enter in the next Lec- 
 ture. At present we must speak of the fortunes of an 
 empire which, including regions as extensive as those under 
 the sway of Rome, threatened at one time to establish an 
 equilibrium between barbarism and civilization ; an equi- 
 librium which the superior physical force of the first would 
 speedily have disturbed, had its social strength and power 
 of political cohesion corresponded to its means of conquest. 
 
 It was, as we have seen, the inroad of the Hunnish hordes 
 which precipitated the Ostrogoths upon the Visigoths, and 
 the latter upon the Eastern empire. The Ostrogoths, for 
 the time at le^st, completely succumbed, and professed 
 allegiance to the victors. " The Ostrogoth," writes Jor- 
 nandeSjt "after the death of their king Ermanaric, were 
 completely separated from thp Visigoths, and, submitting to 
 the Huns, remained in their own country." Into the wide 
 regions vacated by the Visigoth migration, the Hunnish 
 horsemen poured, as the tempest pours into the rarified 
 regions of the atmosphere. Living by rapine, and having 
 no fixed settlements in one spot, they wandered far and 
 wide along the Danube, generally avoiding conflict with the 
 Empire, but assailing, and subduing, or displacing the barbaric 
 tribes who dwelt upon the frontier. Upon the latter, their 
 coming produced something like the effect of a strange 
 animal in an ant-hill. All was confusion, agitation, and a 
 perpetual hurrying to and fro, hardly to be grasped by the 
 eye, and certainly incapable of being delineated by the pen. 
 
 * Vide Lecture Y. f Jornandes, de Eeb. Get. c. 48. 
 
THE ASIATIC HUNS. 189 
 
 The indications of settled life and transient civilization which 
 had arisen along the line of the Roman empire, from the Black 
 Sea to the Gaulish cities, disappeared, and the nomad life of 
 Asia was introduced into the heart of Europe. Aetius, the 
 Koman patrician, in an evil hour, availed himself of the aid of 
 the Hunnish chieftain Rona, in the confusion which ensued 
 in the West upon the death of Honorius. The Huns were 
 not actually engaged in any combat, but they claimed Pan- 
 nonia as their reward, nor did Aetius dare to refuse. Along 
 with the province, he conferred upon the Hun the title of 
 " General of the Roman armies," and disguised the degrada- 
 tion of a large yearly tribute under the name of " military 
 pay." Hence the connection in their early life between 
 Attila, the nephew of Rona, and the Roman Aetius, and the 
 anomaly that Attila, the most terrible adversary of Rome, 
 should have been a titular commander of her forces. Of this 
 hereafter. As yet, no powerful intellect had been found to 
 combine these nomads into a nation, and render them for- 
 midable to the world by concentrating their strength, as it 
 was in after-ages concentrated, by Timour or Tchengis-khan. 
 Black Huns and White Huns, rolling wave after wave into 
 Europe, and following the standards of rival chieftains, always 
 jealous of each other, and often openly at war, were incapable 
 of the organized and united action which would have enabled 
 them to contend against the Empire. Yet, as they ploughed 
 no fields and planted no seed, to the Empire they were com- 
 pelled to look for food when they had exhausted the scanty 
 stores of the Teuton and Sarmatian tribes whom they drove 
 before them. We hear of them, accordingly, as mercenaries in 
 the service of Rome, and they fought for her well against the 
 Goths, and against one another. It was a charge of Hunnic 
 cavalry in the service of Honorius which, at the battle of 
 Florence, decided the defeat of Radagasius, and saved Rome 
 for a short season from the fate which she experienced at the 
 hand of Alaric. It was a Hun who sent to Arcadius the head 
 
190 THE COLLISION.— THE TURANIANS. 
 
 of a Gothic general, Gainas, taken in open revolt against 
 Kome, in his unavailing place of refuge beyond the Danube. 
 For the first fifty years, therefore, after their arrival in 
 Southern Europe, their relations with the Empire were 
 peaceful enough, and the latter gladly made use of them as 
 a counterpoise to the growing power of the Goths, But 
 though they did not directly turn their own arms against 
 Italy or Constantinople, their advent was the indirect cause 
 of formidable and permanent encroachments upon the im- 
 perial territory. The tribes whom they displaced appear 
 to have gathered as it were into two great bodies, and 
 projected themselves by different routes upon those re- 
 gions of the civilized world where they hoped to win 
 subsistence by their swords. One immense army, 
 consisting of 200,000 warriors, crossed the Ty- 
 rolese Alps under Radagasius, and made straight for the 
 gates of Florence.* Sitting down before the city, they 
 attempted to besiege it ; but from want of strategic skill, 
 were soon themselves cut off, and beleaguered by the forces 
 of Stilicho ; as were the Athenians at Syracuse, and ourselves 
 at Sebastopol. The result was fatal to the barbarians, and 
 to the fair fame of Stilicho ; for Kadagasius, having been 
 entrapped into a surrender, was treacherously beheaded, 
 while his followers were sold for slaves, and dispersed 
 throughout the Italian cities. The fortunes of the other 
 division were more prosperous. A great multitude, com- 
 posed of Burgundians, Vandals, Alans, and Suevi, burst 
 over the Rhine, easily overcoming the feeble 
 resistance offered by the Bipuarian Franks. 
 They speedily made the whole country the prey of their 
 bow and spear, and after dividing it among themselves, 
 crossed the Pyrenees, and founded the first barbarian king- 
 doms in the Iberian peninsula. This is the invasion of 
 which Gibbon declares that it sealed the fate of Roman 
 * Zosimus, V. 26. 
 
THE HUNS AND THE EMPIRE. 191 
 
 civilization, because the tribes composing it never again 
 retraced their steps. The Roman garrisons were withdrawn 
 from the more distant parts of the Empire to protect Italy. 
 The fortresses were dismantled on the Rhine, and Gaul left 
 exposed to their fury. For a period of four years they 
 ravaged its seven provinces, and then passed, as we have 
 said, over the Pyrenees into Spain. 
 
 To their fortunes we shall recur hereafter ; meanwhile 
 we must follow the progress of the Huns. Gradually 
 advancing towards the west, they came in contact with 
 the remainder of the Burgundians who had not yet crossed 
 the Rhine. They were pagans, but, alarmed by the 
 approach of the irresistible Asiatics, they applied to a 
 bishop amongst their already Christianized brethren on 
 the opposite bank of the river, for the rite of baptism. 
 Believing themselves invincible in their new faith, they 
 attacked the Huns and cut them to pieces. The Hunnish 
 monarch, Oktar, died during the course of the night, and 
 the event they interpreted as an interposition in their 
 favour, like that which smote the hosts of Sennacherib be- 
 neath the walls of Jerusalem. A day of vengeance was soon 
 to come. Oktar was one of four brothers, all of them chief- 
 tains of their race. The authority of the whole four was 
 soon to be concentrated in the son of one of them, Attila, 
 or Etzel, the youngest child of Mourzoukh, surnamed by 
 the nations whom he swept with the besom of destruction, 
 "the Scourge of God." The name itself, in the Hunnic 
 dialect, is identical with that of the Volga, which river has 
 received its modem appellation from the Bulgarians. We 
 may therefore suppose him to have been born upon its 
 banks at the latter end of the third century. Upon his 
 father's death he succeeded to a joint authority over the 
 tribe with his elder brother Bleda. The latter soon vanished 
 from the scene, murdered by his broth(?r's treachery, says 
 Jornandes, and we find Attila, by the force of a genius for 
 
192 THE COLLISION.— THE TURANIANS. 
 
 war and policy seldom equalled, never perhaps surpassed, 
 gradually drawing all power into his own hands, and gather- 
 ing to his standard not only the Huns who had already 
 reached central Europe, but vast numbers of their wilder 
 kinsmen from regions far beyond the Caspian, and all the 
 barbarian tribes whom they had subdued. One of Attila's 
 uncles, Rona, had perhaps anticipated the ambitious con- 
 ceptions of his nephew. Accurately acquainted with the 
 condition of the Empire through his relations with the 
 Roman patrician Aetius, he boldly asserted that it was the 
 destiny of the Huns to divide the world with its ancient 
 mistress, and claimed as their heritage all countries north of 
 the Danube, while he conceded those on the south to Rome. 
 Certain tribes who dwelt within the limits thus reserved by 
 the Hunnic monarch for himself, ventured to make an alliance 
 with the Byzantine court. Rona instantly protested, called 
 the Greek emperor to account, and insisted upon a conference 
 to settle the question. During the interval of preparation, 
 he died, and it was to the young chieftains, Bleda and 
 Attila, that the imperial envoys addressed them- 
 selves, in an audience granted to them on a plain 
 upon the right bank of the Danube, near the Roman city 
 of Margus. Attila was resolved to carry out his uncle's 
 policy : he showed himself haughty and unyielding : — 
 " Break off at once all connection with the ultra-Danubian 
 tribes ; restore your captives ; form no alliance with any 
 tribe or people against the Huns ; increase your tribute, or 
 if you choose to call it so, your payment for military service, 
 from 300 to 700 pounds of gold. Do this, or war." To 
 every attempt at explanation or remonstrance there was 
 but one answer, "This, or war." The unfortunate envoys, 
 who had orders to conclude "peace at any price," were 
 obliged to give way, and thus was concluded the famous 
 treaty of Margus, with which Attila so often menaced the 
 Empire. The ambitious dream of Rona soon became the 
 
ATTILA AND THE BISHOP OF MARGUS. 193 
 
 fixed idea of his abler nephew; and in devoting himself 
 to its accomplishment he was determined to spare neither 
 friend nor foe. One after another, every existing power 
 in his own race and in the barbarian world beyond the 
 Danube and the Rhine, was made the vassal of his will. 
 Then "this terror of the universe," this man "born to 
 shake the world," as Jornandes calls him,* turned upon 
 his only remaining rivals. His first attempt was against 
 the Eastern empire. 
 
 In all ages of the world an ambitious monarch at 
 the head of some half-million of well-trained soldiers has 
 always easily found a pretext for war. The pretext in the 
 present case was a sufficiently idle otie. It was pretended 
 that the Roman bishop of Margus had surreptitiously in- 
 troduced himself into the sepulchre of the Hun- 
 nic kings, and stolen from it the buried treasure. 
 The Huns immediately fell upon a Roman town during the 
 time of a fair, and pillaged everything before them, slaying 
 the men and carrying off the women. To all complaints 
 from Constantinople the answer was, " The bishop, or your 
 lives." The emperor thought, and with reason, that to give 
 up an innocent man to be massacred, would be displeasing to 
 Heaven, would alienate the clergy, and only appease for a 
 moment the demands of his merciless enemy. He refused, 
 though timidly and in vague terms. The Huns replied by 
 scouring Pannonia, laying Sirmium, its capital, in ruins, and 
 extending their ravages far south of the Danube to the cities 
 of Naissa and Sardica, upon both of which they wrought the 
 extremity of their vengeance. A truce of four years only 
 increased their fury and aggravated its effects. The 
 war was suddenly recommenced. This time they 
 reached Thessaly, and renewed with a somewhat similar re- 
 sult the far-famed passage of Thermopylae by the hordes of 
 Xerxes. Two Roman armies were put to complete rout, and 
 * Jornandes, de Reb. Get. c. 35. 
 O 
 
194 THE COLLISION.— THE TURANIANS. 
 
 seventy cities levelled to the ground. Theodosius purchased 
 the redemption of his capital by the cession of territory 
 extending for fifteen days' journey south of the Danube, by 
 an immediate payment of 6,000 pounds of gold, and the 
 promise of 2,000 more as an annual tribute. It may be 
 doubted whether he might not as well have thrown open 
 its gates and combated the enemy in the streets. So fright- 
 ful was the pressure of this demand upon the upper classes, 
 that many families were reduced to abject poverty, starved 
 to death, or hung themselves in their despair. 
 
 Perhaps Attila was satisfied with his success, perhaps 
 he respected the strong defences of Constantinople. At 
 any rate, he turned his thoughts to the less exhausted 
 fields of the Western empire. With a policy well worthy 
 of his barbaric astuteness, he determined to smite her 
 through Gaul. The Yisigoths, displaced from their eastern 
 possessions by the advent of his ancestors, had established 
 there a flourishing kingdom, which maintained somewhat 
 dubious relations with the imperial court beyond the Alps. 
 At present, however, Goths and Romans were at peace. 
 The Hun resolved to play off one against the other; he 
 therefore at the same time menaced and courted both. To 
 the Eomans he professed that, in his capacity of general 
 of the Empire, his only object was to punish their faithless 
 servants the Goths. To the Goths he proclaimed that he 
 was about to set them free from Roman chains. In the 
 mean time, he assembled a vast army for the invasion of 
 Graul. His pretext for quarrel with the Western empire 
 was as characteristic as the affair of Margus. When the 
 Huns were besieging Sirmium, the bishop of the town, by 
 way of preserving the sacred vessels of his church, got them 
 by some means into the hands of Attila's own secretary, 
 Constancius, a Gaul. The latter pledged the vases to a 
 Roman dealer, a certain Sylvanus. The pledge not being 
 
THE VASES OF SIRMIUM. 195 
 
 redeemed, Sjlvanus, as lie had an undoubted right to do, 
 sold the vessels to an Italian bishop for his church. The 
 transaction reached the ears of Attila. He instantly cruci- 
 fied his secretary, claimed the vessels as his own, and de- 
 manded either their restoration or the person of Sylvanus. 
 The vessels having been employed for a consecrated purpose, 
 could not be placed in the hands of an unbelieving pagan, 
 and Sylvanus had committed no crime at all, still less one 
 deserving of crucifixion. It was in vain that all sorts of 
 compromise and pecuniary compensation were suggested. 
 The answer was as usual, " Sylvanus, or the vessels." This, 
 it must be admitted, was "a very pretty quarrel as it stood,'* 
 but the cunning Hun had another in reserve. Long before 
 this the Princess Honoria, sister of the Emperor Valen- 
 tinian, in a fit of very un-Roman romance, or more probably 
 of feminine spitefulness, having been banished to Constanti- 
 nople for some suspected intrigue, and condemned to con- 
 ventual life, adopted the singular expedient of transmitting 
 her ring as a gage (Tamour to the redoubtable and repulsive 
 barbarian whose name was in every mouth at Constantinople. 
 The king of the Huns had the usual oriental notions about 
 women, and was therefore very little likely to appreciate such 
 advances ; but though unassailable by love, he was fully 
 alive to policy. He foresaw the possibility of making politi- 
 cal capital out of the afiair, and retained the ring. What 
 use he made of it we shall presently see, but in the mean 
 time, while meditating the destruction of Rome, he received 
 news from Constantinople which roused him to the utmost 
 pitch of indignation. The Eastern sceptre had fallen into a 
 strong grasp. Theodosius having been killed by a fall from 
 his horse, his sister Pulcheria was proclaimed Empress of 
 the East. She bestowed her hand on Marcian, a man of 
 courage and a soldier, who speedily informed Attila that 
 he was perfectly willing to meet him as a friend, and 
 
 2 
 
196 THE COLLISION.— THE TURANIANS. 
 
 pay him as an ally; but that if he made his appearance 
 in the character of a foe, he should find an army as able 
 as it would be willing to repel his aggression. The bar- 
 barian blood flamed up at this defiance. It was retorted 
 with interest. On the same day, and at the same hour, 
 the messengers of the Hun presented themselves before 
 the emperors of the East and West charged with the 
 same message : "Attila, thy lord and mine, bids thee pre- 
 pare for him a palace, — for he comes." The trage- 
 dian Seneca paints in some spirited lines a tiger 
 by the banks of the Ganges, gazing on two well-fed steers, 
 and rolling his glaring eyeballs from one to the other, un- 
 certain upon which he shall first spring. It is no unfitting 
 image of the fierce barbarian standing for a moment in 
 doubt whether he shall fall in his fury upon Constantinople 
 or upon Rome. Strategic considerations, as well as those 
 of policy, turned him towards the last. We have seen his 
 pretexts for war; another soon offered itself, and at the same 
 time suggested the mode in which his armies should operate. 
 The Franks had established themselves upon the lower 
 Rhine, somewhere in modern Belgium, and had chosen for 
 hereditary monarchs the " long-haired" or "free-born" Mero- 
 vingian family, by the ancient and picturesque custom of 
 elevating the future sovereign on a buckler. Clodion was the 
 first who received this dignity, and for twenty years 
 he ruled his rude warriors with prudence, and, de- 
 spite the Roman opposition, extended his dominion by their 
 valour. At his death he left two sons. Discord, as was so 
 often the case, arose between the brothers. Meroveus, the 
 younger, sought the aid of Rome, and was, according to the 
 fashion of the times, adopted by Aetius. The elder threw 
 himself into the arms of Attila, and offered as the price of 
 his assistance the passage of the Rhine. This was precisely 
 what the Hun desired. Kor was internal treachery wanting. 
 
ATTILA INVITED INTO GAUL. 197 
 
 Gaul, as we have seen, was harassed by the insurrection of 
 its miserable and oppressed peasantry or Bagaudae. One of 
 these insurrectionary chieftains, a physician named Eudoxus, 
 pursued by Roman vengeance, took refuge with Attila, and 
 promised him the aid of all the brigands, criminals, and 
 revolted peasants in the country. The astute monarch 
 availed himself of the local knowledge of the fugitive, but 
 before committing his fortunes to the chances of war, he 
 determined to strengthen himself by an alliance with Gen- 
 seric, king of the Vandals, who had by this time become 
 masters of Africa, a foe almost as formidable to Rome as 
 Attila himself. Genseric had attempted a design as ambi- 
 tious as that of Attila, — a federation of all the barbarians 
 quartered in the Empire against its authority, and had for 
 this purpose married his son to the daughter of Theodoric, 
 the Visiffothic king of the south of France. The unfortu- 
 nate girl having excited her husband's suspicion, he muti- 
 lated her features in a frightful manner, and sent her back 
 in this condition to her royal father. This insult he knew 
 would produce eternal enmity between Visigoth and Vandal, 
 and therefore he eagerly courted, by lavish presents, the 
 friendship of the common enemy of both. Attila no less 
 eagerly responded, and the two concerted a combined attack 
 upon Italy from the Alps and from the Mediterranean. All 
 things seemed to indicate that the decisive hour was at hand, 
 and the monarch of the Huns gathered up his strength for 
 the effort. All the realms of barbarism, from the frozen 
 fields of Lapland and Siberia to the banks of the Indus and 
 the Rhine, sent forth their savage legions at his call. Never 
 before, in the history of the world, never since, except per- 
 haps in the expeditions of Timour and Tchengis-khan, was so 
 vast and wild a host gathered beneath the standard of a 
 single leader. Five hundred thousand fighting men were 
 assembled in central Europe, ready to precipitate themselves 
 
198 THE COLLISION.— THE TUEANIANS. 
 
 upon Gaul. The catalogue of Sidonius might rival that 
 of Homer.* You shall have the enumeration as given by 
 M. Thierry : — 
 
 " History has left for us the melancholy catalogue of this 
 army, whose masses encumbered not only the banks of the 
 Danube, but all the surrounding country. Never since the 
 days of Xerxes had Europe witnessed such a gathering of 
 nations, known or unknown : the battle-roll included five 
 hundred thousand warriors. Asia figured there in the per- 
 son of her most hideous and ferocious representatives : the 
 black Hun and the Acatzir, armed with their long quivers ; 
 the Alan, with his ponderous lance and cuirass of plaited 
 horn ; the Neuri and the Bellonoti ; the Geloni, painted 
 and tattooed, whose weapon was a scythe, and who wore, 
 by way of an ornament, a cloak composed of human skin. 
 From the Sarmatian plains had come the Bastarnse in their 
 waggons, half Slaves, half Asiatics in blood, resembling the 
 Germans in their equipment for war, the Scythians in their 
 manners, and being polygamists like the Huns. Germany 
 had furnished her most distant tribes, dwellers in the ex- 
 treme west and north : the Huge from the banks of the 
 Oder and the Vistula j the Scyrian and Turcilingian, who 
 came from the banks of the Niemen and the Dwina, names 
 then obscure, but soon to acquire a terrible significance : 
 they marched to battle with the round Scandinavian buckler 
 and short sword. There, too, were to be seen the Heruli, 
 swift in the chase and invincible in fight, the terror of their 
 kindred Germans, who exterminated them at last. Neither 
 
 * " Subito commota tumultu 
 Barbaries totas in te transfuderat Arctos, 
 Gallia ! pugnacem Eugnra comitante Gelono, 
 Gepida trux sequitur ; Scyrum Burgundio cogit, 
 Chunus, Bellonotus, Neurus, Bastarna, Toringus, 
 Bructerus, ulvosa quem vel Nicer abluit unda, 
 Prorumpit Francus ; cecidit cito secta bipenni 
 Hercynia in lintres, et Rhenura texuit alno." 
 
 SiDON. Apoll., Pern. Aviti, 318—325. 
 
AVITUS AT THE VISIGOTH COURT. 199 
 
 the Ostrogoth nor the Lombard were disobedient to the 
 call ; they were there, with their ponderous infantry so 
 dreaded by Eome."* 
 
 This heterogeneous host, extending its front from Basle 
 to the mouth of the Ehine, passed the river in two great 
 divisions, one towards its source, and the other near its 
 embouchure, in somewhat the same manner as did the allied 
 armies in 1814. Atfcila directed them upon Orleans, which, 
 standing at the highest part of the curve formed by the 
 great central river of France, the Loire, was then, as after- 
 wards, the most important strategic position in Gaul. It 
 was guarded by some Alans in the service of the Empire, 
 but their king, Sangiban, influenced either by terror or the 
 hope of reward, promised to deliver up the keys of the gates 
 upon the arrival of the Huns. Meantime Aetius had been 
 organizing the means of resistance. Uncertainty as to the 
 intentions of Attila had delayed him long behind the Alps 
 in a position which he dared not quit so long as the capital 
 was itself menaced. But as soon as the project of the Hun 
 became patent, he descended into Southern Gaul, bringing 
 with him all the barbarian auxiliaries he could collect, and 
 hastened to form a junction with Theodoric, the Visigoth 
 king. But here he was arrested by an unexpected 
 obstacle. The Yisigoths would not move. An autograph 
 letter from Valentinian ; promises, entreaties, and represen- 
 tations of the common danger, were of no avail. " The 
 E-omans have got us both into this scrape," was the answer ; 
 " let them get us out of it." It was then seen how powerful 
 is the agency of personal influence even upon the destiny 
 of nations. What the emperor, Aetius, and the imminent 
 peril of the civilized world had been unable to accomplish, 
 was effected by the persuasions of a single man.t Among 
 
 * Histoire d'Attila, vol. i. p. 141. 
 
 f ** Orbis, Avite, salus, cui non nova gloria nunc est. 
 
 Quod rogat Aetius voluisti, et non nocet hostis. [Vis ? 
 
200 THE COLLISION.— THE TURANIANS. 
 
 the pleasant hills of Auvergne, dwelt a Romanized Celtic 
 senator, Mecilius Avitus, who had served the Empire with 
 signal success in peace and war, and who had contrived to 
 create an atmosphere of almost Augustan refinement and 
 grace around him in that distant region, where he led 
 a happier life than when, in after-days, he so unwisely wore 
 the imperial purple. The account of this little Auvergnat 
 society, half Roman, half Gaulish, in the fifth century, as 
 given by its leader's son-in-law Sidonius, is one of the 
 most pleasant episodes of the history of the time.* But 
 upon it we must not dwell. Avitus, who was the object of 
 intense admiration at the Gothic court, urged upon the 
 king that it would be consistent neither with his honour nor 
 his safety, to permit the Hun to establish himself upon 
 the left bank of the Rhine. The old king yielded to the 
 representations of his friend, and gave the word to arm. 
 His warriors received the command with rapture. At the 
 sound of the Gothic horn, so dreaded in the day of battle, 
 the " legions of the leather cuirass" crowded to the Roman 
 eagles, and Sidonius, in an enthusiastic outburst, compares 
 the object of his panegyric to thp "Arabian phoenix," at 
 whose call, " all the fowls of the air gather from the utmost 
 regions of heaven, while the welkin is too narrow for their 
 rushing wings."t And indeed the name and glory of Aetius 
 had attracted to take their part in this grand struggle, all 
 the semi-civilized world of barbarism. The distant Bretons 
 of the Armorican peninsula answered to the call. There 
 too were to be found the Ripuarian Franks and the Salian 
 Franks, the latter under Meroveus, the protege of Rome, 
 e^gpr to meet their unworthy brethren, who had taken 
 
 Vis ? prodest ; inclusa tenes tot millia nutu, 
 Et populis Geticis sola est tua gratia limes, 
 Infensi semper noVjis pacem tibi prsestant." 
 
 SiDON. Apoll., Pan. Aviti, v. 339 — 343. 
 * Sidon. Apoll., Epist. ii. 2. t J^d. Pan. Aviti v. 354. 
 
SIEGE OF ORLEANS. 201 
 
 service with Attila ; the Burgundians burning to avenge 
 their wrongs ; the Helvetian mountaineers, who had followed 
 Aetius from the Alps. Sangiban too, with his Alans, 
 despite his treacherous designs, dared not be absent. The 
 various Teutonic bands who had acquired any settlement 
 beyond the Rhine, — Sueves,Letes,and independent Franks, — 
 Sarmatse from the neighbourhood of the modern town of 
 Autun, even Saxon wanderers from the mouths of the 
 Seine and Loire f — all swelled the ranks of the great army 
 which went forth to roll back Asiatic barbarism from the 
 Wesit What in the mean time was the fate of Orleans % 
 Anianus (St. Agnan), its bishop, like so many other 
 Christian bishops in those troublous times, was the only 
 real representative of authority left to direct and console 
 the trembling inhabitants. He had sought Aetius in the 
 south, and, with the pathetic language of a Hebrew prophet, 
 assured him that if he and his army did not arrive within 
 six weeks, that is to say, before the 14th June, at the gates 
 of the city, Orleans would have become the prey of the 
 barbarian, and a place of desolation. Aetius gave the re- 
 quired promise ; but we have seen the difficulties which 
 retarded its performance. The citizens of Orleans struggled 
 bravely with their swarming assailants, and gazed anxiously 
 from their walls towards the south ; but no Eoman spears were 
 seen flashing in the bright sunshine of Tourraine. Deferred 
 hope sickened into despair, and capitulation was in the 
 thoughts and on the lips of all. The eventful day arrived, and 
 the pious Anianus himself prayed fervently on his knees, and 
 exhorted his flock to pray for the promised succour. Three 
 times was the messenger sent, like sister Anne, to the sum- 
 
 * " Quin et Aremoricus piratam Saxon a tractus 
 Sperabat, cui pelle salum sulcare Britannum 
 Ludus, et assuto glaucum mare findere lembo." 
 
 SiDON. Apoll., Pan, Aviti, 368—370. 
 t Jornandes, de Reb. Get. c. 36. 
 
202 THE COLLISION.— THE TURANIANS. 
 
 mit of the Lightest watch-tower, to see if he could discern 
 the tokens of deliverance. Twice he returned without 
 intelligence. The third time, just as the battering-rams 
 of Attila were shaking down the gates, a cloud of dust in 
 the horizon proclaimed that the avengers were at hand. A 
 charge of cavalry swept up to the walls, and behind were seen 
 the imperial eagles, mingled with the standards of the Goths, 
 and the Eoman legions in their serried ranks. Such is the 
 dramatic account which the worthy Gregory of Tours,* bent 
 upon glorifying his fellow-saint Agnan, has handed down 
 of this ever-memorable day, — a day long celebrated by a 
 religious solemnity in the Church of Home, where, says 
 M. Thierry, " the names of Agnan, Aetius, and the Gothic 
 Thorismond, were mingled in its prayers." There seems, how- 
 ever, little doubt but that Orleans had already capitulated 
 when the relieving army arrived, and that a terrible struggle 
 took place in its streets. The Huns recklessly engaged 
 in plundering, and, entangled among the houses, were taken 
 at a disadvantage ; and, after suffering severely, fell back 
 to a position where their multitudinous cavalry 
 might act with more effect. The spot chosen 
 for deciding the great question whether Asia or Europe, 
 barbarism or civilization, should rule the world, was in the 
 plains of Champagne, between Chalons-sur-Marne and Mery- 
 sur-Seine. The final struggle was inaugurated by a tre- 
 mendous conflict at the latter place, between the GejDidsB, 
 composing the rear-guard of the Huns, and the Merovingian 
 Franks, who marched in the Roman van. The Prankish 
 battleaxe forced back the sword and spear. The combat con- 
 tinued the whole night ; but when morning rose, 1,500 corses 
 attested the fury of the combatants. Next day was fought 
 that great fight of Chalons — " one of the four decisive battles 
 of history," the very thought of which overpowered the 
 imagination of contemporaries, and beggared all their resources 
 * Gregory of Tours, ii. 7. 
 
BATTLE OF CHALONS. 203 
 
 of language. " Bellum," says Jornandes, in his rugged Latin, 
 " ati'ox, multiplex, immane, pertinax, cui simile nulla usquam 
 narrat Antiquitas, ubi talia gesta referuntur, ut nihil est 
 quod in vita sua conspicere potuisset egregius, qui hujus 
 miraculi privaretur aspectu."* A few miles on the Stras- 
 burg side of Chalons are the remains of an ancient camp, 
 at a place called in the guide-books " Fanum Minervse." 
 Around these stretches a wide plain, through which runs 
 the river Yesle, here a narrow stream, probably the "rivulus 
 humili ripa prolabens" of Jornandes. A dull foreboding 
 ojopressed the Huns. Attila exhibited extreme agitation all 
 the night, and like the Babylonian monarch, summoned the 
 diviners to read his fate. There, beneath the royal tent, 
 pitched in the extreme west of Europe, Calmuck sorcerers 
 from the steppes of Asia, with their horrid rites, asked the 
 question of destiny, on the answer to which the fate of both 
 worlds hung. " Attila shall be defeated, but the leader of 
 the enemy shall fall," was the response. The death of Aetius, 
 the companion of his own youth, the only man, as he well 
 knew, capable of holding together the Roman empire, 
 seemed to the king of the Huns well worth the loss of a 
 battle. He determined to engage, but previously encou- 
 raged his people with a speech, which Jornandes reports in 
 full. Like the speeches of Livy, it is of very doubtful authen- 
 ticity ; but it breathes the ferocious spiiit of " the Scourge 
 of God." He tells his warriors, " To assault, is half the way 
 to victory ; these hordes of degenerate Romans, with their 
 unworthy allies, will not, cannot withstand the fury of your 
 eyes in the shock of battle. Fortune would never have 
 made the Huns victorious over so many nations, did she not 
 mean to reserve for them the raptures of this strife," an 
 expression immortalized by a modern poet.t At three o'clock 
 in the afternoon, Attila came forth from his intrenched 
 camp in order of battle. On his left were the Ostrogoths, 
 * Jornandes, ut sup. f Byron, Ode to Napoleon. 
 
204 THE COLLISION.— THE TURANIANS. 
 
 under Valamir, the best-trained soldiers in his army. His 
 right was occupied by Ardaric, with the remains of the 
 Grepidse, and the other tribes who had followed his standard 
 to the war. He himself took up his position in the centre 
 with his Huns, for greater security, says Jornandes, but 
 most probably with the intention of bursting through the 
 opposing line with his irresistible cavalry, and thus cutting 
 the Roman army in two. Aetius assumed the command of 
 his own left, where stood the legionaries; on the right he 
 placed the Yisigoths, confronting their Ostrogoth brethren; 
 his centre was composed of Franks and Burgundians, and 
 the Alani, of whose loyalty he had reason to doubt. Pro- 
 bably foreseeing the impetuous charge of Attila, he 
 strengthened his own wings, that he might overlap and 
 surround him by driving back the wings of the enemy. 
 Something of the kind occurred. Attila and his iincon- 
 quered horsemen carried all before them ; but on the 
 Koman right the Yisigoths, after a terrible hand-to-hand 
 struggle, in which the brave old Theodoric fell, drove back 
 the Ostrogoths from the field, and, transported by the excite- 
 ment of success, fell furiously upon the left centre of the 
 victorious Huns. On the right, Aetius, who had more than 
 held his ground against Ardaric, closed in upon them with 
 the legionaries. The battle was now over, and Attila, 
 fighting his way through the melee, with the greatest diffi- 
 culty regained his camp. An attempt was made to carry it 
 by assault; but dense flights of arrows from behind the 
 wooden waggons, directed with the unerring aim of the 
 hunters of the desert, kept the enemy at bay. Such was 
 the great battle of Chalons, which saved Gaul and the 
 civilization of Europe. It might have been yet more de- 
 cisive, had not the Eoman army immediately broken up. 
 Aetius is said to have feared the Goths, and to have 
 counselled their new leader, Thorismond, son of the slain 
 Theodoric, to anticipate his brother's claims, and secure the 
 
DEATH OF AETIUS. 205 
 
 kingdom by an immediate return to his capital, Toulouse. 
 It is much more probable that the selfishness of the Gothic 
 prince himself suggested the scheme, and disarranged the 
 plans of Aetius. However, whether prompted by Koman 
 advice or in pursuance of his own policy, it is certain that 
 Thorismond instantly withdrew. Attila, fearing a stratagem, 
 made no attempt to assail Aetius, but, says Jornandes, when 
 a long silence followed the departure of the foe, he deemed 
 himself master of the field, and, with the joys of victory, 
 resumed the dreams of ambition. His first thought was of 
 vengeance. Borne, and the man who had saved Rome, were 
 its objects. Falling back beyond the Rhine, he devoted his 
 energy to amassing a fresh force as formidable as that which 
 fought at Chalons. "Was Attila really vanquished?" asks 
 M. Thierry. " Certainly not," he replies ; he was not, at any 
 rate, in the opinion of his countrymen, to whom waggons well 
 filled with booty, and long trains of captives, were always suffi- 
 cient assurance of success. To secure these, the king of the 
 Huns led his army back by Troyes, Cologne, and Thuringia, 
 devastating the lands in defiance, and burning the Koman 
 cities. To every traveller who makes the tour of the 
 E-hine, an abiding meniorial of his progress is presented, 
 where one of the most famous churches of Cologne keeps 
 watch over the consecrated bones of St. Ursula and her 
 eleven thousand virgins. The following spring he passed the 
 Julian Alps, and reappeared, terrible as ever, on the Italian 
 plains. Meantime, " the last of the Romans " was suffering 
 the wrong which a debauched and despotic court always 
 inflicts sooner or later upon a great man. The parasites of 
 Valentinian accused Aetius of betraying the Empire after 
 the defeat of the Huns, and of employing Attila, the friend 
 of his youth, as a bugbear to terrify the emperor. " Thus 
 only," they said, " could he find the means of keeping all 
 real power in his own hands." There can be no doubt that 
 Aetius was ambitious ; but it is most unlikely that he was a 
 
206 THE COLLISION.— THE TURANIANS. 
 
 traitor. His designs probably extended no further than the 
 marriage of his son with Eudoxia, the daughter of the 
 emperor, a design which the emperor himself had encou- 
 raged. But be this as it may, his unpopularity at court 
 enfeebled his power in the field. Attila was already on the 
 summit of the Julian Alps. The court of Ravenna was 
 paralyzed with alarm, but Aetius was without anything 
 that could be called an army of defence. Remembering his 
 brave comrades of Gaul, Franks, Burgundians, and Visi- 
 goths, Aetius wished to place the emperor in safety among 
 them before engaging in this last desperate struggle for 
 Italy. The proposal called forth a storm of indignation and 
 obloquy. Aetius could do nothing but fall back beyond 
 the line of the Po, transport Valentinian from Ravenna to 
 Rome, and await the arrival of the succours which he had 
 requested from the brave emperor of the East. Aquileia 
 was at this time the most important city of Northern 
 Italy. It stood in a lovely plain, "girt with green vine- 
 yards, and blooming with flowers as for a f^te."* The 
 Huns swept over this beautiful spot, as the conflagration 
 over the prairie, leaving nothing behind them but black- 
 ness and ashes, and sat down before the city. The gigantic 
 earthen mounds which encircled their encampment may 
 still be seen in ruins near Udine. The place was sur- 
 rounded by a river and defended by a strong wall, flanked 
 with lofty towers. Against these defences the Hunnish 
 hordes dashed up like the ocean, and recoiled like its 
 spi*ay. As at Orleans, the barbarian arms and tactics 
 were of little avail against stone walls. Squadrons of 
 charging horse, and clouds of unerring arrows, could not 
 carry ditches and ramparts. They attempted other means 
 without more success. In vain the Huns swarmed day 
 after day to assault and escalade ; day after day they were 
 driven back. Three months passed away, and the hot 
 * Herodian, Hist, viii., quoted by Thierry. 
 
SIEGE OF AQUILEIA. 207 
 
 season was at hand. The barbarians lost heart ; even Attila 
 himself, in profound dejection, meditated a retreat, when one 
 day, while contemplating as usual the wall which had foiled 
 so many efforts, he observed some storks flying away with 
 their little ones from a ruined tower. He instantly felt that 
 the place was doomed, and impressed his army with his own 
 conviction. " Behold," said he, " these birds, with prophetic 
 knowledge of the future, are quitting a city about to perish, 
 and desert at the approach of peril the towers so soon to 
 fall."* The Huns had ever regarded their monarch with 
 superstitious awe. In the present case they fully believed 
 the prophecy, and the prophecy, like many others, wrought 
 its own fulfilment. They multiplied their military engines 
 and means of assault, they attacked the place with redou- 
 bled fury, and at last surmounted the wall. 
 
 Aquileia was a heap of ruins, but from its ashes sprung a 
 phoenix, which by the splendour of its plumes long fixed upon 
 itself the gaze of men. Flying from Aquileia and all the 
 neighbouring towns in the Venetian district, as it was even 
 then called, the terrified inhabitants sought refuge from the 
 horsemen of the Hun in an archipelago of inaccessible 
 islands, surrounded and secured by the northern waters of 
 the Adriatic. This lonely spot, for long ages the haunt of 
 the seabird and the solitary fisherman, thus became the 
 cradle of the long glories of republican Venice, — "a city," 
 writes her enthusiastic admirer, " which was to be set like a 
 golden clasp on the girdle of the earth, to write her history 
 on the white scrolls of the sea-surges, and to word it in 
 their thunder, and to gather and give forth, in world-wide 
 pulsation, the glory of the East and of the AYest from the 
 burning heart of her fortitude and splendour." t Summer 
 was now at hand, and the Italian climate had done its usual 
 work upon the frames of the northern barbarians. Sickness 
 
 * Jornandes, de Reb. Get. c. 42. 
 + Stonea of Venice, vol. ii. p. 10. 
 
208 THE COLLISION.— THE TURANIANS. 
 
 and death were rife in the camp of the Huns, the strongest 
 suflfered from debility. After the sack of the northern 
 cities, all in the barbarian camp, save the unconquered spirit 
 of the king himself, were anxious to postpone fresh opera- 
 tions until another year. Attila resolved to force his way 
 over the Apennines, give battle to Aetius before the walls 
 of Rome, and pass in vengeful triumph up the Sacred Way, 
 which had seen the imperial people trample for so many 
 centuries upon the necks of barbaric kings. But it was no 
 longer now the Rome which refused to speak of peace even 
 while the enemy was at her gates. She deemed it best to 
 anticipate his arrival, and sent an embassy to deprecate the 
 victor's wrath, the principal place in which was occupied by 
 the venerable pontiff Leo lY,, canonized by the Church of 
 Rome with the name of " Great." Leo was a man of rare 
 ability, eloquence, firmness, and knowledge of the times. In 
 the curious taste of the day, he was styled the Cicero of 
 Catholic rhetoric, the Homer of Theology, the Aristotle of 
 the Philosophy of the Faith.* To his personal reputation he 
 added the prestige of his position as chief officer of the 
 Church, a prestige not without its effect even upon the 
 barbarian mind. No better envoy could have been chosen, 
 and it is not surprising that the success of the mission 
 should have been elevated by mediaeval ecclesiastical writers 
 into a miraculous confirmation of the authority of the 
 supreme head of the Church. But many considerations 
 weighed upon the mind of Attila. His army was reduced 
 in numbers, enfeebled and disorganized by disease ; his 
 generals discontented, and unwilling to advance. Somewhat 
 of the ancient awe still clung around the name of Rome ; the 
 terror of ten centuries of dominion could not pass away in a 
 single hour, and the fate of the Gothic spoiler Alaric had been 
 regarded with a feeling of superstitious dread throughout all 
 the barbarian world. When, therefore, the ambassadors met 
 
 * Vita S. Leon. Magni, apud Bell., quoted by Thierry, p. 219. 
 
ATTILA KETIRES FROM ITALY. 209 
 
 the king of the Huns in the neighbourhood of Mantua, 
 
 he condescended to listen to their overtures, and * 
 
 A D 452 
 on the 6th July, consented to quit Italy, in con- 
 sideration of an annual tribute. But his compliance was 
 only in accordance with the maxim " reculer pour Tnieux 
 sauter" Never abandoning his design upon Rome, even at 
 the hour of his departure he provided himself with a pretext 
 for return. '* Send," said he, " my affianced bride Honoria, 
 with her dowry, into the land of the Huns, or I will come 
 with spring to seek her at the head of an army."* With 
 this menace upon his lips, he departed for his wooden city 
 on the banks of the Danube. But he did not return by the 
 way which he came, for in the present condition of his army- 
 he was most unwilling to encounter the legions of the 
 Eastern empire, as he debouched from the defiles of the 
 Julian Alps. He retired, therefore, by the passes of the Alps 
 of Noricum, and his soldiers, notwithstanding the treaty of 
 peace, plundered the town of Augsburg or Augusta, which 
 lay upon his way. "Whilst crossing the little river Lech, a 
 tributary of the Danube, an incident occurred which excited 
 the superstitious foreboding of his followers. A female in 
 the garb of a sorceress or Druidess of Gaul, rushed forward 
 in his path, and seizing his bridle-rein, exclaimed, " Back, 
 Attila, back !" Whatever may have been the purport of 
 the warning, whether it was meant to apprise the king of a 
 coming danger, or to deprecate the abandonment of Italy, 
 the termination of the great conqueror's career which fol- 
 lowed so closely upon the words, attached to them in after- 
 times a significance which they would not otherwise have 
 acquired. The winter was passed in the exchange of haughty 
 recriminations and defiance with the Eastern court. Despite 
 his avowed intention of visiting Kome for his bride, he 
 declared to Marcian that, if the tribute promised by Theo- 
 dosias were not paid, he would come in person to Constanti- 
 * Jornandes, de Eeb. Get. c. 42. 
 P 
 
210 THE COLLISION.-THE TUEANIANS. 
 
 nople to exact it. Marcian was not tlie man to be awed 
 •even by the king of the Huns. He retorted threat for 
 threat, strengthened his defences, and levied troops. But 
 an event was at hand which was to defer the doom of the 
 imperial city for exactly a thousand years. During the 
 winter, says Jomandes, Attila determined, in addition to 
 his innumerable wives (''innnmerabiles uxores") to take to 
 himself another, a maiden of exceeding beauty, named 
 Ildico. Tradition varies as to her origin. She is on the 
 one hand represented as a Bactrian princess, on the other 
 as daughter of a Burgundian or Frankish king. The name 
 certainly has a Teutonic sound, and seems still to survive in 
 Hildegarde ; nor is the fact unimportant in reference to what 
 followed. Attila had apparently pursued the old Homeric 
 practice, he laid waste the native city and slaughtered the 
 relatives of his future bride before admitting her to his 
 seraglio. His nuptials were celebrated with barbaric pomp, 
 but on the following morning he was found dead in his bed, 
 weltering in gore. Ildico was seated by his side apparently 
 overwhelmed with grief The account given by the Huns, 
 and perpetuated in their national traditions, is, that he had 
 ever been subject to bleeding at the nose, and that the 
 haemorrhage having broken out while he was reclining on 
 his back, he had been stifled in his own blood. German 
 tradition asserts that the free daughter of the forest avenged 
 the murder of her kinsmen and her own shame by the 
 poniard. The Latins added, that she was aided by an 
 emissary of Aetius, who had been surreptitiously introduced 
 into the household of the Hun. It is idle now to discuss 
 these diflerent tales. The fact remains, Attila was no more ; 
 and by his death was broken up that great confederation of 
 barbarism, held together by his commanding genius and iron 
 will, which at one time equalled in dimensions, and threat- 
 ened soon to surpass in power, the empire of Borne. 
 
 The history of the successors of Attila may be found in 
 
ATTILA'S EMPIEE BROKEN UP. 211 
 
 the interesting work of M. Thierry. It is impossible to 
 follow it out here. Immediately after his death, the Ger- 
 mans refused to submit to the divided rule of his sons. The 
 army of Attila split up into two great camps; on the one 
 side were the Gepidse and Ostrogoths, with the majority of 
 the Teutonic nations ; on the other the Huns, the Alans, the 
 Sarmatians or Slavonians, and the few Germans who still 
 owned allegiance to the memory of Attila. A vast plain 
 between the Drave and the Danube was selected to decide 
 this vital struggle, known as the battle of Netad, which, 
 though less famous in history, may perhaps claim equal im- 
 portance with that of Chalons, as an arbiter of the destinies 
 of civilization. Jornandes revels in his picture of the strife, 
 and becomes almost as savage as the combatants while he 
 describes their furious passions, their weapons, and their 
 wounds. Fortune at first seemed to favour the Huns ; but 
 German steadfastness prevailed; Goths and Gepidse scattered 
 the less-disciplined bands of Asia ; and Ardaric, the king of 
 the latter tribe for the time, established himself in the royal 
 residence of Attila, and assumed the leading position in the 
 barbarian world. Gibbon succinctly describes the fate of 
 Attila's immediate descendants. It is not necessary to add 
 anything to that description, for the Huns proper disappear 
 as a great power after the disastrous dissolution of their 
 confederation. 
 
 The battle of Netad, I say, broke the power of the Huns 
 and put an end to their ephemeral empire. Under the sons 
 and successors of Attila they either retired into Asia, or 
 gradually wore out their strength in unavailing struggles 
 against the Ostrogoth domination and in combinations with 
 other barbarian tribes to plunder the possessions of the 
 Byzantine Csesars. But the races of Turanian stock were 
 still destined to reappear more than once upon the stage of 
 European politics, and to play there no undistinguished 
 parts. The empire of Attila was soon partially revived by 
 
 p 2 
 
212 THE COLLISION.— THE TURANIANS. 
 
 the kinsmen of his Huns, and acquired an extension, not in- 
 deed quite equal to the dominion of that "Tamer of nations," 
 yet one not undeserving of comparison with it, in respect of 
 its power, its military exploits, and the influence which it 
 exerted upon both branches of its Roman rival. The Avars, 
 as they were incorrectly called, by appearing at the critical 
 moment, enabled the Lombards to annihilate their here- 
 ditary enemies the Gepidse, and thus accomplish their long- 
 cherished project of invading Italy.* And to the Greek 
 the Avars proved a still more formidable foe. They broke 
 down the defences of the Danube, and permanently esta- 
 blished themselves between that river and the Save ; they 
 conquered, and after conquest, organized the Slavic tribes 
 against the common enemy; they almost unceasingly ravaged 
 the northern provinces up to the very walls of the capital, 
 and imposed upon the Byzantine court a tribute which the 
 strongest and wisest of its sovereigns were only too glad to 
 pay. They carried their audacity further still. Allied with 
 the Persian, the ancient rival and enemy of Rome, they 
 appeared upon the European bank of the Bosphorus, while 
 the troops of Chosroes occupied the Asiatic side, and nearly 
 inflicted upon the wealthy and magnificent Constantinople 
 what Rome had suflered from the Goths of Alaric and the 
 pirate hordes of the Yandal king. 
 
 The first appearance of the Avars in Europe was accom- 
 panied by some singular circumstances, which, as they seem 
 to have escaped the notice of Gibbon, it may be as well to 
 describe. Amid the ceaseless flux and reflux of populations 
 in Central Asia, and the numberless revolutions among the 
 tribes of Turanian origin, which it would be an abuse of the 
 term to call political, the Avars appear to have acquired a 
 strong and widely-spread dominion over their neighbours. 
 (Conspicuous among these were the Guars, also called Khouni 
 (yiovyoi), a word which at once identities them with the 
 * See Lecture VI. 
 
GUAR KHOUNI ASSUME THE NAME OF AVARS. 213 
 
 Huns, who received this appellation from the Greek his- 
 torians. They seem 'to have submitted unwillingly enough 
 to their masters, until the advent of a stronger race involved 
 both in a common captivity. Far away, in the very centre 
 of Asia, at the foot of the Altaic range, two thousand miles 
 distant from the Caspian and Chinese seas, the Bay of 
 Bengal, and the Siberian shore, dwelt the great Khan of the 
 Turks, " king of seven nations, and lord of the seven climates 
 of the world." This potentate reduced the Avars beneath 
 his sway; but some unknown cause appears to have rendered 
 him suspicious of their allegiance. A visit of investigation 
 became necessary : it was paid with consequences the most 
 frightful. Three hundred thousand human beings fell vic- 
 tims to his wrath. For the space of four days' journey the 
 earth was covered with decaying corpses.* The blow was 
 fatal to the Avars ; but it gave freedom to their former 
 dependents, the Guar Khouni. Watching for an oppor- 
 tunity, they at last found one in the engagements or neglect 
 of their new lords, the Turks ; and gathering together 
 their wives and their children, their flocks and their herds, 
 they turned their waggons towards the setting sun. This 
 immense exodus comprised upwards of two hundred thou- 
 sand persons. The terror which inspired their flight ren- 
 dered them resistless in onset ; for the avenging Turk was 
 behind their track. They overturned everything before 
 them, even the Hunnic tribes of kindred origin, who had 
 long hovered on the north-east frontiers of the Empire, and, 
 driving out or enslaving the inhabitants, established them- 
 selves in the wide plains which stretch between the Volga 
 and the Don. In that age of imperfect information they 
 were naturally enough confounded with the greatest and 
 most formidable tribe of the Turanian stock known to the 
 nations of the "West. The report that the Avars had broken 
 
 * Theophylact, quoted Histoire d'Attila et ses Successeurs, vol. i. 
 p. 396. 
 
214 THE COLLISION.— THE TURANIANS. 
 
 loose from Asia, and were coming in irresistible force to 
 overrun Europe, spread itself all along both banks of the 
 Danube, and penetrated to the Byzantine court. With 
 true barbaric cunning, the Ouar Khouni availed themselves 
 of the mistake, and by calling themselves " Avars," largely 
 increased the terrors of their name, and their chances of 
 conquest. Their success was very great ; so great, indeed, 
 that they soon felt themselves in a position to demand lands 
 and a pension from the emperor Justinian. Justinian was 
 approaching his dotage ; he had, at any rate, lost that ad- 
 ministrative energy which rendered the early part of his 
 reign worthy of the palmiest days of Rome. He hesitated 
 as to his reply. Motives of policy finally prevailed : he 
 accepted the ofier of the Ouar Khouni to act against the 
 other barbarian enemies of the Empire, and promised them 
 an annual tribute, disguised under the name of pay, but de- 
 ferred the question as to territorial settlement. For the next 
 five years this policy was successful ; for the 
 Avars employed them in exterminating the 
 Hunnic tribes north and east of the Black Sea, and taking pos- 
 session of their lands. But in the mean time, the Turks had 
 discovered the disappearance of the Ouar Khouni. Their anger 
 was intense. " They are not birds to fly through the air," 
 said the great Khan ; " they are not fish to hide in the depths 
 of the sea : they are on the earth, and I will have them." 
 His wrath was naturally enough directed towards the ruler 
 who had received his rebellious vassals, slaves of his slaves, 
 and rewarded them with territory and gold. An embassy- 
 was dispatched to Constantinople ; and, for the first time in 
 history, the Turks made their portentous appearance in the 
 capital of the Eastern empire. Nearly a thousand years 
 were to elapse before they laid her walls in ruins, and 
 reared the standard of a faith of which she as yet had 
 never heard, upon the fanes where worshipped the ancient 
 Mistress of the world. But even at this distant period a 
 
BAIAN, KHAN OF THE AVARS. 215 
 
 prescient alarm appears to have possessed the imagination of 
 the Christians. The strange Asiatics were regarded with 
 mixed curiosity and terror by the luxurious sons of Con- 
 stantinople. Justinian was disabused of his delusion, and 
 suffered himself to be reproached for his credulity. He 
 dismissed the ambassadors with lavish presents and studied 
 politeness ; nor did he fail to express his deep disgust at the 
 cheat which had been practised upon him. Still, however, 
 he hesitated to break openly with the Avars ; for the Avars, 
 aided by the terror which their name inspired, and by their 
 supposed connection with the Empire, had by»this time ac- 
 quired a fatal hold upon the banks of the Danube, and 
 founded a dominion which in power, if not in extent, rivalled 
 the territory won for a moment by the " Scourge of God." 
 In this limited space we cannot pursue its history ; but in 
 its relations with the rival empire of civilization, it obtained 
 all the advantages which strength, cunning, audacity, and 
 unbounded perfidy were likely to assert over imbecility and 
 decay. Even in the time of Justinian, the Greek empire 
 occupied the humiliating position of a tributary. But 
 Justin II., the successor of Justinian, was an arrogant 
 pedant, and, consequently, a fool. He was incapable of 
 appreciating the dangers of his situation ; or, if he ever 
 became alive to them, he imagined they might be combated 
 by rhetorical common-places and magniloquent boasts about 
 the Roman name. On the other hand, Baian, the Avar 
 khan, was a man of no small genius for policy and war, and 
 distinguished in no common degree for the special qualities 
 which brought success to the barbarian arms, — indomitable 
 valour in the field, and unscrupulous perfidy in his political 
 relations. His reign, which lasted for twenty 
 years, was the most brilliant period of the Avar 
 annals. During this period the Avar empire was firmly 
 established on both banks of the Danube ; the valleys of the 
 Balkan, or, as it was then called, the Hseraus, were traversed 
 
216 THE COLLISION.— THE TURANIANS. 
 
 with entire impunity by the Avar horsemen ; and the Save 
 was spanned by a bridge, without opposition from the Roman 
 governor, who had been deceived by the gross and public 
 perjury of Baian. In the presence of the Eoman oflBcials 
 and his own magnates, the khan swore by all the Gods of 
 his nation, and by Him whom the Christians worshipped, 
 that he had no sinister intention, no military object, in the 
 construction of this bridge. It was still incomplete when 
 he passed a large army across, and declared war. The result 
 was, that the important triangular territory between the 
 Drave and the Save, with the pointed edge towards Constanti- 
 nople, was permanently occupied ; the large Roman city of 
 Sirmium, — so dear to the Greek emperor's heart, and so im- 
 portant to his interests that he declared he would rather 
 spare a daughter to the barbarian, — after a bloody and pro- 
 tracted siege, was carried by assault, its churches pillaged, 
 and the inhabitants put to the sword ; the Roman armies 
 were continually and ignominiously defeated, and the Empire 
 itself subjected to an increased tribute, which, being simulta- 
 neously hard pressed by other foes, it was fain to pay. 
 
 The Avars were terrible to the Byzantine Greeks, but 
 they were still more terrible to their own barbarian neigh- 
 bours, the Slavic tribes, who had by this time occupied, 
 in immense numbers, the centre and south-east of Europe. 
 These unfortunate creatures, of apparently an imperfect, or, 
 at any rate, imperfectly-cultivated intelligence, endured such 
 frightful tyranny from their Avar conquerors, that their very 
 name has passed into a synonyme for the most degraded 
 servitude. In peace, their houses, their flocks and herds, 
 and fields, their wives and daughters, were at the disposal of 
 their brutal masters, while they were themselves driven 
 away into the depths of forests and morasses, yet all the 
 while compelled to keep up the payment of a burdensome 
 tribute. In war their position was more . pitiable still. 
 Driven to the field in herds before the Avar warriors, they 
 
AVAES COME IN CONTACT WITH FRANKS. 217 
 
 were placed, though imperfectly armed, in the front of the 
 battle, and compelled to meet the shock of the imperial 
 legionary, with his iron-clad body and sweeping sword. If 
 they recoiled, as they necessarily must, they were goaded 
 onward by the pike of their masters and allies in the rear ; 
 and thus acquired, from the complacent facetiousness of 
 contemporary writers, the epithet of " Bifurci," or " pricked 
 on both sides." A day of terrible retribution was at hand, 
 when these degraded beings, restored to a sense of man- 
 hood, and subjected to military organization by a Frank 
 adventurer, wiped out the stain of these long years of 
 ignominy in the blood of their former lords. This is, 
 however, to anticipate. 
 
 With the Franks themselves the Avars soon came into 
 contact ; for their insatiable passion for plunder conducted 
 them over almost the whole of central Europe. But here 
 their success was not so satisfactory. Their first encounter 
 with the sons of the warriors whose battleaxes had hewed 
 down the hordes of Attila upon the plains of Chalons, ter- 
 minated in a rude repulse upon the banks of the Elbe, whither 
 Sigebert, grandson of Clovis, had led the battalions of his 
 people. A second encounter was not quite so for- 
 tunate for the Franks : they were forced to give way 
 before their enemies ; and the ecclesiastical writers ascribe the 
 result to the sorcery and magic of the Huns. As the Ouar 
 Khouni had called themselves Avars in the East, in ac- 
 cordance with a popular error, they availed themselves 
 of a similar error in the "West, and assumed the dreaded 
 name of the followers of Attila, who ravaged Orleans 
 and fought at Chalons. Phantom warriors, it seems, dealt 
 fatal blows upon the Christians from the midst of clouds and 
 darkness and storm ; so firm a hold has the belief in this 
 form of supernatural agency upon the human imagination, 
 and so far was primitive Christianity from eradicating it. 
 Notwithstanding, however, "their incantations and their 
 
218 THE COLLISION.— THE TURANIANS. 
 
 mighty magic," they finally and completely succumbed to 
 the sword of Charlemagne, under circumstances which shall 
 be related in their proper place. 
 
 In the mean time we must recur to the fortunes of Baian. 
 The close of his life, like that of several other great con- 
 querors, was a bitter contrast to its commencement. The 
 Empire at last found a man and a soldier. At the head of 
 their levies, Priscus entirely outmanoeuvred the Avars, drove 
 Baian beyond the Danube, and defeated him in five succes- 
 sive general actions. Nor did he pause here. Once more 
 the eagles entered Pannonia, the scene of so many vic- 
 tories, and for the last time in history crossed the Theiss. 
 It was nearly all over with the Avars. Another year 
 of such warfare, and they would have been compelled 
 to re-seek tlie deserts of Asia. But it was not given 
 to a vicious and emasculate society, like that of Con- 
 stantinople, to achieve deliverance for itself or for the 
 world. In one of its ceaseless and turbulent revolutions, 
 the wise and brave emperor Maurice was slain. He was 
 succeded by a common centurion, one Phocas, a man pro- 
 foundly vicious, ignorant, sensual, cowardly, and cruel, 
 the very worst man, in short, to deal with the critical cir- 
 cumstances of the time, whom the time produced. He 
 speedily undid all that the wisdom of Maurice and the 
 military skill of Priscus had effected. From a base desire 
 to court popularity with the legionaries, the Roman armies 
 were recalled from their glorious but toilsome service, and 
 the Avars were saved to work still greater mischief than 
 heretofore. They had, however, smarted too severely in the 
 last campaign to attempt anything against Constantinople, at 
 any rate for a time, and accordingly turned their steps towards 
 the west, whither they had learnt the way by occasionally 
 sending contiu gents to the Lombard legions. Upon the 
 "West, therefore, the new khan determined to descend ; but 
 this time against his former friends the Lombards, who were 
 
EOMHILDA AND THE AVAR KHAN. 219 
 
 now permanently established in Italy. The small patrimony 
 of Ghisulph, a Lombard duke, lay directly in his path ; its 
 capital town, Forum Julii, near to Aquileia, was at that time 
 occupied by his widow, Romhilda, supported by a competent 
 garrison. The defence was resolute, and might have been 
 successful ; but female perfidy was the cause of its ruin. The 
 licentious Lombard was smitten with the' person of the 
 gallant and splendidly-arrayed Avar, as he rode round the 
 fortifications. Determined to satisfy her passion, she en- 
 tered into a clandestine engagement to open the gates at 
 night, upon condition of becoming his wife. In the sense 
 which an oriental and a barbarian would attach to the word, 
 he fulfilled his promise ; but he fired and plundered the 
 city, slaughtered the fighting men, and dragged ofi* into 
 slavery the remaining population. Komhilda herself he 
 subjected to a cruel and degrading insult, and then placed 
 her among his menial servants. The foray had so far been 
 successful, and the Avar khan set out for his Pannonian home 
 in true freebooting style, laden with plunder, and accom- 
 panied by an immense train of captives, whom he hoped 
 either to employ as slaves or exchange for a valuable 
 ransom. Their numbers were found to render rapid pro- 
 gress impossible ; and delay had become perilous. Halting 
 at a place called Campus Sacer, " the sacred plain," the 
 khan deliberated as to the expediency of butchering the 
 whole multitude. While the deliberation was' in progress, 
 the three sons of the late duke made their escape, under 
 circumstances which read like a romance. The youngest, 
 a mere child, being unable to sit his horse, was recaptured ; 
 but as his captor was leading his bridle-rein, the boy brained 
 him by an unexpected blow, and galloped off into the forest, 
 where he soon rejoined his brothers. This event put an end 
 to all hesitation respecting the captives ; they were in- 
 stantly slain upon the spot, and the " Campus Sacer" be- 
 came accursed for an effusion of innocent blood, which was 
 
220 THE COLLISION.— THE TUEANIANS. 
 
 regarded as terrible even in those terrible times. A more 
 evil fate awaited Romhilda. Subjected to a punishment so 
 atrociously cruel that it cannot be recounted in a civilized 
 age, she was left in her death-agonies upon the ground, to 
 declare to Italy the vengeance of the khan and his abhor- 
 rence of her treachery. I have dwelt for a moment upon 
 this matter, though it possesses no political importance or 
 significance, because it seems to bring before us, better than 
 any mere record of battles and sieges, the manners of that 
 strange, wild time, in which modern society had its birth, but 
 which remains so utterly unrealized, even in the imagina- 
 tions of educated men.* 
 
 The next exploit of the Avar was one whicb proved him 
 capable of a treason more vile than that which he had so 
 outrageously avenged. It was nothing else than an attempt, 
 in violation of the universal practice of all civilized nations, 
 to carry off the Greek emperor, at a solemn conference, 
 which the Avar had himself proposed. The emperor was ad- 
 vancing to the appointed spot, near Selymbria, to the north 
 of the great wall of defence which the Byzantines, with 
 Chinese perspicacity, had been at immense pains to construct. 
 He had brought with him an enormous quantity of baggage ; 
 all the necessary and ornamental trappings of a large suite ; 
 the whole apparatus of a Homan theatre, with its scenery 
 and actors ; the cars, the horses, the drivers, and, we may 
 presume, the factious partisans of the Hippodrome. He 
 rode himself at the head of the long procession, clad in his 
 purple mantle, and wearing his golden crown. Thousands of 
 curious spectators accompanied the cortege, and all was in the 
 inextricable confusion common upon such occasions. On 
 a sudden the Avar cavalry were seen advancing from the 
 horizon with the speed of the wind. All doubt as to their 
 intentions was instantly removed by a furious charge. The 
 
 * The whole story is to be found ia Paulus Diaconus de Gestis 
 Langobardorum, iv. 38. 
 
AVARS ATTEMPT TO SEIZE THE EMPEEOR. 221 
 
 emperor, warned at the last moment by a peasant, was com- 
 pelled to ride recklessly for his life, dropping his imperial 
 mantle upon the ground, and concealing his golden crown in 
 his sleeve. The Avars slaughtered the unresisting crowd, 
 and made a magnificent harvest of the gold and jewels, the 
 embroidered vestments, the chariots and horses, and the 
 theatrical properties which fell into their hands. It was, 
 after all, however, what our neighbours expressively call a 
 " cov^ manque''' Baian called for his royal prisoner ; they 
 brought him the abandoned purple. The Avar, too cunning 
 to compromise himself, yet unwilling to lose that for which 
 he had ventured so much, ordered his cavalry to advance 
 without him, and try the effect of a surprise upon Con- 
 stantinople. The untiring horsemen galloped unchallenged 
 through the defences of the long wall up to the very en- 
 trance of the capital j but they found the gates closed, 
 the sentinels placed, and the archers upon the rampart. 
 Heraclius had arrived before them. After inflicting some 
 damage upon the splendid churches in the suburbs, they 
 returned to the khan, who instantly disavowed the whole 
 affair, and, with profuse expressions of regret at the insub- 
 ordination of his subjects, resumed his diplomatic intercourse 
 with the emperor. What was it possible to do with such 
 a man, and such a race ? The most suitable and obvious 
 treatment, humiliation by the sword, was impossible. There 
 had lately occurred in the Greek empire one of those singular 
 social crises, which, just as they cannot previously be antici- 
 pated, so, after their occurrence, are seldom rightly accounted 
 for or understood. Nothing could be worse than the universal 
 corruption, debasement, and national debility which had 
 followed upon the usurpation of Phocas. The court and 
 government were in the last stage of imbecility and sen- 
 sualism ; the populace had become unmanageable ; the 
 treasury was empty ; the army nowhere to be found. Only 
 two of the common soldiers, who had marched with the 
 
222 THE COLLISION.— THE TURANIANS. 
 
 traitor Phocas to dethrone his master, could be discovered 
 on the roll-call. Heraclius had certainly been able to ex- 
 tinguish the tyrant ; but to remedy the disorders of his 
 weak and reckless administration seemed impossible. The 
 Empire was without defenders and without funds ; and 
 while the Avars were as usual sweeping over all its pos- 
 sessions in Europe, its old hereditary enemy the Persian 
 was gaining triumph after triumph, and adding territory 
 to territory in the East. Under Chosroes, the famous 
 Nushirvan of oriental legend, the Persian bands yearly 
 overran Syria, Palestine, and Asia Minor ; so audacious 
 were their inroads, that they established themselves per- 
 manently in sight of the metropolis ; and just as Destiny 
 was preparing for the final ruin of the Empire by the birth 
 of the Arabian prophet, for the first time in men's memories, 
 as the presage of a more terrible future, the tents of Asiatic 
 marauders were seen, where now the cypresses of Scutari 
 look down upon the glittering pinnacles of Stamboul. 
 
 As sometimes happens, the very magnitude of the evil 
 appears to have produced its remedy. The Persians had 
 sacked Jerusalem, sacrilegiously despoiled the church reared 
 by the pious care of the empress Helena, and carried away 
 the true Cross into the interior of their country. Scarcely 
 had the sacred lance and sponge been saved from the wreck, 
 and secretly conveyed to Constantinople. Among its ex- 
 citable population, in an age when religion was inextricably 
 mixed up with its external symbols, and their importance, 
 for that reason, immensely magnified, the effect of these 
 events was something quite beyond our power to imagine ; 
 perhaps we may rather say, would have been beyond our 
 power to imagine, had we not been acquainted with the scenes 
 enacted by Greek and Latin Christians at the Holy Sepulchre 
 in Easter week. The loss of the Cross seemed to the men of 
 that generation what the loss of the sacred volume, were 
 such a loss possible, would have seemed to the Puritans of 
 
AVARS BESIEGE CONSTANTINOPLE. 223 
 
 the Commonwealth, or the fanatics of the Covenant. The 
 intelligence was received with tears and groans, mingled 
 with fury. Then ensued a crisis of religious excitement 
 and exaltation which roused the whole Byzantine population 
 from the depths of their debasement, and kindled a martial 
 enthusiasm which anticipated by centuries the first crusade. 
 The scene of the plateau of Clermont was rehearsed in the 
 Hippodrome of Constantinople. " Deus vult," " Deics vult,''* 
 re-echoed in those Sybarite halls, so long the abode of luxury 
 and pleasure ; the people recovered their almost departed 
 manhood ; and the emperor, shaking off the sloth into 
 which he seems to have fallen from despair, placed himself 
 at the head of the movement, and conducted it with a 
 degree of genius and military skill unsurpassed by Narses 
 or Belisarius, or, indeed, by any sovereign or leader of the 
 Lower Empire. In a series of campaigns planned and 
 carried out among the Armenian mountains, and inspired, 
 perhaps, by the traditions of the immortal retreat of the 
 Ten Thousand, the Romans threw themselves upon the rear 
 of the Persians, and, assailing the base of their operations, 
 thoroughly disorganized their armies, and snatched from 
 them the fruits of their former successes. Chosroes was ter- 
 ribly defeated near the Euphrates, and perished very shortly 
 after. To Heraclius belonged the glory of the last triumph 
 of the Roman arms won on Asiatic gi'ound, ere they were 
 finally expelled beyond the seas by the irresistible onslaught 
 of Islam. 
 
 But at present the Avars are our theme : we are con- 
 cerned with the fortunes of the Empire only so far as these 
 are mixed up with them ; and we have paused upon this 
 episode simply because it brought the khan and his people 
 once more to the walls of Constantinople, and nearly ena- 
 bled them to anticipate, by nine hundred years, the gi'eat 
 catastrophe in which their kinsmen of Turanian stock, the 
 Mongol Turks, played so conspicuous a part. During the 
 
224 THE COLLISION.— THE TURANIANS. 
 
 progress of tlie Persian war, Chosroes came to an under- 
 standing with the khan, and purchased his assistance. The 
 j)illage of Constantinople was the proffered price. It was 
 arranged that the Avars were to assail the city upon the 
 European side, while Schaharbarz, the Persian general, ap- 
 peared upon the opposite bank of the Bosphorus. The 
 Persians possessed no fleet, but their allies were to suj^ply 
 the want with all the boats which they could collect upon 
 the Danube and the other rivers that discharge themselves 
 into the Black Sea. The early part of June was 
 fixed for the rendezvous ; but the khan was de- 
 termined to win, and spent so much time in extraordinary 
 preparations, and the construction of military engines, that 
 it was not until the 27th of July that he reached the 
 suburbs, though he had passed the long wall nearly a month 
 before. This enabled the citizens to organize a regular 
 defence, in which they were materially assisted by the 
 arrival of oue of the most distinguished divisions of the 
 Asiatic army, despatched by Heraclius to save his throne 
 and capital. The besieged, however, did not neglect the 
 chances of diplomacy, and sent an envoy to ascertain the 
 intentions of the khan, who, it must be remembered, was 
 still their excellent friend and ally. There was no longer 
 either equivocation or disguise. This time, at any rate, the 
 Avar expressed himself with perfect plainness and sim- 
 plicity. " Go," said he to the envoy who, in the name of 
 the Roman magistrates, had forbidden his further advance, 
 " go, and perish along with your people ; but be sure to tell 
 them this : if they do not give up to me everything they 
 possess, I will raze their city to the ground, and carry off 
 every single soul among its inhabitants into slavery." 
 
 The assault began on the 31st of July, and was continued, 
 without ceasing, for five days. In vain the barbarian brought 
 up all his engines, swept the parapets with the unerring 
 Mongol bow, and rolled his twelve huge timber towers close 
 
REPULSE OF THE AVARS. 225 
 
 up to the wall of the beleaguered city. The Greeks en- 
 countered the attack with at least equal resolution and 
 ingenuity. A tall mast, the invention of a mariner, was 
 erected on the rampart, and a species of crane constructed, 
 from which depended, by pulleys, a skiflf (navigiolum), or 
 basket, containing several volunteers, who discharged burn- 
 ing pitch from their perilous elevation upon the inflammable 
 towers. The siege made no progress, and the Avar became 
 impatient. He determined upon a night-attack, in con- 
 junction with the Persians, whom he had, however, not yet 
 been able to bring across the Bosporus, so formidable and 
 vigilant was the Roman fleet. A large body of Slave 
 auxiliaries were, as usual, destined for the forlorn-hope. 
 While the Avars assailed the fortifications on the land 
 side, the Slaves were to penetrate into the Golden Horn 
 in the rude vessels which they had brought from the 
 Danube. But the besieged were on the alert : they dis- 
 covered the plan of the attack and the signal for its 
 commencement. Prematurely kindling a fire upon the 
 summit of a lofty tower, they decoyed the Avars into a 
 naval ambush, in which they were inclosed like thunnies 
 in a net. Then the ponderous war-galleys, \nih brazen 
 beaks and triple banks of oars, dashing among the wretched 
 logboats of the assailants, and, favoured by the obscurity 
 of the night, smashed, overturned, and sunk them on eveiy 
 side. The crews were precipitated into the water ; the 
 Golden Horn became a veritable "chamber of death," and the 
 doomed barbarians were knocked on the head, speared, and 
 hewn in pieces, or thrust beneath the waves, until the galleys 
 of the victors could scarcely make their way through the 
 blood-stained and encumbered water. The khan perceived 
 that his chance was over ; and after committing most 
 malignant devastation in the beautiful suburb of the Fig- 
 trees — Sykae, now Galata- — sulkily withdrew his army, never 
 more to be gathered together for a great enterprise. 
 
226 THE COLLISION.— THE TURANIANS. 
 
 The subsequent history of the Avars need not detain us 
 long. No great man supplied the place of Baian, and the 
 whole people rapidly sunk into that feeble and debased 
 condition which is naturally the result of luxury engrafted 
 upon gross barbarism. We hear of their accumulating the 
 most delicate and costly products of Eastern looms, the 
 most exquisite workmanship of Byzantine goldsmiths, and 
 remaining unsatisfied still ; but " man and steel, the soldier 
 and his sword," were scarcely found among a race who, by 
 their aid, had actually subdued a large portion of the known 
 world. The most formidable blow to their declining power 
 proceeded from a source which they but little anticipated. 
 The intercourse of their warriors, during the intervals of 
 warfare, with the women of their Slavic vassals, resulted in 
 the birth of a race named by the Chroniclers Vendes, who, like 
 the Parthenii of Spartan story, participated too strongly in 
 the fiery blood of their fathers to submit with indifference to 
 that degrading serfdom which they inherited on the maternal 
 side. It was with these half-castes that the first resistance 
 to Avar domination originated. But almost simultaneously 
 the whole Slavic race were, as we have said, roused from 
 the apathy of ages, and induced to assert their manhood, by 
 a Frank adventurer, or "merchant" in the phraseology of 
 the time, who had been in the habit of conveying his wares 
 into* the country on the backs of long trains of pack-horses 
 and mules. This Frank, whose name was Same, was un- 
 doubtedly one of the most extraordinary men of his time : 
 brave, enterprising, and skilful, he seems to have breathed 
 the Teutonic spirit of self-reliance and hardihood into this 
 down-trodden race ; at any rate, he taught them to defeat 
 their masters, and establish a very considerable dominion for 
 themselves. We cannot dwell upon his fortunes or theirs, 
 for we shall come upon them again in the history of the 
 Franks, with whom Samo, himself a Frank, but now also, 
 unhappily, an apostate, very speedily came into collision. 
 
SAMO, AND THE SLAVE INSURRECTION. 227 
 
 We are, liowever, perhaps concerned to know tliat the Slaves, 
 under the leadership of Samo, not only drove back 
 the Avars to the east and north, but also en- 
 tered into relations with the Greek empire, which relations 
 resulted in the still further circumscription of the Avar 
 territory, and in the establishment of two dynasties of their 
 own race, whose names still occupy a place upon the map of 
 Europe. On the northern slopes of the Carpathians, between 
 the Oder and the Vistula, were settled a mixed race of 
 Vendes and Slovenes, or Slavonians, who called themselves 
 Khorwates, Khrobates, or Croats, that is to say, "moun- 
 taineers." To these rude warriors, the emperor Heraclius, 
 influenced by an easily intelligible policy, oifered part of the 
 lands evacuated by the Avars. The Croats, or rather a 
 branch of them, eagerly accepted the offer, and were located 
 in the ancient Dalmatia, among the Istrian mountains, and on 
 the coast of the Adriatic Gulf. The islands of the gulf and the 
 principal maritime cities were retained under Roman, that 
 is to say, Byzantine dominion. From this dates the first 
 existence of Austrian Croatia. Servia had a similar origin ; 
 for Servia was peopled by another influx of Slavonians, 
 calling themselves >SV/>, or, according to Greek interpre- 
 tation, "Serbes." Heraclius, in pursuance of the same 
 policy, invited their approach, upon the departure of the 
 Avars, and settled them in Upper Mcesia, Dardania, and 
 Dacia ; thus assigning to them a function which they may 
 even yet discharge, that of an outlying, independent out- 
 post against a preponderating northern power. These new 
 nationalities entirely shut out the Avars from all interference 
 in the affairs of Southern and Western Europe, and buck- 
 lered the Empire against their blows. At the same time 
 they quarrelled with their own kinsmen, the Bulgarians, who 
 had constituted no small portion of their strength, and 
 forced them into the arms of their great enemy the Greek 
 emperor, who welcomed their advances with warmth, and 
 
 <22 
 
228 THE COLLISION.— THE TURANIANS. 
 
 pensioned them in the usual way. The Avars, thus cut off 
 from their natural and hereditary method of keeping alive 
 their military spirit, and maintaining their power — brigandage 
 and foreign war, — were thrown entirely upon their internal 
 resources. But without settled government, without agri- 
 cultural industry, or the material means of prosperity, such 
 social activity as they retained, was almost of necessity 
 directed to evil ends. Bloodshed and internal dissension, 
 combined with luxury in that grossly sensual form which 
 barbarism adopts, worked out, by the inevitable law of 
 falling empires, its irretrievable ruin. " From the year 
 630 A.D.," writes M. Thierry, "the Avar people are no 
 longer mentioned in the annals of the East ; the successors 
 of Attila no longer figure beside the successors of Con- 
 stantine. It required new wars in the West to bring 
 upon the stage of history the khan and his people."* In 
 these wars they were finally swept off from the roll of 
 European nations. We shall hereafter have to 
 recount how, behind their barbaric Hrings, or 
 Rings, they awaited, and succumbed to the sword of Pepin 
 and Charlemagne. 
 
 So ended the second great effort of the Turanian races to 
 establish an empire on European soil. But the Hunnic 
 stock has never been entirely extirpated by German steel. 
 In the ninth century, the Hunugars, or Maygars, a tribe of 
 Avar blood, once more conquered their way into Europe, 
 and founded a dynasty, which has played no mean part in 
 the annals of Christendom. This is still a living link to 
 bind us to that history which perhaps may have seemed, 
 while it was recounted, a thing entirely of the past. " But," 
 as says M. A. Thierry, " history shows us, since the middle 
 of the fourth century, in the central and lower valleys of 
 the Danube, an uninterrupted succession of Hunnish tribes, 
 perpetuating the traditions of Attila. Is this permanent 
 * Attila et ses Successeurs, vol. ii. p. 125. 
 
SETTLEMENT OF SLAVES IN SOUTHEEN EUROPE. 229 
 
 settlement of the Huns in the eastern countries of Europe, 
 and in the very heart of Europe itself, nothing more than a 
 question purely archaeological and speculative ? The late 
 war will furnish for us the answer. The valleys of the Volga 
 and the Don, the slopes of the Oural, the steppes of the 
 Caspian and the Black Sea, still contain the races which 
 came in the fourth century with Balamir, in the fifth with 
 Attila, in the sixth with the Avars, in the ninth with the 
 Hungarians, to occupy the centre of Europe, and to menace 
 more especially Greece. It is now fifteen centuries since the 
 battle-cry, * To the City of the Csesars ! ' was first heard in 
 those wild lands ; and since that day it has never ceased 
 to re-echo there. Will the nations whom the Finno-Huns 
 have planted in Europe, and who have become assimilated 
 to ourselves in manners and culture, remain for ever strangers 
 to that movement which agitates their brethren 1 It is the 
 secret of the future ; but we may assert with confidence, 
 that sooner or later they are destined to resolve the problem 
 which preoccupies the world."* 
 
 It may, at some other time, be our duty to recount the 
 fortunes of the sons of Arpad, their establishment in Hun- 
 gary, their conversion by St. Stephen ; their gradual incor- 
 poration into the great society of European commonwealths; 
 their sufferings from Tatar invasion ; their rescue from 
 renewed barbarism by the princes of the house of Anjou ; 
 the glorious reigns of John Huniades and Matthias Corvinus; 
 their ill-omened connection with the houvse of Austria. But 
 these are the events of times long distant from our present 
 goal. 
 
 * Attila et ses Successeurs, Prefece. 
 
LECTUEE V. 
 
 ITALY— THE FALL OF THE CiESAES— ARBOGASTES— 
 ALAEIC— RICIMER— ORESTES-AUGUSTULUS. 
 
 " Italia ! Italia ! O tu cui d\h la sorte 
 Dono iafelice di bellezza, ond' hai 
 Funesta dote d' infiniti guai, 
 Che 'n fronte scritti per gran doglia porte." 
 
 FlLICAJA. 
 
 *' Jack Cade. — Go to, tell the king from me, I am conteut he shall 
 reign ; but I'll be protector over him," — King Henry VI., Part II. 
 act iv. sc. 2. 
 
 Stxopsis. — Italy the link between the old world and the new. — ■ 
 Arbogastes, the Frank, its first barbarian master. — His defeat and 
 destruction by Theodosius, emperor of the East. — Division of the 
 Empire into East and West. — Rise of Alaric. — Struggle between him 
 and Stilicho. — Stilicho murdered. — Alaric sacks Rome ; dies. — Depar- 
 ture of the Goths for Gaul and Spain. — Genseric, king of the Vandals, 
 invited to Italy by the empress Eudoxia ; sacks Rome ; carries off 
 spoils and captives to Africa. — The last quarter of the fifth century 
 the crisis in the great drama of the Fall of the Empire. — The actors 
 in it. — Ricimer dethrones Avitus ; substitutes Majorian ; has him 
 assassinated. — Interregnum. — Zeno, the Eastern emperor, obtains the 
 throne for Anthemius. — Ricimer supports Olybrius, the Vandal can- 
 didate ; slays Anthemius, and sacks Rome. — Ricimer and Olybrius die. — 
 Gundobald, the Burgundian, master of the situation ; appoints Gly- 
 cerius. — Julius Nepos, nominee of the Greek court, dethrones Glycerins, 
 and makes him a bishop, — He is himself dethroned, and driven into 
 exile by Orestes. — Interregnum. — Romulus Augustulus, son of Orestes, 
 made Csesar by the soldiery. — Orestes refuses partition of lands to his 
 army, — Odoacer promises it; defeats Orestes, and decapitates him; 
 sends Augustulus, the last of the Caesars, into honourable imprison- 
 ment ; is made king of Italy. 
 
 Italy may, in some sort, be regarded as the link between 
 the old world and the new. There died out the ancient 
 Empire; there, nnder the Ostrogoth and Lombard, arose 
 
SPECIAL FEATURES OF ITALIAN HISTORY. 231 
 
 the earliest type of the existing European nations ; there, 
 in the duchies of the latter power, were developed the germs 
 of the feudal system ; there, too, the city first assumed its 
 true social importance, and, with its own rise and growth, 
 fostered the rise and growth of free civil institutions, com- 
 merce, and general intelligence ; and there, in the compli- 
 cated relations and clashing interests of the Mediaeval 
 Republics, originated, as Machiavelli believes, the great 
 idea of a Balance of Power, which has been since matured 
 into the doctrine of the European equilibrium. There, 
 again, broke the dawn of revived learning, of letters, and 
 of art, and, kindling into the light of a glorious day, 
 wrought, first an intellectual, and then a moral revolution 
 in the condition of Christendom ; and there, finally, was 
 the birthplace and the home of that marvellous power 
 which, by a strange metempsychosis from material to moral 
 dominion, succeeded to the sceptre of the Caesars, and for 
 thirteen centuries has exercised, for evil or for good, a more 
 than Caesarean empire over the minds of men. But, above 
 all, it is more especially to Italy that we owe, according 
 to the belief of her eloquent and profound historian, the 
 first conception of that which is the fundamental truth 
 of modern society. The Italian communities being the 
 first to combine the interests of conquerors and conquered, 
 were also the first to discern that men are not to be governed 
 in the interests of any one class, but for the development 
 of all their powers, moral as well as intellectual, and for the 
 general happiness of the whole body. " From the moment," 
 says Sismondi, "they formed their own governments, and 
 formed them for the common good, they prospered : while 
 every other nation suffered, they rose in intelligence as well 
 
 as virtue They rose from the practice to the theory of 
 
 civil society, and showed, not only to their own country, but 
 to future nations and ages, the object to which all human 
 associations should tend, and the best means by which to 
 
232 ITALY. 
 
 attain to it."* To the story of Italy, therefore, — of interest 
 at all moments, of surpassing interest at the present mo- 
 ment, — we turn first. 
 
 The flight of the Visigoths before the overwhelming in- 
 road of the Huns, and their settlement upon the 
 southern bank of the Danube, commences, as we 
 have already seen, that long series of events which terminated 
 in the fall of the Roman empire, the extinction of the political 
 life of the old world, and the first rude development of our 
 modern nationalities. The prudence of Theodosius averted 
 from the Eastern empire the peril which followed upon the 
 rout of Adrianople ; the capital was saved ; and more than 
 a thousand years elapsed before a barbarian banner floated 
 over the palace of the Byzantine Caesars. Very difierent 
 was the fate of Italy. Her natural northern rampart of 
 the Alps ofiered but a trifling obstacle to armies unen- 
 cumbered by artillery or baggage, and accustomed from 
 infancy to the hardships of savage life ; and, the Alps once 
 crossed, there was little in strength of strategic position, 
 still less in the moral strength derived from national spirit, 
 to arrest their onward progress. " Quisquamne reclusis," 
 asks the last of Roman poets, "Alpibus alterius Latii 
 fore credidit umbram '? " t — " The passage of the Alps 
 once opened, who believed that a shadow of Roman power 
 would remain 1 " The first to avail themselves of this 
 obvious weakness were the Alemanni, who formed, as it 
 were, the point of the great Teutonic wedge, with whom old 
 Ammianus had so many stout battles under Julian, and 
 against whom the emperor Probus had constructed his wall 
 of defence. Ascertaining from a countryman who had 
 been, as was now usual, enlisted in the body-guard of 
 Gratian, the Roman emperor, that a strong force was about 
 to march out of Italy for the purpose of aiding Valens in 
 
 * Sismondi, Hist. Ital. Rep., Introduction, 
 t Olaudian, de Bello Getico, v. 97. 
 
HEVOLT OF MAXIMUS. 233 
 
 the struggle with the Goths, which we have already de- 
 scribed, they suddenly dashed across the Ehine into Roman 
 Gaul.* The movement was premature, for the legions were 
 not yet beyond recall, and Gratian had also obtained the 
 aid of the Franks. A bloody battle was fought at Argen- 
 taria, in Alsace ; the king of the Alemanni fell upon the 
 field, and the invaders were for this time repulsed. Theo- 
 dosius in the East was shortly afterwards no less successful 
 against the Ostrogoths, or a part of the Ostrogoth tribe, 
 who, after their displacement by the Huns, had been roam- 
 ing like freebooters through Central Europe, and at last 
 reappeared on the frontier. The imperial troops ensnared 
 and slaughtered large numbers on the Lower Danube, and, 
 in accordance with a policy which was becoming common, 
 Theodosius settled the remainder in the fertile provinces of 
 Phrygia and Lydia. Meanwhile a revolt was organized in 
 Britain, which cost the emperor of the West his throne. 
 One Maximus, a Spaniard by birth, occupying a high official 
 position in that province, forced on step by step into insur- 
 rection, by a soldiery and people of whom he appears to 
 have been the idol, raised the standard of revolt in the 
 island, and passed over into Gaul, attended by a large mul- 
 titude, — 130,000 men and 70,000 women, says Zosimus, the 
 Byzantine historian.t This colony, settling in the Armorican 
 peninsula, gave to it the name of Brittany, which it has since 
 retained. The rebel forces were soon victorious over the two 
 emperors who had agreed to share the Roman throne. Gratian 
 they slew at Lyons; Valentinian they speedily ex- 
 pelled from Italy. Success probably induced am- 
 bitious projects, which included the whole Empire, East 
 as well as West. They had now, however, to deal with a 
 far more formidable adversary — the politic and wise Theo- 
 dosius. Theodosius adopted the cause of his brother em- 
 
 * Lect. IV. p. 186. + Lib. iv. c. 36.. 
 
234 ITALY. 
 
 peror, influenced, it is said, by a romantic passion for Galla, 
 the sister of the exile. Grave historians dispute the truth 
 of what they call an unworthy motive. We may venture 
 to be less severe, and, with Gibbon, " rejoice to find in 
 the revolutions of the world some traces of the mild and 
 tender sentiments of domestic life." At first the Greek 
 temporized with the enemy ; when he saw his opportunity 
 he declared war. The reader is so fatigued and confused 
 by the names of great battles, which, he is told, and truly 
 enough, decided for the time the fate of the civil- 
 ized world, that the combat of Scissia, a town 
 of Pannonia, where Theodosius rescued the empire of 
 the West, and restored it to Valentinian, will probably 
 pass away at once from his memory. Yet it was a stern 
 and bloody struggle, in which the bold barbarians who 
 fought on either side gave ample indication of the stuff 
 of which the men of modern Europe were to be made. 
 
 Valentinian regained his throne ; but in one brief 
 
 A.D. 391. ^1 . • 1 ^ ^-i ^ 
 
 year the imperial puppet was once more thrust 
 
 aside by the strong hand of a stranger. Arbogastes, master- 
 general of the armies in Gaul, had greatly distinguished 
 himself in the late war. This ambitious soldier, presuming 
 upon the weakness of his master's character, had gradually 
 filled all the public offices with creatures of his own, and 
 was evidently paving the way to an open assertion of that 
 supreme authority which he already practically possessed. 
 Yalentinian, in a sudden acces of resolution, summoned the 
 traitor to Treves, and deprived him of his command. In 
 three days, as might have been expected, Valentinian was 
 found dead in his bed, and Arbogastes was undisputed 
 ruler of the Roman empire. Arbogastes, therefore, was 
 the first of those Italian mayors of the palace, — masters of 
 their nominal masters, through whose agency was wrought 
 the transition from the Empire to the new nationalities of 
 Europe. But the times were not yet ripe for undisguised 
 
DEFEAT OF ARBOGASTES. 2S5 
 
 barbarian rule. It better suited his purpose to thrust 
 the imperial purple upon Eugenius, a wretched 
 rhetorician, who had been his secretary, than to 
 assume it himself. Once more Theodosius, urged on by 
 his own indignation and the tears of his colleague's widow, 
 appears in the character of a deliverer. Arbogastes allowed 
 him to descend from the Alps, and then assailed him with 
 the solid infantry of Gaul and Germany on the level ground. 
 It was well nigh all over with the Eastern troops, who 
 were compelled to fly, or take refuge on some 
 inaccessible heights in their rear. The roll of ' ' 
 Roman emperors might have been spared some ignominious 
 names, had not treachery interfered. Ecclesiastical historians 
 ascribe the eventual success of Theodosius to the direct in- 
 tervention of portents, marvellous as those which assured 
 the triumph of Israel, on that eventful day when the 
 sun stood still npon Gibeon, and the moon in the valley 
 of Ajalon. But the sudden defection of the Gallic legions 
 from Arbogastes, and the accession of strength which they 
 conferred upon the opposite side, is suflficient to account for 
 the refluent tide of fortune, without resorting to the inter- 
 vention of the miraculous. Eugenius was decapitated on 
 the field ; Arbogastes was completely, hopelessly defeated ; 
 and, after wandering as a hunted fugitive among the 
 Alpine passes, anticipated the vengeance of his enemies by 
 falling on his sword. 
 
 The eventful life of Theodosius approached its close. 
 He made dispositions before his death for the famous divi- 
 sion of the Empire among his sons. To Arcadius he left 
 the throne of the East, Asia Minor, Syria, Egypt, Thrace, 
 Dacia, Macedonia, and Eastern Illyricum. Honorius he 
 summoned to Milan, and there placed in his hands, Bri- 
 tain, the sovereignty of Italy, Spain, the two Gauls, 
 Africa, Noricum, and Western Illyricum. At the same 
 time he nominated the renowned Stilicho, a Vandal by 
 
236 ITALY. 
 
 birth, general-in-cTiief of the legions in that division. He 
 could have made no better selection. Stilicho, the ablest 
 man of the age, had been the emperor's comrade in war, 
 and most prudent adviser in peace. " Together," Claudian 
 makes him say, " we have stained the Odrysian Hebrns with 
 Grothic blood ; together we have scattered in flight the 
 horsemen of Sarmatia, and stretched our wearied limbs on 
 Alpine snows, or traversed the frozen Danube in our car. 
 Since, then, the will of Heaven calls me hence, do thou 
 succeed to my imperial cares ; do thou alone cherish these 
 pledges of my love, and protect my twin children by the 
 strength of thy arm."* Soon afterwards the great Theodosius 
 died of dropsy, in his fiftieth year. If Stilicho ruled 
 the West in his master s name, he deserved to do so ; 
 and it was well for the West that he did. The same thing 
 cannot be said of Rufinus, the actual ruler of the East, a 
 man consigned to perpetual infamy by Claudian, the last 
 poet of imperial Rome. His ambition and rapacity knew 
 no bounds. " As the ocean," says Claudian, " receives the 
 Danube and the Nile, and yet exhibits no visible expansion 
 to the eye, so Rufinus swallows the wealth of nations, and 
 his appetite is insatiate still."t This man, disappointed in 
 a design to wed his daughter to Arcadius, and jealous of 
 the influence of Stilicho, who, ambitious as himself, claimed 
 the guardianship of both emperors, is accused, by contem- 
 porary historians, of inviting the Huns into Europe, and 
 the Goths into the Empire. 
 
 " Tunc impius ille 
 Proditor imperii, conjuratusque Getanim, 
 Distulit instantes eluso principe pughas, 
 Hunnorum laturus opem, quos afiore bello 
 Ndrat, et invisis mox se conjungere castris." J 
 
 The exact causes of the great Gothic war which followed 
 are not easy to discover ; nor, under such circumstances, 
 
 * Claudian, de HI" Cons. Honorii, v. 147. 
 
 t In Eufinum, i. 183. J Ibid. i. 318. 
 
ALARIC INVADES GREECE. 237 
 
 is it of much importance to inquire into their nature. 
 What is of more importance to notice is that the name 
 of Alaric, who had already served in the Roman armies, 
 now first appears as an independent leader of those fright- 
 ful inroads which eventually brought him as victor to the 
 gates of Rome. He descended upon Greece by the world- 
 famous pass of Thermopylae. The only man who could 
 have arrested his advance had been excluded from the scene 
 of action by the mean jealousy of the Byzantines and the 
 secret ambition of Rufinus. Claudian, in a fine burst of 
 patriotic indignation, proclaims to the world how different 
 would have been the results had his favourite hero been 
 allowed to act : — 
 
 " Prodita non tantas vidisset Graecia clades, 
 Oppida seraoto Pelopeia Marte vigerent, 
 Starent Arcadiae, starent Lacedaemonis arces ; 
 Non mare f umSsset geminum flagrante Corintbo, 
 Nee fera Cecropias traxissent vincula matres."* 
 
 But, as it was, Thermopylae no longer maintained its tradi- 
 tional strength ; the straits were carried without a blow, 
 and the whole of northern Greece clean swept of treasure 
 and population. Athens capitulated at once ; Argos, 
 Corinth, and Sparta followed the example, and suffered 
 the wrong and ravage which have stamped infamy upon 
 the Gothic name. The court of Byzantium, influenced 
 by jealousy of Stilicho, who had appeared on the scene, 
 and forced, after an action near Pholoe, in Arcadia, the 
 Goths to retire across the Gulf of Corinth, made a stranf^e 
 return for these insults. They appointed Alaric master- 
 general of Eastern lUyricum ; and his Gothic kinsmen, 
 recognizing the rising star of his destiny, and exult- 
 ing in the prospect of the plunder of the world under 
 
 * Claudian, in Rufinum, ii. 188 ; and of. De Laud. Stilich. i. The 
 29tli and 30th chapters of the "Decline and Fall " contain an elaborate 
 and eloquent account of these wars ; and the compression which I have 
 been obliged to employ is, therefore, less to be regretted. 
 
23S ITALY. 
 
 the banners of such a leader, proclaimed him " King of the 
 Visigoths," and all the tribes of kindred name. Like Attila, 
 at a later period, he hovered for a while between the two em- 
 pires, and then gathered up his strength to strike the weakest. 
 After a considemble time, spent in vigorous preparation on 
 both sides, we find him and Stilicho again opposed to each 
 other, and each at the head of a mighty host, upon the plains 
 of Pollentia, about twenty-five miles from Turin. A Vandal 
 and Goth were about to contend for the empire of Rome 
 and the Western world. The dawn of Easter 
 Sunday saw the Groths engaged in their devotions. 
 The omen was not so happy for them as for the Scots at 
 Bannockburn. Stilicho fell upon their intrenchments with 
 equal skill and impetuosity, slew large numbers, and made 
 himself master of their camp. It contained the spoils of 
 Greece, the master-pieces of Athenian genius, and the 
 wonders of wealth and art whicli had decked the chambers 
 of Corinthian courtesans ; but it also contained a prize 
 more precious still — the spouse of Alaric, laden with the 
 gems and gold in which it had been her ambitious dream 
 to ascend the Capitol as Empress of the "West. " Never," 
 says Claudian, " did we so deeply plunge our steel into the 
 Scythian throat ; never with such a slaughter tame the 
 pride of the Tanais or the Danube. O," he exclaims, 
 
 " Celebranda mihi cunctis Pollentia sseclis, 
 O meritum nomen, felicibus apta triumphis, 
 Virtutis fatale solum 1 memorabile busLum 
 Barbariae."* 
 
 The traditions of the great fight were also perpetuated by 
 a contemporary poet. " Mirabere seris," writes the Christian 
 Prudentius — 
 
 *' Posteritas saeclis inhumata cadavera latfe 
 Quae PoUentinos texerunt ossibus agros." f 
 
 The check was a rude one ; but Alaric had sworn to find 
 * Claud, de Bello Getico, v. 635. f Prudent, in Syram. ii. 
 
EAVENNA, 239 
 
 in Italy a kingdom or a grave j and while his enemies were 
 enjoying the honours and more substantial advantages of 
 victory, he made a dash at Eome in their rear. With any 
 other opponent than Stilicho he might have succeeded ; 
 but Stilicho, ever vigilant, had thrown, before his arrival, a 
 formidable force into the city. Baffled again, the fierce bar- 
 barian accepted a compulsory truce ; but, while returning 
 from Italy under its conditions, he faithlessly fell upon 
 Yerona, then, as now, the key of the neighbouring country. 
 The untiring Stilicho, however, was on the watch, and 
 attacked the besiegers front and flank. On this occasion 
 Alaric only escaped by the swiftness of his horse, and 
 Rome was respited for a season. 
 
 Her next peril was from Radagasius, at the liead of 
 the left wing of the vast barbarian migration, 
 which, as we have seen, fled west and south 
 before the Huns. The iate which befell Radagasius before 
 the walls of Florence we have already recorded,* and shall 
 not now recur to it. The fortunes of Alaric are the more 
 natural theme for those whose object it is to trace the 
 action of barbarism upon the gradually declining state of 
 the Empire. For a short time we lose sight of him ; but he 
 reappears in the somewhat extraordinary character of gene- 
 ral-in-chief of the Roman armies in Illyricum, this time by 
 appointment of Stilicho, who was probably actuated by 
 jealousy of the Eastern empire, or, perhaps, by a renewal of 
 his own designs upon it. As might have been expected, 
 the Goth availed himself of his position to carry out the 
 one fixed idea of his mind, and, declining to operate 
 against the Greeks, took up a position from which he 
 menaced Italy. The Roman court now occupied Ravenna, 
 which had become the capital of Italy, owing to its situa- 
 tion, which was considered more secure than that of either 
 Milan or Rome. The nature of this security we learn 
 * Lecture IV. p. 190. 
 
240 ITALY. 
 
 from the Byzantine Procopius, who saw the place in the 
 campaigns of Belisarius, whose secretary he was. It was 
 derived from its position amid the Adriatic lagunes and the 
 mudbanks of the Po. " Ravenna lies," says the Greek, " in 
 a plain sloping down to the Ionian Gulf, which is some 
 two furlongs distant. It can neither be assailed by land 
 nor sea. Shallows and shoals prevent the access of any 
 vessels. On the other side the flooding of the Po, and the 
 numerous marshes caused by its waters, encircle the town 
 in all directions, and render it inaccessible to infantry. A 
 most marvellous phenomenon occurs here : every day the 
 sea rushes in, for the space of a day's journey to a well-girt 
 man, and becomes navigable far inland. In the evening it 
 rolls back. Vessels come up with the flow, and return with 
 the ebb, and this takes place all along the coast to Aquileia. 
 This phenomenon occurs at the full moon."* Such a spot, 
 however suitable for a fortification, was detestable as a resi- 
 dence. Its imperfect drainage and fetid canals, coupled to 
 the entire absence of vegetation and fresh water, rendered 
 it an abomination to the strangers compelled to sojourn 
 within its walls. Sidonius, who saw it on his way to Rome, 
 vents his wrath and disgust in an epigrammatic tirade, 
 which, as it gives a lively idea of a place henceforward so 
 famous in Italian history, we may be permitted to transcribe. 
 " What a town, or, rather, what a morass, you live in," he 
 writes to his friend Candidianus ; " where your ears are 
 pierced by the mosquitoes of the Po, and deafened by the 
 croaking of your fellow-citizens, the frogs. With you all 
 the laws of nature are undergoing a perpetual inversion : 
 your walls topple over, your water stands fast ; your 
 towers float, your ships settle down ; your sick people go 
 about, your doctors lie in bed j your baths are cold, and 
 your dwellings blaze ; the living are half dead with thirst, 
 the dead swim about in the water ; the housebreakers keep 
 * Procopius, de Bello Gothico, i. 1. 
 
ALARIC MARCHES UPON ROME. 241 
 
 awake, the authorities go to sleep ; the clergy are usurers, 
 the Syrian usurers" — who, as Jerome tells us, were famed for 
 their avarice — " chant the offices of the Church j the soldiers 
 traffic, and the tradesmen fight ; the old men play at ball, 
 and the young men at dice ; the eunuchs devote themselves 
 to arms, and the barbarian auxiliaries to letters."* In this 
 strange spot an idea of resistance was entertained by the 
 Senate, who were suddenly convoked. It was the last deli- 
 beration of that venerable body, who had survived the fields 
 of Cannse and Philippi, the long tyranny of the Csesars, and 
 the strange vicissitudes of a thousand year?. But Stilicho, the 
 only man in the country competent to pronounce an opinion, 
 knew too well the weakness of Italy, and would not recom- 
 mend further opposition in a regular campaign. In ac- 
 cordance with his advice, the king of the Goths was bought 
 off by the payment of 4,000 pounds of gold. Alaric turned 
 his back for the moment upon Rome ; but his departure 
 proved fatal to the great man who alone was capable of 
 resisting his progress. The enemies of Stilicho had long en- 
 deavoured to undermine his power; they now represented his 
 relations with Alaric as cowardice or treason. The emperor 
 was weak, or wicked enough, to lend himself to their de- 
 signs, and Eavenna witnessed a judicial assassination, which 
 forms one of the deepest degradations ever inflicted upon the 
 Koman name. The hero of so many victorious fights, decoyed 
 from the altar of sanctuary by the perfidy of Count 
 Heraclian, bowed his head beneath the axe of the 
 executioner. Rome had now lost both her sword and shield, 
 and stood defenceless before the enemy. Alaric was not the 
 man to let slip his opportunity. As the subsidy had not 
 yet been paid, he availed himself of the excuse to appear 
 again in Italy. His countrymen in the service of the Em- 
 pire, discerning the signs of the times, threw off their alle- 
 giance to Rome, and joined the banners which promised 
 
 * Sidonius Apoll. Epist. i. 8. 
 R 
 
242 ITALY. 
 
 renown and rapine to the whole Gothic race. Aquileia and 
 Cremona threw open their gates ; Ravenna was too remote 
 from the line of march to necessitate a siege ; the passes of 
 the Apennines were undefended ; and Alaric found him- 
 self, almost without striking a blow, before the walls of the 
 capital of the world. It contained at this time a population 
 of about 120,000 souls, without supplies of food or adequate 
 means of defence. The Goths made no attempt to storm 
 the ramparts ; they sat quietly down, and inclosed the 
 wretched citizens in a "cordon," through which nothing 
 could force its way. The sufferings of the besieged were 
 intense. Thousands died daily from starvation or disease. 
 Under these circumstances there remained but one course — 
 immediate submission ; and the Senate soon forgot the 
 resolute bearing which it had assumed in the presence of 
 Stilicho. It could not, however, forego its magniloquent 
 language ; and the address of the envoys who came to 
 propose terms to Alaric, described, in swelling words, the 
 dignity of the imperial city, and the thousands of fighting 
 men who still crowded her streets. " The thicker the hay," 
 replied the Goth, with a barbarian laugh, " the easier it is 
 mown." He then proceeded to declare his terms : — " All 
 your gold j all your silver ; the best of the precious fur- 
 niture within your walls ; all your slaves of barbarian 
 birth." "What then would you leave us ? " exclaimed the 
 dismayed ambassadors. " Your lives," was the stern reply. 
 Eventually the victor was induced to withdraw, by the pay- 
 ment of a less ruinous, but still most costly ransom. Five 
 thousand pounds of gold; 30,000 pounds of silver ; 4,000 robes 
 of silk ; 3,000 pieces of fine scarlet cloth ; 3,000 pounds, 
 weight of pepper, were, according to Zosimus, the 
 market price of the Mistress of the world. But, 
 in addition to this, 40,000 liberated slaves joined the host 
 which marched beneath the standard of the Gothic king, and, 
 in the succeeding year, swelled its numbers to 100,000 men. 
 
BESIEGES THE CITY. 24S 
 
 It has ever been considered a problem most difficult to solve, 
 why Alaric, with this overwhelming force at his command, 
 did not at once make himself master of Italy, and ascend 
 the throne of the Caesars. Perhaps the lingering prestige 
 which still hung round the city of a thousand victories, or 
 a superstitious reverence for the relics of saints and apostles, 
 and the dignity of the Church within its walls, asserted an 
 indefinable influence over his mind ; perhaps strategic or 
 l^olitical considerations, at which we have no means of 
 guessing, stayed his hand ; perhaps, from his very first 
 negotiations with Stilicho, he had never aimed at a higher 
 position than that of titular sovereign prin ce, in subordi- 
 nation to the Empire. The truth of these, or of any other 
 suppositions, cannot now be tested. Certain it is that he 
 contented himself with demanding from the ministers of 
 Honorius the office of master-general of the Italian pro- 
 vinces, subsidies for his army, and an independent command 
 in Dalmatia, Venetia, and Noricum. "Quern Deus vult 
 perdere, prius dementat." ' Never was the adage more truly 
 illustrated than in this case. The ministers of Honorius 
 refused to listen to conditions from the insolent barbarian 
 who had dared to treat on equal terms with the Majesty of 
 Rome ; but Alaric had learned by experience the path to 
 victory, and soon showed that he had not forgotten it. 
 His first act was to seize upon Ostia, at the mouth of the 
 Tiber, a position which enabled him to cut off the supplies 
 of the capital. The terrors of the former famine had not 
 yet passed from men's minds. The Romans could not en- 
 dure their repetition ; and they attempted to deprecate the 
 wrath of the conqueror by deposing Honorius and electing 
 Attalus, prefect of the city, to the imperial purple. The 
 expedient was for a moment successful ; but Alaric soon 
 found that the tool to whose elevation he had consented, 
 would not serve the purpose for which he was designed. He 
 therefore publicly degraded him from the purple, on the 
 
 B 2 
 
2U ITALY. 
 
 plains of Rimini, in sight of his whole host. Still he offered 
 peace. The infatuated courtiers who governed the emperor, 
 induced their master to declare, in an insane proclamation, 
 that the guilt of Alaric precluded him for ever from the 
 honour of an alliance with the Empire. Then Alaric once 
 more turned his face towards Rome ; but, this time, with a 
 stern and vindictive purpose in his heart. It was in vain 
 that the nobles attempted to organize a defence. The fears 
 of the population and the treachery of the slaves, many of 
 whom were connected by birth with the barbarians outside 
 the walls, disclosed an easy path to victory. At midnight 
 the Salarian gate was flung open to the Goths. According 
 to Roman tradition, Porsenna, Brennus, and Hannibal, at the 
 head of hosts as mighty, had recoiled, baffled, and beaten 
 from those inviolate walls. But now, as ever, it was shown 
 that the bulwark of a state is to be found, at such a crisis, 
 not in ramparts reared by artificial skill, but in the spirit of 
 its sons. No Horatius kept the bridge, " as in the brave 
 days of old ;" no Camillus scornfully kicked the beam of 
 the balance wherein his country's honour was on the point of 
 being bartered for her safety ; no Scipio arose to redeem her in 
 the last extremity of her peril. The old heroic race was gone. 
 The barbarian army poured into the gates, but no man struck 
 a single blow for Rome. In the dead of night the 
 Gothic trumpet rang unanswered in her streets, 
 and awakened the terrified inhabitants to a scene of outrage 
 and despair never as yet witnessed within her walls ; but, 
 alas ! too often to be repeated. The Queen of the World, 
 whose foot had so long been on the neck of the nations, was 
 exposed for five days and nights to the vengeful fury, the 
 cupidity and lust, of the wild bands who had left their frozen 
 fields and forests for the license of this hour. Some regard 
 for religion and for mercy was shown by the Gothic king ; 
 for Alaric was a Christian. He exhorted his followers to 
 spare the lives of the unresisting, and to respect the shrines 
 
THE SACK OF EOME. 245 
 
 of the holy apostles St. Peter and St. Paul, as inviolable 
 sanctuaries. But we, who have read of the sacks of Mag- 
 deburg and Badajos by the soldiery of professedly-civilized 
 and Christian powers, may well understand how little effect 
 such injunctions could have had upon the excited passions 
 of German and Scythian brigands. Rome contained the 
 spoils of the world. They were quickly transferred to the 
 baggage-train of the victors. Gold and jewels ; vestments 
 of silk ; precious fabrics of Eastern looms ; exquisite statues, 
 coveted for the value of the metal they contained ; the 
 massive plate of patrician houses ; the costly vases which 
 had ornamented the boudoirs of imperial ladies, were seen 
 defiling, day after day, high piled in Gothic waggons, through 
 streets covered with corses of the slain. The effects of this 
 terrible shock to civilization were felt far and wide. Fugitives 
 thronged the shores of Egypt and Syria. St. Jerome tells 
 us, that every day men and women, who had passed their 
 lives in patrician luxury, arrived at his hermitage in Beth- 
 lehem, begging their daily bread. The news of the dreadful 
 event made his tongue cleave to the roof of his mouth, 
 and his pen drop from his hand. " For twenty years," 
 he bitterly cries, "Roman blood has been flowing every 
 day between Constantinople and the Julian Alps. Scythia, 
 Thrace, Macedonia, Dardania, Dacia, Thessalonica, Epirus, 
 Achaia, Dalmatia, the two Pannonias, — all belong to the 
 barbarians, who ravage, rend, and devour everything before 
 them. How many noble matrons and maids have been the 
 toys of their lust; how many bishops in chains, priests 
 butchered, churches destroyed, altars turned into stables, 
 relics profaned ! Sorrow, mourning, and death are every- 
 where. The Roman world is crumbling into ruin !" 
 
 It is the disadvantage of a work brief as this must neces- 
 sarily be, that we cannot dwell upon collateral matters, — 
 upon the accidental disclosures of contemporary writers, 
 which often give a truer picture of the times, than the best 
 
246 ITALY. 
 
 narrative of its leading events. It is from the pages of 
 Jerome that we miglit best derive such a delineation. 
 Perhaps no one has thoroughly understood the age in its 
 most remarkable aspects, who has not studied the writings 
 of that extraordinary man, as he poured them forth from 
 the depths of his fervid religious enthusiasm and bitter 
 despair. There, better than elsewhere, we discern the 
 great cardinal principles which separated the Christian 
 life, in its social aspects, from the old pagan life of the 
 world, and placed the two in irreconcilable opposition, — 
 the equality, I mean, of the slave to his master as a spi- 
 ritual being ; the universal brotherhood of men ; and the 
 emancipation of woman from the debasement in which pas- 
 sion and the dominance of brute-force had placed her. Far 
 more vividly than any other man, he felt and depicted the 
 frightful havoc which had overwhelmed the world. " What 
 is anywhere to be seen," he says, "but conflagration, ruin, cap- 
 tivity, despair, and death ; the slaughter of friends and the 
 faces of foes ; one universal shijjwreck of society, from which 
 there is no escape save on the plank of penitence and faith." 
 Nor was a less powerful impression produced upon the other 
 great churchman of the age. The end of all things seemed 
 at hand. " All the East," says Augustine ; " all the remotest 
 regions of the world, which had once revered the name 
 and owned the sway of Rome, bewailed her fall ;" he him- 
 self could not banish the thought from his mind as long as 
 he lived. To the mind of churchmen, thoroughly imbued 
 with the doctrine inherited from apostolic teaching, of the 
 speedy coming of their Lord amid the clouds of heaven, how 
 could it seem otherwise 1 
 
 "Whether from motives of policy or mercy, or because he 
 panted for fresh fields of conquest, Alaric quitted Rome on 
 the sixth day after he had entered it. With the native 
 instinct of the barbarian, he still sought the South. The 
 rich and lovely island of Sicily, long the granary of Rome, 
 
GOTHS ENTER GAUL AND SPAIN. 247 
 
 tempted him to cross tLe narrow channel which separates 
 it from the Italian coast. His followers were as eager as 
 himself, but more superstitious, and more distrustful of the 
 unknown perils of the sea. A tempest dispersed their rude 
 galleys on the first attempt to cross ; but while they hesitated 
 before undertaking a second expedition, the great leader 
 died. The wild grief of his warriors was exhibited in a 
 most characteristic way. Beneath the walls of Consentia, 
 rolled the waters of a small river, the Busentius or Busen- 
 tinus. This they diverted from its course by the labour of 
 the captives who accompanied the camp, and, excavating a 
 large space in the original bed of the stream, placed in it 
 the body of their king, amid a profusion of the most precious 
 things which they had brought with them from the sack 
 of Home. They then turned back the river to its ancient 
 course, and slew the slaves who had performed the work, 
 that the hand of the spoiler might never desecrate the spot 
 where slept the conqueror of Italy. Their pre- 
 cautions were successful. As of the great leader 
 of the armies of Israel, so may it be said of the leader of the 
 Goths — No man knows the tomb of Alaric. 
 
 The Goths had been two years in Italy ; they remained 
 two more. Gibbon depicts them during this time as passing 
 days of luxurious delight in the voluptuous villas of Tuscu- 
 lum and Campania, sheltered from the burning rays of noon 
 beneath the leaves of spreading planes, and quaffing from 
 goblets of gems and gold, large draughts of rich Falernian, 
 which the fair hands of the trembling daughters of Roman 
 senators proffered to their lips. The genius of Mr. Kingsley* 
 has given a still more graphic portraiture of the strong, sensu- 
 ous, yet not altogether ungraceful life, of these huge northern 
 giants, beneath the soft perfumed air, and amid the beau- 
 tiful women and intoxicating wines of the South. Resi- 
 dence in Italy may have engendered Roman sympathies, 
 * Hyp.itia. 
 
248 ITALY. 
 
 or the restless spirit of the barbarian may have sought 
 alliance with Rome as the readiest means of enterin» 
 
 o 
 
 upon the track of other conquests. But from some motive 
 or other, Ataulphus, Adolphus, or Astolphus, who 
 had been chosen to succeed his brother Alaric, 
 offered his sword to Honorius against the enemies of the 
 Empire beyond the Alps. In the character of a Eoman 
 general he advanced into Southern Gaul, made himself mas- 
 ter of the important cities of Narbonne, Toulouse, and Bor- 
 deaux, and founded the great kingdom of the Visigoths, 
 which soon stretched over the fertile regions on both sides 
 of the Pyrenees. Of its history, which connects itself with 
 that of Gaul and Spain, we shall hereafter speak,* when we 
 review the condition of Spain and Gaul. At present we 
 are concerned with Italy ; but it is no part of our purpose 
 elaborately to trace the intriguing annals of the imperial 
 court after the death of the dethroned Honorius. The 
 events of the next quarter of a century are mainly con- 
 nected with the history of the ephemeral empires of the 
 Vandal and the Hun. The Huns first appear upon the 
 scene, and, as they affected the establishment of an antago- 
 nist empire, rather than the subjugation of Home itself, 
 it has been found convenient to treat of the rise, progress, 
 and dissolution of that attempt in a previous lecture.t 
 Of the Vandal dynasty in Africa we shall hereafter 
 speak. The thread of the Italian narrative is, however, 
 easily recovered. 
 
 Honorius at last had closed his disgraceful life; the 
 
 empress Placidia governed in the name of her 
 
 son Valentinian, who was a minor. Such a court 
 
 as was the Boman court, beneath the rule of a woman, was 
 
 the fittest of all possible arenas for political intrigue. Two 
 
 great generals or counts, Aetius, of whom we have heard so 
 
 much, and Boniface, disputed the first place in her favour, 
 
 * Lecture VIIL f Lecture IV. 
 
GENSERIC INVITED INTO ITALY. 249 
 
 and, as a natural consequence, tlie practical supremacy 
 in the state. Boniface yas administering the province of 
 Africa. Aetius persuaded the empress to recall him, and 
 at the same time persuaded Boniface not to obey the recall. 
 The latter he induced to believe that the order of the 
 empress was the summons to instant death ; to the empress 
 herself he represented the refusal of the prefect as an 
 overt act of treason to her authority. Boniface gazed 
 around him in his extremity for assistance, and caught 
 sight of the Vandals standing on the shores of Spain, and 
 looking intently over the waters of the Mediterranean upon 
 the fair unravaged land, which he still administered for Rome. 
 In an evil hour he summoned them to his aid. That aid was 
 too readily granted. The Vandals (whose history we shall 
 recount in a future lecture) had by this time deposed their 
 legitimate king, and were then obeying the be- 
 hests of his brother Genseric, a more frightful 
 barbarian than any who had as yet arisen among the foes 
 of Rome. The circumstances of his eventful life, with the 
 origin, growth, and character of Vandal domination in 
 Africa, shall be hereafter detailed : we have now only to 
 do with him and his people as the pillagers of Rome. 
 Once more, as in the case of Attila, a woman, and a Roman 
 princess, gave the invitation which brought shame and 
 outrage to her country. Valentinian, in the course of his 
 unbridled debauchery, had basely decoyed and then violated 
 the wife of Petronius Maximus, a noble Roman. Maximus 
 avenged himself by the dagger of a bravo, and assumed his 
 master's place. We cannot pity the murderer of Aetius ; 
 but it is equally impossible to sympathize with the usurper 
 who forced Eudoxia, the wife of Valentinian, into wedlock 
 with himself, the assassin of her husband. The example of 
 Honoria and her af&anced Hun appears to have worked upon 
 the imagination of the empress. In her despair she called 
 upon the terrible king of the Yandals to deliver her person 
 
2o0 ITALY. 
 
 and avenge her wrongs. Within three months, Genseric was 
 
 at the mouth of the Tiber. The Romans, in wild agitation, 
 
 could devise no better means of defence than the slaughter 
 
 of Maximus, their emperor, in a street tumult, 
 
 while he was attempting to secure his own safety 
 
 by flight. On the third day the enemy was at the gates. 
 
 Leo still lived, and hoped, or perhaps believed, that the same 
 
 venerable presence which had arrested the Hun, would 
 
 exert a similar influence upon the mind of his ferocious 
 
 confederate. Once more, at the head of a long procession 
 
 of clergy, and arrayed in sacerdotal robes, he approached a 
 
 mighty host of armed barbariaus thirsting for blood and 
 
 spoil. Ecclesiastical writers ascribe to him the glory of a 
 
 second moral victory, a second deliverance of the metropolis 
 
 of the Christian world from the sword of her enemies. 
 
 The Yandal king received him with unexpected mildness, 
 
 and promised mercy to the unresisting, and protection from 
 
 fire to the principal buildings of the city. It is impossible 
 
 to ascertain how far such promises were given in good faith. 
 
 For fourteen days, from the 15th to the 29th 
 A.D. 455. . . 
 
 June, the city was delivered over to rapine ; and 
 
 the Vandal and the Moor were found to be more cruel and 
 insatiate plunderers than the Goth. Whatever had sur- 
 vived the former sack, — whatever the luxury of the Roman 
 Patriciate, during the intervening forty-five years, had 
 accumulated in reparation of their loss, — the treasures of 
 the imperial palace, the gold and silver vessels employed in 
 the churches, the statues of pagan divinities and men of 
 Roman renown, the gilded roof of the temple of Capitolian 
 Jove, the plate and ornaments of private individuals, were 
 leisurely conveyed to the Vandals fleet and shipped ofi" to 
 Africa. To this systematic spoliation we must assign the 
 loss of most of the best-known monuments of national 
 history and of foreign conquest, contained in the im- 
 perial city. Amongst these were the precious records and 
 
PLUNDERS ROME. 2ol 
 
 ornaments of the Capitol ; the golden table, and the 
 candlestick of seven branches, torn by Titus from the 
 Temple of Jerusalem. They were pillaged simply for their 
 value in the melting-pot. No grace of art, no charm of 
 historic association, affected the rude minds of the African 
 pirates, who, by a strange mockery of fortune, became 
 masters of all the treasures which, during ten centuries of 
 civilized life, had been accumulated in the marble palaces of 
 the metropolis of the world. Capua, Nola, and all the pro- 
 vincial tov/ns, not fortified sufficiently to stand a siege, 
 shared the same fate. The memory of the abhorrence with 
 which Europe regarded their deeds still lives in language ; 
 and most modern nations have fixed the stamp of eternal 
 scorn to the Vandal name, by employing it to denote what- 
 ever is an outrage upon the sense of grace and beauty, which 
 is the common inheritance of cultivated minds. The empress 
 met the fate which, despite her wrongs, the reader will 
 perhaps deem that she deserved. She went forth to meet 
 her champion arrayed in imperial robes. The "age of 
 chivalry" had not, indeed, " departed j" but, unhappily for 
 her, it had not yet arrived. She was instantly stripped of 
 her valuable wardrobe, — her gold, her jewels, her silken 
 trains, — and was transported into Africa with her three 
 daughters. They were accompanied by G0,000 captives. 
 Theirs was indeed a melancholy lot — the covXioy ij/j-ap — 
 the day of slavery — the foreign land — the finger of scorn — 
 the barbarian lord, described in Andromache's foreboding 
 words, by the first and greatest of the masters of the human 
 heart. There were not, however, wanting alleviations. Of 
 the fortunes of those prisoners who fell into the hands of 
 the Moorish allies of Genseric, nothing can be conjectured ; 
 but in Carthage itself Christian sympathy shone forth iu 
 pleasing colours, affording the only bright picture in the 
 annals of those dark and terrible times. Deogratias, the 
 worthy bishop of Carthage, spared neither of his substance 
 
252 ITALY. 
 
 nor of Lis labour, to relieve the miserable captives ; he 
 even sold the consecrated vessels of the Church, and changed 
 two basilicas into hospitals for the wounded and diseased. 
 Private charity was almost equally active. Still the exiles 
 of Carthage filled a world with " lamentation, and mourning, 
 and woe ; " and it is no marvel if the fond expectation of 
 the faithful gathered strength, and men looked iday by day 
 for that awful Presence in the clouds of heaven, which should 
 redeem the wrongs of the nations, and rescue the souls of 
 God's elect. 
 
 But it was not the world — it was only Rome, that hastened 
 to its fall. The last quarter of the fifth century saw this grand 
 drama brought to a solemn close. No twenty-five years in 
 human history exhibit incidents of such absorbing interest, 
 more strange vicissitudes in the fortunes of great men and 
 the government of states, so vast a catastrophe coming down 
 upon the civilization of the world. They witnessed the 
 actual fall of the Koman empire and the destruction of 
 Italian independence ; the final severance of the East and 
 West, the establishment of foreign domination over the 
 succession to the throne of the Caesars ; in a word, the 
 extinction of the old-world order of things and the com- 
 mencement of a new life for humanity. This immense 
 revolution was mainly wrought out by three men, all of 
 barbarian birth : Ricimer a Sueve, Odoacer a Rugian, and 
 Theodoric an Ostrogoth. These men stand out from the 
 epoch in giant proportions, but they do not stand alone. 
 Around them revolve many figures of subordinate interest 
 and importance, who were, however, largely instrumental 
 in carrying out the great work. We see emperors of the 
 West, the puppets or instruments of barbarian masters, 
 permitted for a brief while to assume the fatal splendours of 
 the Csesarean purple — Avitus the Gaul, Majorianus the 
 soldier, Anthemius the Greek, Olybrius his rival and suc- 
 cessor, Glycerins an Italian count, Nepos the nominee of the 
 
IMPORTANCE OF LAST QUARTER OF Vth CENTURY. 253 
 
 Byzantine court, and finally, Romulus Augustulus, tlie son 
 and 'representative of Orestes the Pannonian, who closed the 
 roll of Roman Caesars. We see emperors of the East, the 
 two Leos, and the Isaurian Zeno, ever intriguing from 
 Byzantium to recover their hold on the Western empire, 
 and for their personal interests selling Italy to the bar- 
 barian sword ; statesmen, like Orestes, the Romanized 
 secretary of the king of the Huns, Boethius, Basilius, 
 Symmachus, vainly endeavouring to maintain the dignity of 
 the senatorial order and the political existence of Rome ; 
 churchmen exercising the most important influence in these 
 troublous times, reconciling enemies, moderating the fury 
 of barbarian conquerors, protecting their flocks from famine 
 and sword, nurturing the Church with their labours and 
 their substance, or sometimes with their blood, and founding, 
 amid scenes of terrible peril, missionary churches in savage 
 lands. Such were Sidonius in Auvergne, Epiphanius at 
 Pavia, Severinus on the Danube. Again, we see soldiers 
 of fortune, Aspar, the two Theodorics, Videmir, and Tufa, — 
 popes, patriarchs, Greek princesses and heretics, a varied 
 crowd, intermingling, fighting, destroying, and devouring 
 each other, like the creatures which the microscope reveals 
 in a drop of stagnant water. 
 
 The arrangement of these characters on the historic stage, 
 the estimate of their motives, their vices or their virtues, 
 and the narrative of the parts they played, would demand a 
 master hand, and would also form no unworthy task for its 
 dramatic skill. But the task could not be accomplished 
 satisfactorily except in a separate work, and such a work is 
 still among the things which the historical student has most 
 earnestly to desire.* My limits, unfortunately, confine me 
 
 * Singularly enough, since these words were written, this has been 
 done. The "Rdcits de I'Histoire Romaine," by M. Am^d^e Thierry, 
 accomplish, in his own admirable style, all that is required. These 
 pages were unfortunately in the press before his just-published work 
 reached my hands, and I have therefore been enabled to avail myself 
 
254 ITALY. 
 
 to a meagre narrative, which, however, must be longer and 
 more specific than it will be possible to employ elsewhel^e in 
 the present work ; for here we touch upon the very cardinal 
 and critical period of that era in the world's history with 
 which it is our object to deal. 
 
 Twenty-nine miserable years passed away. The Visigoth 
 power was now paramount on both sides of the Alps. 
 Theodoric, grandson of the great Alaric, despite the policy 
 of his brother Thorismond, had ascended the throne of that 
 kingdom which his uncles, Adolphus and Wallia, consoli- 
 dated in Gaul and Spain. He made Toulouse his capital, 
 and soon obtained a predominance in the counsels of Gaul. 
 At Rome all was feebleness and confusion. When the 
 populace tore to pieces Maximus, the coward who fled 
 before the face of the Vandals, Theodoric II., king of the 
 Goths in Gaul, persuaded Avitus of Auvergne, 
 who had once saved the Empire from the Huns, 
 to ascend the throne.* But Avitus was not a man of the 
 iron stamp which the age required. The time had passed 
 when a Roman, or Romanized Gaul, had any chance of 
 retrieving the destinies of the Empire, or even of directing 
 
 of it only to a very limited extent. It is a source of great satisfaction 
 to me to find that he has anticipated my ideas upon the importance of 
 this critical period of history ; and I may perhaps be permitted to quote 
 from his preface the following confirmation (pp. 10, 11) : — "Les causes 
 derniferes de la grande catastrophe qui sdpare le monde ancien du monde 
 moderne, sont comprises dans ces vingt-six ann^es : dislocation des 
 ressorts du gouvernement remain ; oppression des empereurs par les 
 patrices barbares, prefets du pretoire des C^sars, durant cette agonie de 
 I'Empire ; antagonisme de I'Orient et de I'Occident ; essai des provinces 
 pour se constituer en ^tats independants ; dictature demi-barbare, 
 demi-romaine, ^lev^e sur les mines du principat ; march^ passd solen- 
 nelleraent entre I'empereur de Constantinople et un roi barbare pour 
 lui livrer I'ltalie, et installation d'un peuple Stranger au midi des 
 Alpes : voiU ce que renferme ce quart de sifecle, pdriode supreme de la 
 nationality italienne," M. Thierry has also, I perceive, assigned that 
 importance to Sidonius which led me to defer special notice of him to 
 a distinct work, and has given many of the passages which I had 
 selected as interesting and valuable. 
 * Lecture IV. 
 
EICIMER APPOINTS MAJORIAN. 255 
 
 its affairs. All power, as is wont to be the case in such 
 periods, had passed into the stronger hands of those who 
 wielded the actual physical force of the state. Rome had 
 employed barbarian soldiers as her servants until they 
 became her masters. Like the mayors of the palace in 
 Erank history, and like successful military adventurers in 
 every age, they engrossed all real authority, even when they 
 allowed its names and titles to remain in the feeble hands 
 of others. 
 
 Count Ricimer, a Sueve, but connected with the Goths 
 by maternal descent,* cousin of Theodoric, and pupil of 
 Aetius in the art of war, had distinguished himself greatly 
 in the Vandal invasions, and was now generalissimo of 
 the Roman armies. This man, to adopt an expression 
 of M. Thierry, renewed, after a lapse of 500 years, the 
 dictatorship of Sylla, and died quietly in his bed. He be- 
 came absolute at Rome, and persuaded Avitus that a mitre 
 would better become his brow than an imperial crown. 
 Again, then, as in the case of Arbogastes, a barbarian had 
 the sceptre in his hand ; but again, also, the barbarian re- 
 fused to close his grasp. The shadow of the great Name was 
 upon his spirit, and inspired him with a politic hesitation, 
 perhaps with a superstitious awe. He clothed 
 with the purple his ancient comrade Majorian, a 
 distinguished man, bred in the school of Aetius, — a soldier 
 and a patriot, t 
 
 * "Invictus Ricimer, patre Suevus, a genetrice Getes." — SiDONius 
 Apollinaris, Pan. Majoriani. 
 
 + The panegyric of Sidonius is less inflated than usual, and was 
 probably deserved : — 
 
 " Imperium jam consul habet, quem purpura non plus 
 Quam lorica operit, cujus diademata frontem 
 Non luxu sed lege tegent, meritisque laborum 
 Post palmam palmata venit ; decora omnia regni 
 Accumulant fasces, et princeps consule crescit." 
 
 Sid. Apoll., Fan. Maj. v. 2—6. 
 
256 ITALY. 
 
 Kicimer imagined that an emperor of his own making 
 would be a willing tool. In this he was deeply deceived. 
 Majorian was one of the best men who had ever mounted the 
 imperial throne, and, had opportunity been granted to him, 
 would have played a noble part in the history of liis times. 
 He attempted to revive the best traditions of the past, and 
 to govern as a Roman, but also as a reformer. He met the 
 fate of all reformers in an entirely hopeless age. It had 
 been his ambition to humble the Vandal ; and his mili- 
 tary and naval preparations seemed to insure success. The 
 resources of Italy, Gaul, and Spain were put into requisi- 
 tion. Whole forests descended into the sea ; the trees cut 
 were as numerous as the waves.* It is said that, like our 
 own Alfred, he disguised himself, and personally visited in 
 Africa, the capital, and even the arsenal of his enemies. As 
 he passed the threshold, the suspended arms clanged with an 
 ominous sound. We may discredit the romantic story ; but, 
 as Gibbon says, it would not have been imagined save in the 
 life of a hero. Traitors were found, instigated, it is said, by 
 Ricimer, who disclosed his plans to the Yandals. They availed 
 themselves of the information to destroy his fleet, in the har- 
 bour of Carthago nova, the modern Carthagena. Soon after- 
 wards he perished in a sedition of his own soldiery, 
 who acted, there can be little doubt, under en- 
 couragement from Ricimer. The Sueve substituted one 
 Severus, a Lucanian, of whom history says nothing save 
 that, after a reign of less than four years, he became dis- 
 tasteful to his patron, and perished, as he probably deserved, 
 
 * " Interea duplici texis dum littore classem 
 
 Inferno superoque mari, cadit omnis in sequor 
 Silva tibi, nimiumque diu per utrumque recisus 
 Apennine, latus, navalique arbore dives 
 Non minus in pelagus nemorum quam mittis aquarum ; 
 ****** 
 Non tantis major Atrides 
 Carpathium texit ratibus." 
 
 SiDON. Apoll., Pan. Maj. v. 440—448. 
 
ANTHEMIUS EMPEROR. 257 
 
 by poison. Ricimer, now completely dominant, was in no 
 hurry to give the Romans a new master and himself a 
 possible rival. Things continued in this state from the 
 close of the year 465 till the spring of 467. It was a 
 degrading position for Rome ; and it seemed necessary to 
 bestir herself, if she was ever to have a new emperor ; for 
 Ricimer would do nothing. In her difficulty she applied to 
 Constantinople, and Leo, flattered by the request, sent 
 the most distinguished man in his dominions. This was 
 Anthemius, commander of the ^gean fleet, son-in-law of 
 the emperor, and connected by descent with the great Con- 
 stantine. He had formerly married a daughter of the 
 old emperor, and might, had he so chosen, have opposed 
 the election of Leo himself with every chance of success. 
 He preferred distinction in a private station ; and the same 
 feeling made him hesitate before accepting the throne of 
 the West. The hesitation was natural j for the acceptance 
 involved a condition of which he bitterly complained, but 
 which it was utterly impossible to avoid. Ricimer demanded 
 his daugliter in marriage. To the proud Greek it seemed the 
 sacrifice of another Iphigenia; but he was compelled to assent. 
 It was amon» the tumult of exultation and feasting, 
 occasioned by this marriage, that Sidonius arrived ' ' '* 
 on a political mission at the court of the new emperor. He 
 found business entirely suspended ; the whole city, as it 
 seemed to him, had gone mad, and he hides himself in a 
 private chamber to write a letter to his friend.* Soon he 
 himself became one of the most influential personages in the 
 new court ; and, forgetful of the fate of his father-in-law 
 Avitus, bestowed a panegyric upon the new emperor from 
 
 * " Hoc ipso tempore quo ha9c mihi exarabantur, vix per omnia theatra, 
 macella, prcetoria, fora, templa, gymnasia, thalassio fescenninus expli- 
 caretnr, atque etiam nunc e contrario studia sileant, negotia quiescant, 
 judicia conticescant, dilFerantur legationes, vacet ambitus, et inter 
 ecurrilitates histriouum totus actionum seriarum status peregrinetur." — 
 Sid. AroLL., Ej)ist. i. 5. 
 
 S 
 
258 ITALY. 
 
 Greece, quite as fulsome, and much more voluminous, than any 
 he had heard in the streets. The relations between Ricimer 
 and Anthemius, with pride and coldness on one side, and a 
 determination to domineer on the other, were not likely to 
 be very intimate or very lasting. Anthemius had brought 
 with him from Greece Greek prejudices and habits, and, 
 what was worse, Greek theology. This soon rendered him 
 unpopular with the Latins and the Latin Church. Ricimer 
 skilfully availed himself of the fact, and speedily came to 
 an open rupture with his son-in-law. Epiphanius, bishop of 
 Pavia, one of the great and influential churchmen who in 
 that age shared the moral power of emperors and barbarian 
 genemls, for a moment reconciled, or seemed to reconcile, 
 the two. The truce was a hollow one. Ricimer, hanging 
 about Northern Italy with a most formidable force, was only 
 biding his time. Nor was his opportunity long delayed. 
 Great events had haj)pened at Constantinople. Aspar, the 
 Alan, a patrician of barbarian birth, who occupied towards 
 the Greek emperor a position very similar to that in which 
 Ricimer himself stood to Anthemius, had been assassinated 
 by Zeno's eunuchs ; and Zeno, with unconcealed delight, 
 communicated the fact to his western brother. The ex- 
 ample might prove suggestive. Ricimer took the alarm, 
 and determined to be beforehand with his adversary. Most 
 opportunely, a rival candidate had just appeared, under the 
 patronage of the Yandals, who, encouraged by the disastrous 
 defeat of the great expedition against them, had determined 
 to interfere in Western politics. One of the three princesses, 
 daughters of Valentinian, who had been carried off from 
 Rome after its sack by Genseric, had, after her release from 
 Carthage, espoused Olybrius, a distinguished senator of the 
 Anician house, to whom, before her disastrous deportation, 
 she had been warmly attached. Olybrius, it seems, had long 
 before entertained ambitious designs, grounded perhaps on 
 the hope of this alliance : the Yandal king connived at the 
 
GLYCERIUS EMPEROR. 26f 
 
 marriage, with the intention of employing the spouse of the 
 imperial lady for his own purposes. After a delay of several 
 years, the occasion at last arrived. The Vandal made friends 
 with Ricimer, his former enemy, and instigated Olybrius to 
 join him in Italy for the purpose of dethroning Anthemius. 
 Ricimer and Olybrius met in Northern Italy, at the beginning 
 of the year. Throwing aside all disguise, they in- 
 stantly proclaimed war, and marched upon Rome. 
 Save some Gaulish mercenaries under Belimer, a gallant 
 officer, the unfortunate Anthemius had few troops upon 
 whom to rely. The siege of Rome was to him and his party 
 a slow torture, moral and physical ; for every day the enemy 
 won some advanced post or street, and every day the strict 
 blockade increased the severity of the famine within the 
 walls. At last, nothing was left to Anthemius but to take 
 the advice of the senators and fly. As he was hastily making 
 for Ostia, on the 11th July, he was overtaken and slain by 
 the hand of Ricimer himself, say the chroniclers, to whom 
 dramatic effects of this sort are ever dear. Rome once more 
 underwent the horrid fate of a city taken by assault. Thrice 
 within sixty years had she been sacked "from turret to 
 foundation-stone ; " on the two former occasions by the Goth 
 and the Vandal j this time, in the bitter mockery of fate, by 
 her own general and her own armies. Ricimer and Olybrius 
 did not long enjoy their triumph. Faithless and cruel in 
 their lives, in their deaths they were not divided. The first 
 perished forty days after the death of his father-in-law, in 
 lingering tortures, believed by the historians of the time to 
 have been a retribution for his deeds of blood ; in sixty- 
 five days more, his accomplice followed him to the grave. 
 The role of king-maker was for a moment vacant : it was 
 grasped by a not very powerful hand. The Burgundian Gon- 
 debaud, or Gundobald, nephew of tlie Patrician, had na- 
 turally been appointed, by the gratitude of Olybrius, to Lis 
 uncle's place and duties. It came to pass, therefore, that 
 
 s 2 
 
260 ITALY. 
 
 upon the death of Olybrius, this somewhat obscure indi- 
 vidual found that " greatness had been thrust upon him," 
 and that he was, in fact, the disposer of the throne of 
 the Caesars. After four months' delay, he selected for 
 the vacant seat one Glycerins, an Italian, captain 
 A.D. 47d. ^£ ^-^^ guard to the late emperor, a man altogether 
 Tinsuited to a great destiny. Gundobald himself, whose 
 heart was on the opposite side of the Alps, and whose only 
 ambition was to revenge himself upon his Burgundian 
 brothers, who had driven him into exile, soon found that 
 his presence was required in Gaul by domestic affairs, and 
 left his protege to shift for himself. He was soon involved 
 in trouble ; for by this time the Ostrogoths, under Yidemir, 
 probably directed by the treachery of the Eastern empire, 
 demanded lands, and, in the usual barbarian fashion, de- 
 clared they would take them if not given. Glycerins had 
 a good army and a good position. His enemies were half- 
 starved and discouraged. He had an excellent chance of 
 exterminating them, or, at the least, of driving them out 
 of Italy. He preferred to point to the long line of the 
 Savoyard Alps, and say to the barbarian : " Behind those 
 mountain-tops lies Gaul, a good land and a pleasant one. 
 There dwell your brethren the Visigoths. They will wel- 
 come you with open arms ; and, by our imperial authority, 
 we will grant you lands beside them." That right had long 
 ceased, practically, to belong to the Koman emperors ; but, 
 availing themselves of the pretext, the Ostrogoths scaled 
 the Alps, and, pouring into Gaul, inflicted the frightful 
 desolation of which we shall have to speak hereafter. The 
 craven and selfish Glycerius was fated soon to meet his 
 reward. The result of his compact with Yidemir rendered 
 him contemptible in the eyes of all who bore the Eoman 
 name : the army were discontented with the man who had 
 sold their honour to the barbarian ; his domestic admini- 
 stration was utterly venal and base. In the mean time, Leo, 
 
JULIUS NEPOS EMPEEOR. 261 
 
 the Greek emperor, indignant at the death of Anthemius, 
 and more indignant still that an obscure Burgundian should 
 dispose of a throne which he in fact regarded as his 
 own fief, had fixed upon a candidate, and supported him 
 with a large force. Julius Nepos was nephew to Mar- 
 cellinus, a brave and skilful captain, formerly the idol 
 of the camp, and one of those promising men whose 
 lives the daofo^er of Ricimer had cut short. He was at 
 this time successfully governing Dalmatia, as a sovereign 
 prince. Leo summoned him to Constantinople, 
 married him to a niece of the empress Yerina, and 
 landed him at Ravenna, by the help of a powerful fleet. 
 Glycerins fled instantly from his capital ; Julius occupied 
 his vacant palace, and was immediately proclaimed Caesar, 
 in the name of the Eastern emperor, in the midst of an 
 applauding multitude, attracted, most probably, more by 
 curiosity than zeal ; for Julius was too much like a mere 
 nominee of the foreigner, to excite much enthusiasm in 
 Italy. Glycerins fled to Rome ; but the Senate declared 
 for neutrality, and closed its gates. He collected a few troops, 
 and awaited his rival. Julius appeared with an army, which 
 he had gathered together by bribes, promises, and flattery. 
 Though not strong, they inspired their opponents with 
 terror. Glycerins again fled, without attempting a general 
 action, and was caught, while attempting to escape by the 
 fort. Crouching and terrified, he was brought before the 
 conqueror, who, instead of having him decapitated, cut his 
 hair, and made him, on the spot, bishop of Salona, a small 
 town, capital of Dalmatia, the province which he had him- 
 self administered, and which he believed to be devoted to 
 his interests. He had better have followed the ordinary 
 practice ; for Glycerins lived to turn and sting with venom 
 that was deadly. 
 
 Rome opened her gates to the conqueror, and inaugurated 
 him as Augustus with great solemnity. But she had not 
 
262 ITALY. 
 
 forgotten the reign of Antbemius, and showed little pleasure 
 at the renewal of a similar experiment. Julius endeavoured, 
 by the modesty of his demeanour and the impartiality of 
 his administration, to conciliate popularity. Many reforms 
 were effected, many deserving persons promoted to high 
 place, and many corrupt officials cashiered. The provinces 
 were in raptures. Sidonius, ever ready with a panegyric, 
 hails him as "Augustus glorious and supreme, in morals as in 
 arms."* But it was too late. Troubles had arisen in Gaul 
 not to be overcome either by policy or force. Euric, king of the 
 Visigoths, interpreting, rightly enough, the fall of Glycerins 
 as the installation of his enemies in power, got together his 
 warriors, and fell savagely upon Roman Gaul. Among the 
 mountains of Auvergne alone did he encounter any resolute 
 resistance. Sidonius, the brave bishop, and his equally 
 brave brother-in-law Ecdicius, held out, amid immense 
 sufferings within the walls of Clermont, under the shadow of 
 the gigantic Puy-de-D6me, and close beside Gergovia, almost 
 the last stronghold of that primitive Gallic freedom which 
 had so long defied the arms of Caesar. Euric recoiled for 
 the moment, but, infuriated by the repulse, he swore to 
 have Auvergne. As this meant the entire extinction of 
 Romanism beyond the Alps, the last Csesars held it in a 
 desperate grasp. Julius adopted every possible expedient : 
 he sent ambassadors, and the holy bishop Epiphanius himself, 
 who had never been known to fail in negotiation, for the 
 purpose of reasoning with the Goth ; he convoked all the 
 noblesse of Italy — an unprecedented measure — to meet him 
 at Milan, and advise upon the state of affairs. All was in 
 vain. Euric insisted upon Auvergne, and nothing but 
 Auvergne. For that he would give up the Narbonnaise. 
 To save even this much, the emperor consented. " Shame,'* 
 
 * Sidon. Apollinaris, v. 16. Compare, also, the letter to Audax, the 
 new prefect of Home, viii. 7. 
 
THE PATRICIAN ORESTES. 263 
 
 ■writes Sidonius ; " our slavery lias been made the price of 
 the security of others — the slavery of Auvergne ! "* Evil 
 fortune appeared to pursue the doomed emperor. In Gaul 
 he had been compelled to sacrifice his best friends and most 
 faithful servants to his worst enemies. From Constanti- 
 nople he received the bitter intelligence that Leo, his friend 
 and patron, was no more. The sedition which followed his 
 decease, showed that aid was no longer to be expected from 
 the East. But the severest blow of all was that which placed 
 him in the hands of a man who had the will and the power 
 to seal his fate.f This man was Orestes the Patrician, a 
 Pannonian, who had been an of&cer about the person of 
 
 * Sidon. ApoUinaris, Epiat. vii. 7. 
 
 + The following sketch of Orestes will help us to understand one of 
 the most interesting men of the age, and, indeed, the character of tlie 
 age itself: — '* De tons les aventuriers romains ou barbares que pro- 
 duisit le V""^ Siecle, ce sifecle des grands aventuriers de I'anciea 
 monde, aucun n'offrit dans sa vie de plus ^tranges contrastes que cet 
 Oreste, sorti de la tente d'Attila, pour aller fermer, sur le trdne imperial 
 d'Occident, en la personne de son fils, la succession de Jules Cesar, et 
 d'Auguste. Ne h. Pettau, en Illyrie, d'une famille honnete de pro- 
 viuciaux, il s'^tait allid h, une plus illustre, en ^pousant la fille du 
 Comte Romulus, personnage considerable, nifime hors de sa province, et 
 honor^ de plusieurs missions par les C^sars de Ravenna. Avec une 
 merveilleuse souplesse d'esprit, que n'embarrassaient les scrupules de 
 conscience, Oreste savait toujours accommoder son patriotisme aux 
 vicissitudes de sa patrie. Rotnain au temps ot. la Pannonie dtait 
 romaine, barbare lorsque les Huns roccupfereut, mais pret h redevenir 
 Romain au premier retour de fortune, il servit loyalement, k mesure 
 qu'elles se pr^sentferent, toutes les causes que lui imposa la n^cessit^. 
 Attila n'eut pas de ministre plus fidele, I'Empire de plus dangereux 
 adversaire, tant que dura la domination des Huns. Mais h. la mort du 
 Conqu(5rant, il regarda ses engagements comme rompus, et refusant de 
 prendre part aux luttes de ses compagnons d'armes, il vint avec sa 
 famille et ses tr^sors, se fixer en Italie, oii il d<^pensait noblement la 
 part qu'il avait touch^e dans le pillage de I'Empire. Ainsi rendu h. sa 
 })remifere situation, le secretaire d'Attila se montrait un bon et utile 
 Romain. Sa profonde connaissance des moours et des interets le fit 
 rechercher par les niinistres des empereurs, et par les empereurs eux- 
 niemes. II se glissa dans leur intimity, fut bient6t de leurs conseils, et 
 obtint un commandement dans le corps des domestiques, poste envi^ et 
 rdellement important, en ce qu'il servait de marcliepied £l tout." — Am. 
 Thiekky, Recits de V Histoire Romaine, ch. vi. ad init. 
 
2Qi ITALY. 
 
 Attila, and had even fulfilled the office of ambassador to 
 Constantinople. Upon his master's death, he offered to the 
 Empire the dubious service of his sword, and it was eagerly- 
 accepted. Cleverly keeping aloof during the late struggle, 
 he had been employed by Julius to re-organize the imperial 
 army, under the walls of E.ome. In the process he con- 
 trived to gain the affections of the soldiers, and was now 
 waiting an opportunity to make use of their attachment. 
 Fatally for himself, Julius gave liim the very opportunity 
 he desired, by ordering him to lead a strong division of his 
 troops into Gaul, and there superintend the surrender of 
 Auvergue to Euric and his Goths. The array were indignant 
 at the transaction, and at the part in it assigned to them- 
 selves. Why should they be banished beyond the Alps'? 
 "Why should they assist strangers to receive a reward which 
 their own valour, and their own services much better 
 merited 1 "Were they ever to serve a degenerate and 
 cowardly Greek for nothing 1 "When would there arise a 
 man of their own blood to lead them once more to victory, 
 and to bestow upon them its prizes 1 How far these 
 menacing murmurs owed their origin to the Patrician him- 
 self, — whether the soldiery were instigated to insurrection 
 by their commander, or the commander forced into treason 
 by the cupidity and ambition of his soldiery, can never now 
 be satisfactorily known ; but one thing is certain, to this man 
 and his army is to be ascribed the " beginning of the end." 
 Sulkily quitting Rome, they continued their march towards 
 the north, until they reached a spot where the road bifur- 
 cated to Ravenna and Milan. Erom this spot they could 
 dominate all Italy, and here, therefore, they boldly threw off 
 the mask. Julius, buried in false security at Ravenna, did 
 not discover the designs of his general until it was too 
 late. There were no means of defence at hand. l^o 
 sooner had Orestes assailed the causeway which con- 
 nected Ravenna with the mainland, than Julius em- 
 
EOMULUS AUGUSTULUS. 265 
 
 barked with his Dalmatians, and made the best of his way 
 to Salona. There he found his former rival and predecessor 
 on the throne, whom, it may be remembered, he had con- 
 tumeliously converted into a bishop. What a strange 
 revolution of Fortune's wheel! — what a. TrepnreTeia, as the 
 Greeks called it, or coming round of the course of events ! 
 And what a subject for an historical picture, is the meeting 
 of these two discrowned monarchs in the little Dalmatian 
 town. Nepos had better have sought the neighbourhood 
 of any other man in Europe ; for afterwards, when fortune 
 began again to dawn upon him, in the troubles between 
 Odoacer and Theodoric, and the eyes of men were once 
 more turning towards the East for aid. Glycerins had him 
 basely assassinated in his country house, on the 9th of May, 
 A.D. 480. But this is to anticii^ate. Orestes entered Ra- 
 venna on the 28th of March, 475. Imitating the policy of 
 his predecessors, he refused the purple, and would not even 
 enter the palace. A very inconvenient interregnum ensued, 
 which was broken by what M. Thierry calls a coup de theatre, 
 but which was just as probably an outbreak of the entirely 
 unmanageable soldiery. A party of them forced their way into 
 the residence of the Patrician, seized upon his young son, and 
 elevating him upon a buckler, after the barbarian practice, 
 paraded him through the streets, amid much ap- 
 plause, as the new Augustus. He had already been 
 christened Romulus ; and his youth and small stature, which 
 was too short for the purple robe forced upon him by the 
 soldiers, caused the conversion of the second name into its 
 diminutive Augustulus. Thus the last of the Caesars 
 united in his own person the names of the founder of Rome 
 and the founder of the Empire. It was a bitter mockery 
 of fate, that the memory of the victor of Actium, and of the 
 first of the Roman kings, should be recalled to the memory 
 of their descendants at the very moment when the work they 
 had done was about to be irredeemably destroyed ; when 
 
266 ITALY. 
 
 "the Empire without bounds" had collapsed within the 
 walls of what was now only an Italian town, and "the 
 eternal glory" was to pass away from their own people for 
 ever* 
 
 To make an emperor was comparatively an easy task, — 
 it had been often done of late ; but to keep him in his place 
 was a very different matter. The bands of Orestes did not 
 forget the reasons for which they had gathered beneath his 
 standard. If they made revolutions, they were determined 
 it should be for their own benefit, as well as for that of 
 their leader, and they clamoured for the lands which they 
 felt themselves to have deserved as fairly as the Ostrogoth 
 or the Frank. Their demand was for one-third of Italy. 
 Orestes might well hesitate : a boundless perspective of 
 misery opened out before his eyes, the certain result of 
 this gigantic confiscation. Besides, a change had come over 
 him, not unusual in the circumstances. His sympathies 
 were attracted towards the people who were now his sub- 
 jects; he could not forget the glorious traditions of their 
 past, and probably entertained hopes for their future. 
 "At the bottom," says M. Thierry, " he was Roman at 
 heart, and, flattered by the trust which the Italians rej^osed 
 in him, he would have blushed to attach his name to so 
 savage a spoliation." f He refused the demand. The refusal 
 was fatal to himself, to his son, to the dynasty of the Eoman 
 Caesars. The Man had long been awaiting the Hour : he 
 appeared in the person of Odoacer, son of Edecon, another 
 minister of Attila's, chief of the Heruli, and an officer in the 
 Patrician's service ; the boldest, most unscrupulous, and 
 most successful of all the barbarian mercenaries who had 
 crossed the Alps. A singular anecdote is related of his 
 youth. Having left his country with a small band of 
 
 * Virgil, ^n. i. 278. 
 
 t Kdcits de I'Histoire Romaine, ch. vii. 
 
ODOACER. 267 
 
 adventurers who were seeking service in Italy, he passed 
 by the cell of St. Severinus near the Danube, a bishop of piety 
 and immense influence, as well as of unnumbered good 
 works, whose history forms a long and interestiug episode 
 in the troubled annals of the times. In entering the humble 
 cell, one of the visitors, a young man of immense proportions, 
 was compelled to bow his head, and even when inside, to 
 remain in a stooj^ing position. Kegardiug him with a 
 penetrating glance, the saint augured his future greatness 
 from his mien, and declared it in prophetic words. " Go," 
 said he to the young man ; " go to Italy, clad in thy poor 
 and ragged sheepskins ; thou shalt soon give greater gifts to 
 thy friends."* The young man treasured up the words in 
 his heart, and remembered them at the critical moment. 
 His martial stature and soldier-like appearance soon found 
 him a patron in the person of his father's colleague, the 
 Pannonian Orestes, and a place in the body-guard of the 
 emperor, then stationed at Kavenna. In all the wars of the 
 time, Odoacer distinguished himself by his immense physical 
 strength, his fearlessness, and the influence which such a 
 character enabled him to exercise over his fellow-soldiers. 
 He now found himself among the Rugi, Alani, Scyri, and 
 Turcilingi, who were in some sort his own people. They 
 were the very men to whom Orestes owed most, and who 
 were naturally most jealous of the withdrawal of his sympa- 
 thies, and the favour he had shown to the Romans. Odoacer 
 stepped boldly forward, and proclaimed that if they would 
 follow him, they should have the lands which their ungrateful 
 and unworthy leader had refused. The standard of revolt was 
 immediately raised, and the barbarian army, largely recruited 
 by their brethren, whom the scent of blood had lured like 
 
 * I am indebted to both Gibbon and M. Thierry for this anecdote. 
 The latter appears most completely to have caught the spirit of the 
 saint's prophecy ; but is not " tu es grand, et pourtant tu granderas 
 encore," rather free for " eum gloriosum fore " ? And we should surely 
 read cito for citra, in the Latin quotation from the Vit. S. Severini. 
 
268 ITALY. 
 
 vultures from beyond the Alps, advanced against their former 
 master. Orestes secured his son in Eavenna, and went forth 
 to meet his enemy in the Lombard plains, so often dyed with 
 the blood of nations. He could make no stand, and was 
 compelled to shut himself up in Pavia. But neither his 
 courage nor the sanctity attaching to the great Epiphanius, 
 its bishop, which had so often awed both emperors and bar- 
 barian kings, was in this instance able to save the town. Its 
 splendid buildings and its churches were wrapped in flames ; 
 the whole place resembled a caldron of fire. In the con- 
 fusion, Orestes was made prisoner. The barbarian victor 
 fell into no such mistake as that of Nepos : he caused 
 his former patron and master to be conveyed to Piacenza, 
 and there put to death, upon the anniversary of his tri- 
 umphant entry into Ravenna the preceding year. The 
 execution took place the 28th of August : on 
 the 4th of September he was before Ravenna, 
 which contained the young Augustulus, and the few 
 remaining partisans of Italian nationality. A battle was 
 fought j but it could have only one result. The barbarians 
 poured into the town, and spreading through all quarters, 
 speedily discovered the unhappy prince, who had cast aside 
 the purple in his terror, and dragged him before Odoacer. 
 He is said to have wept and prayed for mercy. Odoacer, 
 fearing nothing from such a foe, and commiserating his youth 
 and his beauty, which was great, spared his life, and con- 
 signed him, with an annual pension of 6,000 pieces of gold, 
 to the luxurious keeping of a Campanian villa, which 
 received its name from Lucullus, and had previously be- 
 longed to both Marius and Sylla. There, where the Capo 
 di Miseno looks down upon the blue waters of the Bay of 
 Naples and the bright islands which stud its breast, in per- 
 haps the most beautiful situation in the world, amid the 
 groves, the fountains and grottos, the baths and the halls of 
 marble, |p|)|^jw|iifi|pnMriii^^ the appliances of splendid 
 
ODOACER. 269 
 
 luxury accumulated by the most luxurious man in Rome, 
 it was possible for the last of Eoman emperors to reflect 
 upon the condition to which that luxury, more than any 
 other cause, had reduced the Empire. But did he, or any 
 other ruler of men, ever elicit practical good for himself or 
 for his people from such a contemplation ? 
 
LECTURE VI. 
 
 ITALY— ODOACER—THEODOEIC— THE GREEK INVASION 
 —THE LOMBARDS— THE FRANKS AND THE PAPACY. 
 
 " II faut distinguer dans le roi des Ostrogoths deux hommes, un 
 Th^odoric barbare, \{vt4 aux instincts les plus sauvages de sa race, et un 
 autre civilise, elevek Constantinople, intelligent, g^n^reux par occasion, 
 niais erapruntant trfes-souvent k la politique Byzantine ses propres 
 armes contre elie-mdme." — M. A. Thierry, Mcits de VHistoire Eomaine, 
 Preface. 
 
 " Royally laughed he then ; 
 
 Dear was that craft to him, 
 
 Odin All-father 
 
 Shaking the clouds. 
 
 Cunning are women all, 
 
 Bold and importunate ! 
 
 Longbeards their name shall be ; 
 
 •Ravens shall thank them. 
 
 Where the women are heroes. 
 
 What must the men be like ? 
 
 Theirs is the victory ; 
 
 What need of me." 
 
 KiNGSLEY, Hypatia. 
 
 Synopsis. — Odoacer, king of Italy. — His wise administration; 
 damaged by the partition of lands. — Intrigues of the Greeks in favour 
 of Nepos. — Senate declare one emperor sufficient. — Odoacer made 
 patrician, — Zeno, the Greek emperor, deposed ; applies for aid to 
 Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths. — Odoacer involved in hostilities 
 beyond the Alps ; offends the Germans. — Quarrel between the two 
 Theodorics at Constantinople; their reconciliation. — Theodoric the 
 Amal assails Constantinople. — The emperor compelled to listen to his 
 (demands; grants him a Pragmatic to reduce Italy. — March of the 
 Ostrogoths. — Prolonged conflict between Odoacer and Theodoric. — The 
 former makes terms in Ravenna, and is assassinated. — Theodoric sole 
 king of Italy ; his wisdom, power, and administration ; dies. — Italy 
 invaded by the Greeks under Belisarius ; reduced to a province. — 
 Revolt of the Goths ; put down by Narses. — Narses recalled ; invites 
 the Lombards. — Alboin, king of the Lombards, exterminates the 
 
ODOACER KING OF ITALY. 271 
 
 Gepidae, and invades Italy ; his reign. — Anarchy. — Clef, — Autharis. — 
 Agilulf. — Involved relations with the Papacy. — Gregory the Great. — 
 The Franks brought into Italy against the Lombards. — Charles Martel 
 the Frank, and Luitprand the Lombard. — Pepin le Bref and Astol- 
 phus. — Dotation of the Exarchate to the Popes. — Desiderius and 
 Charlemagne. — Renewal of the Dotation. — Coronation of Charle- 
 magne, Christmas, A.D. 800. — How far were its results foreseen by 
 the actors ? 
 
 Odoacer was really now master of Italy, in a sense, and to 
 a degree, much more complete than any of his barbarian pre- 
 decessors. The throne of the Csesars had fallen at last ; yet 
 that fall, which it was once supposed would convulse the 
 whole civilized world and involve civilization itself in the 
 crash which it must produce, seems to have been received by 
 contemporaries with little emotion. A few dry lines in the 
 chroniclers occupy the place of funeral dirge or panegyric. 
 Jornandes alone, says M. Thierry, some years later, blows 
 his barbarian trumpet over the tomb of the Empire, but it is 
 to proclaim the advent of his Goths.* This apathy appears 
 to have excited the surprise of historians, yet, after all, it 
 was natural enough. So long and gradual had been the 
 preparation, that it left nothing to startle or alarm ; so many 
 other men had won nearly the same position in Italy as the 
 vigorous soldier of fortune who now was arbiter of her fate, 
 that the situation was not regarded as an exceptional one. 
 And in the second place, it was not yet certain that it would 
 be perpetual. Nepos, the candidate of the Greek emperor, 
 still lived, aud the Greek emperor had by no means aban- 
 doned his claim to interfere in the succession of the Roman 
 Csesars. He possessed the will, and might, as heretofore, 
 possess the power, to set aside the barbarian ruler, and sub- 
 stitute what would be considered the authority of a Koman 
 in his place. Lastly, men are not much excited by events 
 which do not produce any material effect upon their fortunes. 
 No such effect was produced, or could be expected, in this 
 
 * Jornandes, Rub. Get. § 46. 
 
272 % ITALY. 
 
 case : the change from a Csesar and a senate to a barbarian 
 king wrought no revolution in their outward lives, nor did 
 it disclose to their eyes the prospects of any revolution in 
 the future. They had suffered so much, and lost so much ; 
 they had descended so far in the steep path which led to ruin 
 and degradation, under their former government, that there 
 was little prospect of their enduring more, or sinking fur- 
 ther under a new rule. On the contrary, if they were 
 capable by this time of political forecast, they probably 
 anticipated an amelioration. For these reasons, therefore, 
 they accepted very quietly the domination of Odoacer, and 
 made no dirge over the glories of their past. 
 
 The conduct of Odoacer himself contributed to the same 
 result. Like his predecessors, he eschewed the violent con- 
 trast between the past and the present, which would have 
 been exhibited by a barbarian seated on the throne and 
 wearing the purple of the Caesars. Personally, he appears 
 only to have been anxious to retain the title of " king ;" and 
 this may account for the various appellations which he 
 received from his contemporaries : — king of the Heruli ; king 
 of the Rugi, Scyri, and Turcilingians ; or King of the 
 Nations. His administration has been highly, and not 
 undeservedly, commended by Gibbon. " The laws of the 
 emperors were strictly enforced, and the civil administration 
 of Italy was still exercised by the praetorian prefect and his 
 subordinate officers. Odoacer devolved on the Eoman magis- 
 trates the odious and oppressive task of collecting the public 
 revenue, and he reserved for himself the merit of seasonable 
 and popular indulgence." * But whatever may have been 
 the merits of his policy, he laboured under one fatal dis- 
 advantage, which no wisdom or forbearance could remedy. 
 He had promised one-third of Italy to the barbarian mer- 
 cenaries, and the fulfilment of that promise he could not 
 possibly evade. The result was that almost unlimited 
 * Gibbon, ch. xxxvi. adfinem. 
 
PAETITION OF LANDS IN ITALY. 273 
 
 misery from which Orestes shrank. These men possessed 
 no one qualification for the new position in which they were 
 placed. Other barbarian settlements may have succeeded, 
 as for instance that of the Visigoths and Burgundians in 
 Gaul ; but then these migratory bands carried with them, in 
 however rude a form, the elements of settled and social life : 
 they had their flocks and their herds, their wives and their 
 little ones ; the soldiers of Odoacer had nothing but their 
 swords. It was seen in the previous partitions of land by 
 Sylla and Augustus, that men who had grown grey beneath 
 the eagles were altogether unfitted for domesticity. Even 
 under favourable conditions, we are assured by Tacitus that 
 the experiment of converting legionaries into colonists was 
 unsuccessful, as they were entirely unaccustomed to contract 
 marriage or bring up families. The reason he assigns is a 
 remarkable one, very characteristic of the Roman genius, 
 and of the system by which they constructed so large an 
 empire. " The men were not sent,*' he says, "as in former 
 days, by whole legions at a time, with their tribunes, centu- 
 rions, and soldiers of each separate rank, so as by common 
 consent and common affection to create a little republic 
 among themselves " (ut communi consensu et caritate rem- 
 publicam efficerent).* What the soldiers of Rome herself 
 failed to effect, was certainly not to be effected by her rude 
 invaders from beyond the Alps. In Cicero's days, scarce any 
 of the property confiscated by Sylla remained in the hands 
 of his military colonists or their representatives ; it was not 
 long before the lands acquired by Odoacer's mercenaries had 
 passed altogether away from them, and they were as destitute 
 and rapacious as heretofore. Though, therefore, Odoacer still 
 continued the machinery of the imperial government, and its 
 wheels still revolved from the effects of the impulse which 
 had been acting upon them for so many years, a very grievous 
 state of things arose throughout all the peninsula. Exactions 
 * See Tac. Ann. xiv. 27 ; and cf. Lect. ii. p. 99. 
 
274 ITALY. 
 
 more oppressive, and poverty deeper than ever, exhausted the 
 miserable inhabitants. The officials are even said to have 
 revived an old imperial expedient, and to have multiplied 
 the months of the year, that they might increase the amount 
 of the yearly tribute. 
 
 Under these circumstances, it was plain that the chance 
 of retaining his position depended, for Odoacer, very much 
 upon the dispositions of the Greek emperor, and the proba- 
 bility of his interference. For the present, the confusion of 
 affairs at Constantinople was so great that the " King of the 
 Nations" had little to fear from that quarter. By the 
 intrigues of the empress-mother Verina, Zeno had been 
 ejected from the throne and banished the country, while his 
 place was supplied by one Basiliscus. Determined to avail 
 himself of every aid which might facilitate his return, 
 he applied to Theodoric, who had just succeeded to the 
 Ostrogoth throne, a prince of pure Amal blood, and, as we 
 have already seen, of Byzantine education. Theodoric eagerly 
 accepted his overtures, for he had many inducements to assist 
 the exiled emperor. In part, perhaps, he was moved by an 
 ancient friendship, contracted during his early residence at 
 the Greek court ; but the most potent reasons for his conduct 
 were to be found in jealousy of a rival, another Ostrogoth, 
 though not an Amal, Theodoric, the son of Triar, a powerful 
 chieftain in the nominal service of Basiliscus ; and secondly in 
 a deeply- cherished ambition, for which he trusted to find an 
 opportunity in the chapter of accidents, should he succeed 
 in mixing himself up with the affairs of the East. For the 
 moment, he was at Novae, on the Danube, on the look-out 
 for fresh settlements. He instantly marched upon Constan- 
 tinople, at the head of his warriors. He was too late, for 
 the revolution had been accomplished without him. Zeno, 
 however, from motives of policy, received his former friend 
 with warmth, loaded him with honours, and affected to 
 believe himself deeply indebted to the Ostrogoth for his 
 
THE SENATE ACCEPT ODOACER. 275 
 
 restoration. And now, for the first time, he was enabled to 
 devote his attention to the affairs of Italy. True to the 
 policy of his predecessors, he determined to support a By- 
 zantine candidate, and listened to the earnest prayers of 
 Nepos, who, from his Dalmatian retirement, appealed in 
 pathetic terms to Zeno, as to one who, like himself, had been 
 a dethroned monarch and a banished man. Theodoric, re- 
 siding in the imperial palace, necessarily became acquainted 
 "with the state of affairs, and at once betrayed the thought of 
 his heart, — a thought never abandoned through long years of 
 discouragement, — by offering to reseat Nepos, on the Roman 
 throne with his own Ostrogoths and at his own risk. Zeno 
 managed to decline such perilous aid, but manifested his fixed 
 intention to restore Nepos. The situation became a grave one 
 for Odoacer ; but his barbarian cunning was not without a 
 resource. He, too, had a dethroned emperor in his keeping, 
 and he resolved himself to play the same card as his adver- 
 saiy had played. He compelled Romulus Augustulus to write 
 to the Roman senate from his Campanian villa, and advise 
 them to declare to Zeno that a single emperor was now suffi- 
 cient for the wants of both Italy and Greece, and that they 
 felt their personal safety entirely secure under the excellent 
 protection of Odoacer. The Roman patriciate appear to 
 have felt that the great drama was at last played out, and 
 they hastened with decency to close the scene. Acquiescing in 
 the suggestion of their late master, they transmitted the de- 
 sired message to Constantinople ; and as an earnest of their sin- 
 cerity, sent, or were compelled by Odoacer to send with it, as 
 an offering to Zeno, the ornaments of the imperial palace, and 
 all the insignia of imperial power which their researches could 
 discover in Italy. The diadems, the purple mantles, and 
 doubtless other royal properties, which had once adorned the 
 persons of Augustus, Trajan, or Theodosius, went to furnish, 
 as M. Thierry says, a cabinet in the palace of the Greek em- 
 peror; or found, perhaps, a still more undignified resting-place 
 
 T 2 
 
276 ITALY. 
 
 in some curiosity-shop at Constantinople : they were never 
 again required by a Roman emperor of the West. Odoacer 
 added his own request to that of the compliant senate. Zeno 
 was flattered, perhaps well satisfied to have another powerful 
 barbarian leader subjected to his influence. He graciously 
 acceded to the united entreaty, and appointed Odoacer 
 Patrician and governor of Italy in his own name, reserving, 
 however, the rights of Nepos, whom he recommended to the 
 senate as their legitimate emperor. Odoacer accepted the 
 position, affected to consider that Zeno had granted the 
 prayer of the senate, and ignored altogether the existence of 
 the Dalmatian claimant. Yet still, in some parts of the 
 Empire, as in Gaul, the deposition of JSTepos had never yet 
 been acknowledged ; public documents were drawn up, and 
 official acts performed in his name. It is impossible to say 
 what were his actual chances of success, when they were cut 
 short by the treacherous murder of May, 480 a.d.* This 
 changed everything. Zeno ceased to trouble himself about 
 Italy, for he felt that it would be difficult to discover another 
 eligible candidate, and his own affairs were quite enough to 
 engross his serious attention. The opportunity was not lost 
 upon Odoacer, who strengthened himself by alliances on every 
 side, recruited his troops, and looked to his fortified places. 
 
 One consequence of these political complications deserves 
 specially to be remembered. Since the shameful cession 
 of Auvergne by Glycerins, the Narbonnese province was 
 the only part of Gaul still retained by the Roman govern- 
 ment ; but the Narbonnese province had persisted in 
 refusing to acknowledge Odoacer, and, in default of a 
 Western emperor, professed allegiance to the Byzantine 
 court. The King of the Nations, released from all appre- 
 hensions with respect to Nepos, revenged himself by imme- 
 diately ceding " the Narbonnaise" to the Yisigoths. Thus 
 perished for ever Roman dominion beyond the Alps. Not 
 * Lecture V. p. 265. 
 
GOVERNMENT OF ODOACER. 277 
 
 a foot of land was left to her in that splendid province, won 
 by the expenditure of so much blood and gold, a province in 
 which she had almost reproduced herself, and certainly had 
 found the greatest ornament, as well as the surest safe- 
 guard of her empire. 
 
 The king of Italy, as he was now called, had not given 
 up a valuable possession in Gaul from material weakness 
 or mental imbecility. He obtained a magnificent equivalent 
 in Sicily, which island he purchased from the Yandals after 
 somewhat humiliating their arrogance by the triumph of 
 his arms. This seems to have been the period of his wisest 
 and most successful administration. Italianizing himself as 
 much as possible, he wa? gradually doing away with many 
 of the disadvantages imposed upon him as a ruler by his 
 violent usurpation and barbarian birth. He acted through 
 the senate, giving them, at any rate in appearance, the 
 initiative in matters of legislation ; though himself an Arian, 
 he conciliated the clergy, and frequently found them funds ; 
 as for instance, when he so handsomely aided the holy 
 Epiphanius to rebuild the churches of Pavia : finally, he 
 gathered around him the most distinguished men among 
 the Roman patriciate ; and it is in this society that we 
 first encounter the celebrated names which shed so bright 
 a lustre upon the court of his successor — Symmachus, 
 Boethius, the Anician family, and Basilius, son of Sidonius's 
 friend, and the still more illustrious Cassiodorus, the future 
 chancellor of Theodoric. A singular incident occurred at 
 this time, in which Basilius, as representative of Odoacer, 
 played a prominent part. Upon the death of Pope Sim- 
 plicius, an attempt was made to elect a new pope without 
 the concurrence of the Patrician's authority. Basilius 
 appeared in the midst of the ceremonial, as representative 
 of his master, annulled the election, and compelled the clergy 
 to proceed to a new one ; .he even obliged them to adopt a 
 decree, which reserved for the future the rights of the civil 
 
278 ITALY. 
 
 governor in all similar cases. It is true that, some twenty- 
 years afterwards, the Church was strong enough to rescind it; 
 but it is startling to discover so early an instance 
 ^'^' ' of the triumph of Erastianism in the stronghold 
 of sacerdotal authority ; nor is it perhaps generally known, 
 that so soon as the fifth century, a civil ruler was found to 
 advance and maintain the sturdy pretensions of the house 
 of Tudor, 
 
 It was not long, unfortunately, before the unceasing 
 evik of barbarian warfare interrupted the progress of 
 returning prosperity, and overclouded, though perhaps in a 
 manner but little anticipated, the dawning promise of 
 Odoacer's reign. His own kinsmen of Rugiland had never 
 honoured the prophet sprung from their own country ; 
 more especially the royal family, in their barbarian pride, 
 were kindled into jealousy by the honours of the soldier of 
 fortune, who had left his home in a tunic of sheepskin, to 
 seek adventure in the South. They indulged at once their 
 malignity and their avarice, by plundering the Christians, 
 particularly the flock of Severinus, the holy hermit who 
 prophesied 6he future greatness of the young giant whose 
 shadow had darkened his cell. Severinus was one of the 
 most remarkable, certainly one of the most useful and 
 influential men of the age. His name and his good works 
 were known in every household in Christendom, and the 
 " King of the Nations" might well consider it an honour, as 
 well as a duty, to avenge his wrongs. He crossed the Alps 
 at the head of a formidable host, penetrated into Noricum, 
 and almost exterminated his guilty compatriots. The 
 remnant of the persecuted Christians he transported into 
 Italy. These exploits were deemed by himself and his 
 flatterers well worthy of a triumph, and Eome saw for the 
 last time that august ceremonial, which had ever concluded 
 and commemorated the most brilliant glories of the Republic 
 and the Empire. Odoacer, amid the acclamations of an 
 
ODOACER INVADES EUGILAND. 279 
 
 immense multitude, and at the head of a long train of armed 
 soldiers laden with the spoils of war, wound his way through 
 the streets in a car richly inlaid with gold and blazing with 
 precious stones. Around him floated the captured banners 
 of the barbarians, conspicuously embroidered with dragons 
 and the forms of savage animals. Nor were there wanting 
 the other more melancholy accessories of an ancient triumph, 
 — in a Roman's eye, its crowning glory. Beside his car 
 walked Fava, the captive king, with other mem- 
 bers of the royal race, and, according to time- 
 honoured precedent, upon the arrival of the procession at 
 the Capitol, the unfortunate prisoner suffered decapitation. 
 All, however, was not over in Kugiland yet. Frederic, the 
 son of Fava, who proved himself perhaps the most barbarous 
 and brutal prince of that barbarous age, renewed the 
 struggle at the head of a few outlaws and brigands gathered 
 from their hiding-places in the vast forests of the country. 
 Odoacer was infuriated, and sending his brother at the head 
 of a competent force, this time made a clean sweep of all 
 his enemies, save Frederic himself, who took refuge with 
 the king of the Ostrogoths. The success of the king of the 
 Heruli was complete, yet it was fraught with evil conse- 
 quences. It strengthened a rival by the adherence of a 
 malignant and implacable enemy ; it caused profound 
 irritation and alarm among all the royal races in Germany, 
 who were most unwilling to see Italian standards once more 
 victoriously displayed on their side of the Alps, and who 
 were profoundly indignant with the low-born mercenaiy 
 who had brought degradation and death on a prince of the . 
 old heroic blood, and a member of the sacred fraternity of 
 Teuton sovereigns : lastly, it wrought a most unfavourable 
 change in the character of Odoacer himself, reviving all his 
 early barbarian instincts of wrath and cruelty, and inflaming 
 his mind with that arrogance which, in the words of the 
 wise man, " goeth before a fall." 
 
280 ITALY. 
 
 But in order to understand how these circumstances 
 brought about the ruin of Odoacer, we must recur for a 
 moment to the fortunes of the man who finally accom- 
 plished it, Theodoric the Amal, king of the Ostrogoths. We 
 left him at Constantinople, equally feared and favoured by 
 the emperor, who suspected his ambitious designs but was 
 unable to dispense with his support. Zeno, in the hope of 
 cementing the friendship existing between them, bestowed 
 upon him the consular office and the highest dignities of 
 state which had hitherto been borne by his rival Theodoric, 
 the son of Triar. What was of still greater importance, he 
 transferred the annual pension formerly paid to the troops 
 of the latter, the Goths of Thrace, to the Amal's own 
 followers, the Goths of Macedonia. The son of Triar, or 
 the " Squinter," as he was sometimes called, one of the best 
 captains of the age, was not the man to bear tamely the loss 
 of influence and gold. He openly raised the standard of 
 revolt, and his proximity was such as to alarm the citizens 
 of Constantinople. Among the other dignities heaped upon 
 the Amal by Zeno, was that of " Son in Arms," a form of 
 adoption conceived in something of the spirit of mediaeval 
 knighthood, and conferred with much the same ceremonial. 
 The emperor called upon his dutiful son to rescue his people 
 from their peril. The Amal obeyed, and, nothing loath, led 
 his warriors against his rival. But now occurred an event 
 which caused, or which served as a pretext for, all the un- 
 fortunate relations which afterwards grew up between the 
 "father and son in arms." The supplies and reinforce- 
 ments promised by the emperor never reached Theodoric 
 upon his march ; it is even said that the guides supplied to 
 him purposely conducted the army by almost inaccessible 
 routes into a most dangerous position. Whether these 
 things occurred from accident or design, is one of those 
 important questions which history must for ever leave un- 
 solved. Certain it is that the Amal found himself face to 
 
THE TWO THEODORICS. 281 
 
 face with his rival, who occupied a strong position upon a 
 mountain in his front. The army of Theodoric were discon- 
 tented and mutinous ; they saw little to be gained by 
 fighting to the death against their own brethren for a 
 treacherous Greek who had betrayed them ; and their 
 fidelity was further tampered with by " the Squinter " him- 
 self, who, from a lofty rook upon the opposite side of the 
 little river which ran between the two armies, harangued 
 his enemies with the voice of a Stentor, and persuaded them 
 that both parties had been brought there to destroy one 
 another for the benefit of the Greeks. Theodoric's Goths 
 forced him to abandon all idea of fighting, and to make peace 
 with his rival; and then both generals despatched envoys 
 and a menacing message to the emperor. The Amal made 
 most monstrous claims, and justified them by the charge of 
 treachery. Was the charge justifiable ? If Theodoric had him- 
 self believed it, prior to the interview with his rival, would 
 he have led his warriors so far on the road to destruction ? 
 Would he not have found means to communicate his dis- 
 appointment and anger to Constantinople? Would not 
 indignation have induced him personally to originate the 
 counsels which he only adopted when forced upon him by 
 his own troops 1 On the other hand, it is difficult to see 
 what Zeno had to gain by treachery. Among the thousand 
 perils which threatened him from treason within and 
 enemies without the walls of his capital, the sincere friend- 
 ship of the Amal was more valuable to him than any 
 advantage which could have resulted from a conflict between 
 the two Gothic armies. Be this as it may, Zeno vehemently 
 denied all intention of playing false, and reproached his 
 " son " with bitterness for his violence and unreasonable de- 
 mands. He nevertheless concluded his speech by the promise 
 of gold in immense sums, and the offer of a royal bride. 
 Theodoric was to receive the hand of a princess " born upon 
 the purple," an unprecedented honour for a barbarian, and one 
 
282 ITALY. 
 
 which would have placed him on a level with the legitimate 
 CsBsars. The offer must have been acceptable to his ambi- 
 tion, but he distrusted its sincerity ; or perhaps he may have 
 doubted his own influence over his discontented countrymen. 
 He organized a combined movement with his rival, the son of 
 Triar, but very soon abandoned the programme, and ravaged 
 Macedonia and the banks of the -^gean with a merciless 
 rapacity never surpassed by any barbarian inroad. Strange 
 • spectacle ! An officer of the Empire, the emperor's adopted 
 "son at arms," ravaging the emperor's country with fire 
 and sword, and slaying the emperor's subjects. Zeno, re- 
 duced to despair by the bitter complaints of his people, and 
 his own embarrassments, made peace with the other Theo- 
 doric, the son of Triar, a man ever ready to sacrifice any- 
 thing or anybody to his interest. The Araal was as furious 
 as though he himself had still possessed a claim upon his 
 adopted father. Turning westward, he swept the whole 
 open country of Thessaly and Macedonia, putting not only 
 the garrisons but the unoffending inhabitants to the sword. 
 Drawn towards Italy by the secret aspiration which slum- 
 bered, but was never extinguished in his heart, he deter- 
 mined to winter in Epirus, and make himself master of the 
 town of Dyrrachium, the ancient Epidamnus, which com- 
 manded the passage of the Adriatic. The town was placed 
 in his hands by the treachery of a wealthy Goth high in the 
 service of the Empire. The emperor made a last effort to 
 arrest or control the movements of his ambitious son. He 
 despatched an envoy to Dyrrachium, who of course effected 
 nothing; but the conference held between the two parties is 
 remarkable for the renewed offer of Theodoric to place 
 Nepos on the throne. In the mean time, the Greek garri- 
 sons in Thessaly and Epirus plucked up courage, and 
 attacked the rear of the great Gothic horde in its passage 
 through the defiles to join Theodoric at Dyrrachium. They 
 slew his brother, and nearly captured his mother and sister. 
 
THE AMAL VICTORIOUS. 288 
 
 This brought on a mountain warfare, which continued for 
 some years, in which the Greeks, under the guidance of 
 Sabinianus, a soldier of the old school, fairly held their 
 own. These conflicts extended up to the commencement of 
 the year. But then, as we have said, the murder 
 of Nepos changed the entire aspect of afiairs. Two 
 other deaths made the effects of this change entirely favour- 
 able to Theodoric. In the following year, the brave Sabi- 
 nianus breathed his last, and a restive horse brought the 
 savage career of the son of Triar to a close, by flinging 
 him against the point of a javelin suspended over his own 
 tent. 
 
 And now the great Amal unites under his banner all 
 the warriors of his race : he begins to perceive that the 
 time for carrying out his most ambitious dreams has at 
 last arrived, and instinct points to the Greek emperor 
 as the most efficacious instrument for the purpose. We 
 see him next at Constantinople, as if nothing had ever 
 happened to disturb the afiectionate intercourse of father 
 and son at arms. He is^ welcomed with delight, made 
 consul and minister of war ; his influence daily increases, 
 but is brought to the highest point by one of those strange 
 seditions which seem to have been necessities of the Greek em- 
 pire. A sort of pagan reaction had arisen in the East, under 
 the auspices of an Egyptian charlatan and thaumaturgist, one 
 Pamprepius. Encouraged by the restless intrigues of the old 
 empress Verina, the movement assumed formidable 
 proportions. Leontius, the candidate for the throne 
 selected by the Heathenizers, or Hellenizers, for the names 
 have the same import, was crowned at the church of St. Peter, 
 at Tarsus, under the auspices of the empress Verina Augusta. 
 Theodoric and his Goths soon disposed of the pretender; but 
 unfortunately, one John the Scythian, had been associated 
 with him in the military command. This gave offence — or 
 a pretext for pretending offence — to the haughty AmaL 
 
S8* ITALY. 
 
 He suddenly abandoned the campaign, or rather, the siege 
 of the mountain fort, in which the army was engaged, and 
 returned to Constantinople, more arrogant and exacting in 
 his demands than ever. Zeno was in despair, as well he 
 might be. The Goth was insatiate, but he was playing for 
 a great stake, and concealing a mighty ambition behind his 
 assumed wrath. An interruption, however, now occurred, 
 which threatened to extinguish the Empire and his own 
 projects at the same time. The Bulgarians broke in from 
 the north in such overwhelming force, that consterna- 
 tion came upon the whole Empire ; not merely the out- 
 lying provinces, but Constantinople itself. The moment 
 was propitious for Theodoric. At the head of a united 
 army, consisting of Greeks and Goths, he encoun- 
 tered the invading horde in a pitched battle. 
 It was by his personal bravery, conspicuous in all his battles, 
 that the victoiy was won : he is even said to have slain the 
 Bulgarian monarch with his own hand. At any rate, the 
 barbarians fled back dismayed to their deserts, and Theo- 
 doric returned to Constantinople to reap the fruits of his 
 exploits in an extraordinary increase of honour and influ- 
 ence. The second man in the Empire, — practically, indeed 
 the first, — he plunged for a time into the indulgences 
 which so splendid a position enabled him to enjoy. But, 
 the transalpine campaign of the king of Italy, which we 
 have already recorded as occurring in the years 487 
 and 488, startled him from the voluptuous garden of 
 Armida, in which his martial energy had been lulled to 
 sleep. All the German princes were fiercely moved with 
 indignation at Odoacer's raid over the Alps, and his treat- 
 ment of the royal family of the Rugi. Frederic himself 
 came to lay his wrongs before the champion of the Teuton 
 races. His own Goths murmured against the son of the 
 Amal, as sunk in the sensual pleasures of the Eastern 
 oapital, while they were starving in their settlements upon 
 
THEODOEIC ATTACKS CONSTANTINOPLE. 285 
 
 the lower Danube. " King," said they, " while thou art 
 fattening on the feasts of the Greeks, thy people are dying 
 of famine. For their interests and thine own, arise and 
 return among us ; for, if left to destruction, we will ourselves 
 go forth and seek new lands."* Roused by these reproaches, 
 Theodoric, abandoning his banquets and his paramours, 
 turned his face finally towards the West. His ambitious 
 dream of wresting Italy from Odoacer again took possession 
 of his mind, and he was convinced that at last the hour had 
 come. He rejoined his people, and at the sight of the 
 Gothic waggons, at the sound of the Gothic trumpet, he 
 resumed the instincts of his race. Twice before he had 
 ofiered to reconquer the throne of the West for the Eastern 
 empire ; twice he had been deluded by the hesitation or 
 deceit of its emperor ; the third time, he vowed there should 
 be no failure ; he would have recourse to the last argument 
 of kings ; his sword should win the consent which had been 
 denied to his generous zeal. Fired by these sentiments, 
 without cause or pretext for war, he and his warriors set 
 forth for Constantinople, burning and slaying all before 
 them. The citizens were aghast ; and well indeed they 
 might be ; for where could they look for deliverance ? The 
 sword which had protected them against Leontius and the 
 Bulgarians, was now no longer drawn in their behalf ; it 
 was suspended over their heads. Theodoric paused at 
 Melantias, a short distance from the capital ; — because he 
 pitied the city, says the chronicler. It is impossible to 
 judge of men's motives with accuracy ; but if his subsequent 
 conduct be any guide to the discovery of his policy, his 
 reason for stopping where he did, when the city of the 
 Eastern Caesars was almost within his grasp, may be 
 assumed to have arisen from his long-cherished, never- 
 abandoned idea of succeeding in place of Odoacer to the 
 
 * Hist. Miscell. xv. 10 ; quoted Eecits de I'Histoire Eomaine, 
 p. 426. 
 
286 ITALY. 
 
 throne of the Caesars of the West. He had now an oppor- 
 tunity of wringing from Zeno his consent, and fortifying 
 himself by such authority as an imperial commission could 
 give. He proposed a conference ; the emperor had no 
 alternative but to accept. Jornandes has left us a brief 
 account of this meeting ; and as he probably derived it from 
 Cassiodorus, an eye-witness, there is no reason to distrust 
 his narrative in the main, after making due allowance for a 
 few flourishes, such as he frequently introduces in honour 
 of his countrymen. "Never," says Theodoric, "have I 
 been failing in dutiful service to you, O emperor. May 
 it please your majesty to hear graciously the desire of 
 my heart {desiderium mei cordis). Why is that Italy, so 
 long ruled by your ancestors or predecessors, — why is that 
 city, the very head and mistress of the world {urha ilia caput 
 orhis et domina), storm-tossed by the tyranny of a chief of 
 Rugi and Turcilingians 1 Send me there with my people, 
 and at the same time set yourself free from the burden of 
 the expense {expensarum pondere) in which we involve 
 you."* The proposal was made under other circumstances 
 than those in which Zeno had heard it heretofore. He was 
 probably only too glad to consent ; indeed, the Greek 
 •writers, desirous of repudiating the disgrace which an 
 admission of Theodoric's irresistible pressure implied, have 
 made the proposal emanate from Zeno himself, and their 
 account has been generally accepted without question, by 
 modem historians ; but the whole past life of the ambi- 
 tious Amal, and his future course, confirm the version of the 
 affair which undoubtedly comes from his chancellor Cassi- 
 odorus. It was a solemn occasion, and the emperor 
 deemed it worthy of a solemn document, or " Pragmatic," 
 as it was called, — a term which is preserved in the chan- 
 ceries of the German Csesars. With this deliberate sanction, 
 debated in the privy council, voted by the senate, and 
 * Jornandes, Eeb. Get. § 57. 
 
INVESTED AS PATRICIAN. 287 
 
 confirmed by the emperor, Theodoric set forth to take 
 possession of his new inheritance, in the character of 
 '' Patrician by the emperor's appointment." That Zeno ever 
 contemplated an entire and unconditional cession, or that 
 Theodoric ever meant it should be anything else, is not to 
 be imagined. Before his departure, the ceremony of inves- 
 titure was performed, in presence of the Byzantine public. 
 It consisted in the emperor's placing upon the head of the 
 Goth the " sacrum velameni' or sacred veil, a square piece 
 of purple cloth or stuff, the symbol of imperial authority. 
 And now "the desire of the Amal's heart" was accomplished : 
 he gathered together the fighting men, the women, the 
 children, the cattle, the waggons and rude implements of 
 husbandry, — in short, the whole force, and the whole property 
 of his people, and prepared for a migration as complete 
 and final as that in which the children of Israel went forth 
 from the delta of the Nile to conquer the Phoenician 
 seaboard. He did more : he summoned to his standard 
 every Goth in distant lands, who revered the heroic blood 
 of Amal, or had been taught to seek in the far south 
 the mystic towers of Asgard. "With the warriors of his 
 own race, came every barbarian adventurer who was eager 
 to sell his sword for a share in the spoils of Italy. These 
 reinforcements, however, did not join him until a later 
 time. For the moment, his tribe was located near the 
 mouths of the Danube. From this spot, two paths to Italy 
 presented themselves for his choice. It was possible for 
 him to follow the valley of the Danube, passing onward 
 towards its source, until he reached the valley of the Save, 
 and then striking along this, finally to descend upon Italy 
 by the passes of the Noric Alps or the modern Tyrol ; or 
 it was possible, again, to turn southward, and traversing 
 Thrace, Macedonia, and Epirus, to reach Italy by the usual 
 communication across- the Adriatic Gulf. The latter route 
 offered the advantage of turning the strong military position 
 
^^ ITALY. 
 
 which it was to be presumed Odoacer would take up, upon 
 the eastern Alps, and so bringing the Goths nearer to 
 Ravenna and to Rome. For the means of transit, Theodoric 
 trusted to his previous preparations at Dyrrachium. He 
 accordingly left the mouths of the Danube with his whole 
 nation, numbering, it is said, more than two hundred 
 thousand souls, and directed his march upon the latter 
 city. There a grievous disappointment awaited him. The 
 transports and vessels upon which he had calculated were, 
 for some reason or other, not to be found. Not an hour 
 was to be lost ; for every hour gave strength to 
 Odoacer and diminished his own. If he fell back, 
 destruction stared him in the face ; for an early winter was 
 setting in, and the combined action of frost and the sword 
 of his enemies among the Epirote and Macedonian hills 
 would waste the strength of his army slowly away. If he 
 remained where he was, famine would no less 
 certainly produce the same result. Under these 
 circumstances, he adopted the desperate expedient of plunging 
 among the mountains of the modern Albania, and continuing 
 his course along the wild country which forms the eastern 
 side of the Adriatic Gulf, until he was enabled to turn the 
 head of the gulf itself, and enter Italy in the neighbourhood 
 of Aquileia. The sufferings of the great Ostrogoth migration 
 upon this memorable march are described to have been, 
 and, indeed, must have been, terrible. But the difficulties 
 which nature and winter opposed to their progress were not 
 so grievous as those which they encountered from their 
 Teuton kinsmen. When nearly exhausted by cpld and 
 hunger, they came suddenly upon an army of Gepidse, com- 
 manded by the successor of Ardaric,* and strongly posted 
 on the banks of one of the tributaries of the Save, swollen 
 at that period by winter rains. It was in vain to think 
 of accommodation; for the Gepidee were convinced that 
 * See Lecture IV. p. 211. 
 
MIGRATION TO ITALY. 289 
 
 the Goths had come to rob them of their lands ; and as 
 thej were surrounded on all sides by morasses, they felt 
 confident that the half-starved bands before them would 
 never be able to force their position. But the Goths fought 
 with all the ferocity of despair j Theodoric, as ever, great in 
 personal heroism, made himself the star of battle, and causing 
 the royal standard to be unfurled over his head, called, like 
 Henry of Navarre, upon his bravest warriors to follow where 
 they saw it flying above the thickest of the fight.* A fright- 
 ful struggle ensued ; the combatants were up to their knees in. 
 mud and water, and grappled for hours as only men of the 
 stout Teuton stock are known to do. The little river was 
 choked with dead bodies, the morass was discoloured with 
 blood ; but at last the Goth prevailed. Theodoric gathered 
 together his shattered bands, led them across the Juliau 
 Alps, and finally halted the whole nation, in order to recruit 
 the strength of men and animals, in the green and beautiful 
 meadows which girdle the course of the Isonzo. He was 
 now at the gates of Italy, in a land of battles, and in a dis- 
 trict where more than once the fate of the whole peninsula has 
 been decided. Bat he had been long in coming, and Odoacer 
 was prepared for his arrival, for he had employed the interval 
 in collecting all the barbarians whom friendship or the hope 
 of profit could attract to his banner. Rugi, Turcilingians, 
 and Italians, with many bands of roaming adventurers, 
 composed his heterogeneous host. Mutual jealousy and 
 distrust, the want of common discipline and training, 
 even the want of common language, sowed, as might 
 have naturally been expected, the seeds of disunion 
 and weakness, among the army which was 
 to defend Odoacer and Italy. The Goths ^^*^ ^"^'^ ^^^• 
 owed their victory to the same causes which had ena- 
 
 * " Press where ye see ray white plume shine, amid the ranks of 
 war. 
 And be your Oriflamme to day the helmet of Navarre ! " 
 
 Macaulay. 
 u 
 
290 ITALY. 
 
 bled them to defeat the Gepidse — their own despair and 
 the determined valour of their king. Odoacer fell back upon 
 Yerona, doomed, it seems, to be a refuge and a plcbce d'armes 
 from the day of Bedriacum to the day of Solferino. There he 
 reunited his army, which had been dispersed rather than 
 defeated, and once more descended into the lists to combat 
 for the great stake of life and empire. Theodoric had been 
 compelled to delay for a month by the Isonzo ; but once 
 more he was ready to meet his adversary ; and this time it 
 was hoped that the conflict would be decisive. The enemy 
 were strongly posted on the Adige, and having become fully 
 conscious of the importance of the struggle, they had remedied 
 many of the evils which disunion and the incongruous com- 
 position of their army had previously produced among them. 
 The Goths were no less alive to the necessities of the occasion, 
 and no less resolute. The great Amal, if we believe the 
 account of the panegyrists, was armed for the combat, like a 
 hero of mediaeval days, by the hands of his mother and sister, 
 for whom, throughout his life, he entertained a profound 
 affection. Never, before, had his personal character so largely 
 contributed to the success of his comrades, never did he 
 exhibit such prodigious daring and address. Breaking 
 through the centre of the opposing army, after almost in- 
 credible efforts, he turned, with irresistible effect, upon their 
 right wing, and pushed it into the Adige. Odoacer had done 
 all that was in man's power to do, but in vain. In the 
 long roll of battles which it has been our lot to record, few, 
 perhaps, were more obstinately contested than this. The 
 slain are said to have been piled in heaps all over the field 
 of battle, and fifteen years afterwards the plain of Yerona 
 was still white with their bones ; for Theodoric, with a touch 
 of his native barbarism, had forbidden the rites of burial to 
 his enemies. Odoacer fled for refuge to Bavenna, which his 
 rival was in no condition to besiege, and for the third time 
 attempted to collect an army capable of taking the field. 
 
CONTEST BETWEEN ODpACER AND THEODOEIC. 291 
 
 Then ensued, between these two Teuton kings, a war of paper, 
 proclamations, missives, recriminations, and appeals to the 
 people, upon whom they equally intended to impose an alien 
 yoke. In this contest, the Roman senate assumed a revived 
 importance ; for where the strength of both parties was so 
 nearly balanced, even the feeble weight of their authority 
 might suffice to turn the scale. But the senate, inspired 
 with the feeling of Mercutio, was only inclined to exclaim, 
 "A plague on both your houses." Ever since the deadly 
 struggle in her streets between Ricimer and Anthemius, 
 Rome had viewed, with well-grounded horror and alarm, any 
 prospect of the repetition of that scene of blood. For this 
 reason, she shut her gates successively upon both Nepos and 
 Glycerins, and she was determined to shut them alike on 
 Odoacer and Theodoric. A policy of neutrality had become 
 her object, and a wise candidate for the Empire would have 
 accepted such a policy at her hands. Odoacer did not. Having 
 been refused admittance, he turned round in a spirit of in- 
 dignation and vengeance, and ravaged all the surrounding 
 country. Hitherto, of the two rivals, Italy in general had 
 leaned to the side of the King of the Nations. In part, this 
 may have been owing to the dislike of Greek interference 
 and dictation, but in part also it probably arose from the 
 feeling that it was better to endure the evils to which they 
 were habituated, than " to fly to others which they knew not 
 of." Ever since the days of the Athenian demagogues, it 
 has been a sign of political wisdom to tolerate the presence 
 of the leeches who are already saturated with the blood of 
 the state, rather than to invite the suction of those who are 
 still unfilled and ravenous. The Italians were fully alive to 
 this difference between the barbarians who had so long been 
 preying upon their vitals and the hungry Ostrogoths who as 
 yet had scarcely tasted of confiscation and the advantages of 
 a southern settlement. They were, then, as has been said, 
 inclined, for this reason, to acquiesce in the continued domi- 
 
 V 2 
 
292 ITALY. 
 
 nation of the king of Italy, and to regard with alarm the' 
 triumph of the warrior who had led these new hordes over 
 the Alps in the offensive character of an Eastern legate and a 
 nominee of the Byzantine court. But Odoacer, by his passion 
 and precipitancy, spoiled all, and turned the chances which 
 had befriended him into chances for his rival. Amid the 
 profound disgust of his former friends, he bent his steps to- 
 wards the north, and took refuge behind the morasses which 
 encompass Eavenna. Theodoric then issued from Verona, 
 and appeared to carry all before him. By the treachery of 
 Tufa, a chief of the Heruli, who was guarding Milan in the 
 interest of Odoacer, that great and already famous city threw 
 open its gates to receive him. He now believed himself 
 master of the whole peninsula, and listened to the bravados 
 of Tufa, who promised, with no other help than his Heruli, 
 to bring Odoacer in chains to his feet. Intrusted with the 
 duty which he had solicited. Tufa turned double traitor, and 
 went over, with all his troops, to his former master, Theodoric 
 broke out into a terrible demonstration of his native fury, and 
 ordered every man of the whole tribe of Heruli, wherever 
 one could be found, to be slain upon the spot, without hesi- 
 tation or mercy. Another defection increased his anger and 
 uneasiness. Frederic, son of Fava, the Kugian, deserted 
 from the man who appeared in Italy as the champion of the 
 wrongs of his race, and from some inexplicable reason adopted 
 the party of the man who had dragged his father in chains 
 beside his chariot-wheels, and beheaded him on the Capitol. 
 These things were a serious check to Theodoric : he felt so 
 insecure at Milan, that he resolved to occupy the stronger 
 military position of Pavia, and repaired thither with the 
 whole horde of the Ostrogoths, who filled the churches, the 
 houses, the streets and ground in the neighbourhood of the 
 walls, with an immense number of women, children, and 
 fighting men. It seemed a marvellous visitation to the 
 worthy bishop Epiphanius, who was nearly reduced to 
 
SIEGE OF MILAN. 2S3 
 
 despair, as well lie may have been, when all the thorough- 
 fares, and every approach to his town had been 
 rendered impassable by the waggons, cattle, 
 and tents of the new comers. During the winter, Theodoric 
 looked about him for aid, and saw that if it were to come at 
 all, it must come from the German nations who had quar- 
 tered themselves in Gaul. These were at this time the 
 Visigoths and Burgundians. The Visigoths listened to his 
 overtures, for it was their policy to have a co-terminous kin- 
 dred power on the opposite side of the Alps. But the reasons 
 which attracted them had the exactly opposite effect upon 
 the Burgundians. They had no desire to be crushed between 
 two kingdoms of Gothic origin close upon their frontier ; 
 they therefore invaded Italy professedly in the interest of the 
 opposite party, but contented themselves with plundering 
 simply in their own. Six thousand captives were carried off 
 into Burgundian Gaul, who were ransomed for large sums 
 during the first years of Theodoric's reign. 
 
 In the rapid vicissitudes of this singular warfare, the next 
 event presented to our eyes is the siege of Milan, imme- 
 diately after its evacuation by the Goths. The army of 
 Odoacer indulged in excesses quite as cruel and licentious 
 as if they had not considered and called themselves the 
 Italian party. In their character of Arians, they despoiled 
 or destroyed the churches, and vented their fury upon the 
 few miserable Catholics who remained in the deserted town. 
 Their triumph was of short duration, for they next attempted 
 Pavia j but the defences were strong, the season was tem- 
 pestuous, and the Ostrogoth king himself was there. Re- 
 pulsed from the walls of the future capital of Gothic Italy, 
 the " Italians" betook themselves to their usual employment 
 of ravaging the open country. But by this time the Visi- 
 goths from Gaul had effected a junction with their brethren, 
 close beside the intrenchments of Pavia ; and Theodoric 
 issued from its gates, once more the proud and confident 
 
294 ITALY. 
 
 leader of a well-appointed army. On the llth of August, 
 these two indomitable foes found themselves once 
 more face to face. It was this time the Adda — 
 a river famous as the Adige in the annals of European war — 
 which was to run red with the blood of these unwearied 
 combatants. " Whole nations fell on either side," says a 
 contemporary quoted by M. Thierry. Once more the Gothic 
 swordsmen, led on by their king, cleft down all opposition. 
 Odoacer lost the bulk of his troops, and, what was worse, 
 the leading men of the Italian party. Ravenna was now 
 the only refuge left ; and to Ravenna he betook himself. 
 But Theodoric followed, like avenging Fate, and camped in 
 the famous pine-wood where Odoacer himself had halted to 
 beleaguer Augustulus. It was 
 
 " in the solitude 
 Of the pine-forest, and the silent shore 
 Which bounds Ravenna's immemorial wood,"* 
 
 that the splendid prize of Italian empire more than once was 
 lost and won. The sanguinary battle of Easter-day, 1512, 
 when fell De Foix, duke of Nemours, and twenty thousand 
 men, dwells perhaps most deeply in local tradition and the 
 general memory ; but we at least cannot forget that there 
 was determined the fate of the last of the Roman Caesars ; 
 and there also was decided the deadly duel between his two 
 successors of barbarian blood, with the clamour of which 
 the world so long had rung. Odoacer made a last and 
 gallant effort, but without success. It was an attempt to 
 penetrate the beleaguering lines, and carry off Theodoric 
 himself from the royal tent. That goal was nearly reached ; 
 but a night attack, when once disorganized, is generally 
 fatal to the attacking party ; and the usual difficulties in 
 this case were aggravated by the peculiar nature of the 
 ground. The retreat of the assailants along the causeways 
 which led across the morass was skilfully cut off. Every- 
 
 * Don Juan, canto iii. § 106. 
 
BLOCKADE OF EAVENNA. 295 
 
 thing was confasion and dismay : as many were stifled in 
 the mud and water as fell by the edge of the sword ; and 
 only a miserable remnant regained the walls. The last chance 
 of Odoacer was gone ; he was hopelessly blockaded in a 
 spot from which egress was impossible ; all communication 
 with friends and partisans in central Italy was cut off; his 
 influence at Rome had necessarily been reduced to nothing ; 
 his troops suffered severely from starvation, and murmured 
 loudly and without ceasing. On the other hand, the Ostro- 
 goths, encamped in a pestilential situation, worn out with 
 marching, hard fighting, and scanty food, and bitterly dis- 
 appointed in the brilliant hopes which had lured them across 
 the Alps, were scarcely less discontented, 
 or less troublesome to their leader. •» • • 
 
 Under these circumstances, it is not surprising that the 
 bishop of Ravenna, John the "Seer of Angels," should 
 have induced both kings to accept a conference, or that 
 the conference should have terminated in a susj)ension of 
 hostilities, and a compromise between the belligerents. It 
 was agreed that both should inhabit Ravenna upon terms of 
 equality, and for the future make a partition of Italy between 
 them. No one could seriously have believed in the stability^ 
 of such an arrangement, though Procopius gravely records its 
 provisions.* On the 5th of March, Theodoric made his 
 entry into the city with great pomp. Then ensued an event 
 which, amid all the wickedness and blood-guiltiness of that 
 dark time, stands out in sombre colours as a monstrous in- 
 stance of crime and of treachery to all the nobler instincts 
 
 * An hypothesis has been started by M. Thierry which deserves 
 attention, and probably contains the truth. He supposes that the old 
 form of consular government was to have been revived, and that the 
 two kings were to govern "la p^niusule indivise, chacun k tourde role, 
 k la fa9on des anciens consuls de la r^publique." In this case the 
 senate would probably have recovered much of its position and in- 
 fluence ; and we may perhaps trace the plan to the inspiration of the 
 great men Basilius, Symmachus, and Boethius, who had formed the 
 "entourage" of Odoacer in his previous government. 
 
296 ITALY. 
 
 and duties of humanity. Theodoric invited his brother 
 monarch to a festal banquet in honour of the occasion. The 
 tables were spread in his private garden, beneath the shade 
 of a laurel-grove. No sooner had the guests begun to drink 
 deeply, than each Goth arising, plunged a dagger into his 
 neighbour's breast. Theodoric is said to have stabbed 
 Odoacer with his own hands, and, what is worse, to have 
 slain Odoacer's son, whose character as a hostage should have 
 rendered him sacred even among the most barbarous times 
 and people. Of course the Gothic historians plead the ex- 
 cuse of a counter- plot. But was there time for it 1 Could 
 not Theodoric, at the head of his victorious warriors, have 
 easily defied it ? "Was there ever a similar deed of treachery 
 which did not shelter itself under a similar pretext 1 
 
 These, and some other incidents in the career of the great 
 Ostrogoth already recounted, must, I think, induce us to 
 qualify the unmeasured eulogy of Gibbon. Theodoric is 
 throughout with him " a hero alike excellent in the arts of 
 war and government, who restored an age of peace and 
 prosperity, and whose name still excites and deserves the 
 attention of mankind."* With all possible admiration for 
 the ability and success of his administration when seated 
 upon the throne, it is not easy to forget the " by-ways and 
 crooked practices" by which he reached it. The violence 
 and treasons of his youth, culminating in this audacious 
 crime, were indeed no longer seen when, surrounded by the 
 great men who had guided his predecessor, he carried out in 
 the West a policy which had been already commenced, and 
 was enabled to expand it by the subtle power of his intellect 
 and the natural energy of his character. But in his old age 
 the barbarian reappeared, and he died swimming in the blood 
 of the best and wisest of the last great men of Kome. What 
 Napoleon said of the Russian of his own time, is applicable 
 to this man, though one of the most highly-praised and 
 * Decline and Fall, c. So, ad finem. 
 
RULE OF THEODORIC. 297 
 
 highly-popular monarchs of history. " His civilization was 
 skin-deep : scratch him, and you came upon the Tartar 
 beneath." * 
 
 We have now brought to a close our account of that unique 
 and critical period, the last quarter of the fifth century, which 
 saw the old-world system die out in the West, and new ones 
 arise ; which consigned Rome to the grave of buried empires, 
 where slept Egyptian, Assyrian, Persian, Phoenician, and 
 Macedonian dynasties; and which saw the birth of what 
 she idly entitled " barbarian" nationalities. We shall avail 
 ourselves of the eloquent words of M. Thierry to state 
 the exact situation of Theodoric, Italy, and the Goths, and 
 for the future pass lightly over the order of events, as the 
 necessities of our plan require. "Theodoric had now no 
 longer either colleague or enemy. Without troubling him- 
 self as to the terms of the * Pragmatic,' or the irresolution 
 of the Eastern emperor, he at once quitted the national 
 costume, assumed the mantle of purple, and caused. him self 
 to be proclaimed * king of the Komans and the Goths,' a 
 title which was subsequently interpreted as * king of Italy.' 
 The fiction of the ' Poman patriciate,' under which Odoacer 
 had governed for nearly seventeen years, vanished with the 
 
 * I had long felt dissatisfied with the hero-worship of Gibbon, so 
 blindly repeated by others. It was, therefore, with no small pleasure 
 that I perused the words of M. Thierry prefixed as a motto to this 
 lecture. I cannot deny myself the satisfaction of appending his ex- 
 pansion of the same idea in another place : — "L'age avait ddvelopp^ 
 dans Theodoric devenu homme, les qualitds seduisantes, et les vices 
 redoutables, que Zdnon entrevoyait en gerroe dans I'enfant. C'etait 
 toujours le meme enthousiasme pour la civilisation, ent6 sur un fond da 
 nature sauvage et rdtive qui la repoussait, en ddpit de Theodoric lui- 
 m^me. C'dtait toujours aussi cette vive intelligence des choses morales, et 
 ces inspirations ^levdes, hdroiques, m^ldes aux instincts les plus violents, 
 k I'astuce, k la cruaut^, k I'^goisme impitoyable. Deux etres coexistaient 
 rdellement dans Theodoric, et formaient ce composd bizarre sur lequel 
 les jugements de I'histoire sont rest^s inddcis : un Romain d'aspiration 
 et un Barbare d'instinct, qui reparaissait par intervalles et dtouffait 
 I'autre. Attila eut plus d'entrailles que le Theodoric barbare ; tandis 
 que le Theodoric civilis^ ddpassa en conceptions gdndreuses la plupart 
 des Remains de son temps." — Hecits de VHistoire Romaine, p. 362. 
 
298 ITALY. 
 
 sovereignty of the Eastern emperors, on the last ruins of 
 the Western empire. Not only had Kome and Italy a 
 king, but they ceased to belong to themselves. A stranger 
 race, subjects of the new sovereign, held them under the 
 yoke by the right of conquest. A new era commenced in 
 their history."* 
 
 At first, Theodoric carried himself with great severity 
 against the party who had opposed him. Every member of 
 it he sternly doomed to disfranchisement or exile. For a 
 long time he was proof against all prayers for mercy, and all 
 political considerations which recommended it. But at last 
 he yielded to the representations of the bishops and other 
 distinguished men, such as Cassiodorus, Symmachus, Boe- 
 thius, Liberius, and the leaders of the Italian party, who had 
 faithfully served Odoacer as long as such service was pos- 
 sible, but now had transferred their allegiance to the new 
 dynasty, and with it the weight of their authority and the 
 wisdom of their counsels. The result upon Theodoric's part 
 was a great, and for the time being, a complete success. 
 All Italy, from the spurs of her great mountain-rampart to 
 the Calabrian headlands, obeyed the Ostrogoth for her lord. 
 The secret of this triumph, so far as Theodoric was con- 
 cerned, consisted in the fact that he succeeded in a policy 
 which Orestes and Odoacer had attempted, but in which, for 
 diflferent reasons, both Orestes and Odoacer had failed. To 
 the E-omans he opposed his barbarian aspect, with all its 
 energy and power, with the vigour of a new and fresher 
 life, unknown to the effete offspring of the decrepit empire ; 
 to the Barbarians he represented himself as a Roman, heir 
 to all the traditions of imperial splendour, and the inde- 
 scribable prestige which any civilization, even though it be 
 corrupt, exercises over the imagination of the uncivilized 
 man. He did not, however, neglect the ordinary precau- 
 tions of newly-established monarchs, and proceeded to 
 * £>^cits de THistoire Bomaine, p. 500. 
 
HIS EXTENSIVE EMPIRE. 299 
 
 strengthen himself on all sides by forming or consolidating 
 connections with royal houses. His wife was a sister of 
 Clovis, king of the Franks. His two daughters he married 
 respectively to Alaric, king of the Visigoths, and Sigismond, 
 king of the Burgundians ; his sister became the spouse of 
 the Vandal, his niece that of the ThuriDgian king. In Italy 
 itself he formed his followers into a people, — all previous 
 adventurers had brought with them little more than a band 
 of brigands, or at the best an army of occupation ; — and he 
 adjusted the relations of this people with the original occu- 
 pants of the soil both skilfully and well. " For the Roman 
 the arts of peace, for the Goth the cares of war," was his 
 favourite motto j and the policy which it represented worked 
 with such success, that it maintained a great and powerful 
 empire for seventy years. Relying upon the moral and 
 military strength of his position, he assumed a sort of 
 paternal authority over the contemporary and neighbouring 
 potentates, to which they not ungraciously submitted. His 
 own dominions he increased by the acquisition of Illyricum, 
 Pannonia, Noricum, and Rhsetia. The Bavari and other 
 Teuton tribes became his tributaries, and the victorious 
 combat of Aries gained for him from the Franks the 
 remaining portion of Provence, the other part of which he 
 had wrested from the Burgundians as a penalty for their 
 animosity rather than their actual opposition in the late war. 
 In fact, he anticipated Charlemagne, not only in the extent 
 of his dominion, but in his ability as a governor. The genius 
 of the Ostrogoth appears to have possessed at least as great 
 a capacity for assimilation to civilized influences as that of 
 any other of the barbarous races who broke up the Roman 
 empire. The monarch himself was a signal instance of the 
 fact ; for it cannot be said that he disgraced the education 
 which he had received at Constantinople. His territorial 
 provisions exhibited no less wisdom than politic considera- 
 tion for the vanquished. One third of the land, with all the 
 
300 ITALY. 
 
 military posts in Italy, he assigned to his countrymen. In 
 no other respect was any favouritism shown, for they paid 
 the imposts upon land equally with the Italian occupants. 
 Kural industry was studiously encouraged ; the Pontine 
 marshes were drained ; iron and gold mines opened in Dal- 
 matia and the Abruzzi ; an active police by sea and land 
 maintained the security of trade and property ; and the 
 cities acquired, says Gibbon, the " useful and splendid deco- 
 rations of baths, churches, porticos, and palaces." Though 
 an Arian, he showed no violence to the orthodox party, and 
 established friendly relations with the popes. His tolera- 
 tion, remarkable in any age, would deserve to be considered 
 marvellous in his own, could we venture to believe that it 
 rested rather upon religious principle than indifference. 
 Any of his subjects, Goth or Italian, were permitted to 
 adopt either form of faith ; the clergy of both communions 
 had equal privileges ; even the Jews were recognized as 
 citizens, and received protection for their property. The 
 men of cultivated intellect who possessed the accomplish- 
 ments of the old civilization, were admitted into favour and 
 employment. Among them, as we have already said, was 
 the senator Cassiodorus, whose history, epitomized by Jor- 
 nandes, bishop of Eavenna, furnishes the best record of this 
 eventful age. Theodoric commissioned him on one occasion 
 as ambassador to the Burgundian king, with these somewhat 
 uncomplimentary credentials : " We send you this man as an 
 envoy, that you may no longer pretend to be our equal, when 
 you see what manner of men we have with us." Another 
 still more famous Roman adorned his court — Boethius, last 
 of the long roll of illustrious names who upheld the philo- 
 sophic tenets first taught beneath the plane-tree groves of 
 Academus. For many years he enjoyed the monarch's 
 favour; but at last, conspiracy, or the suspicion of conspiracy, 
 confined him to a dungeon, and gave to the world, in his 
 " Consolations," the last, and by no means the least, success- 
 
OSTROGOTH LEGISLATION. 801 
 
 ful effort of human philosophy to explain and to assuage the 
 ills of life. But it is mainly by its laws that the character 
 of any civil society is determined, and by its laws, there- 
 fore, in the main, it should be judged. The new Ostrogoth 
 code, as promulgated in the "Edictum Theodorici," exhi- 
 bited as near an approach as was possible to the unmatched 
 models of Latin jurisprudence, and by abandoning some 
 of the most cherished customs of barbaric life, created 
 no little jealousy and offence among the members of the 
 conquering race. The abolition of the Wehr-geld, or pe- 
 cuniary compensation for personal injury, a principle almost 
 of universal acceptance among the German tribes, was 
 peculiarly unpleasing to the Goth conservatives, who re- 
 membered with regret the ancient glories of the empire of 
 Ermanaric. Yet it cannot be doubted that it is one of the 
 first steps towards a civilized and rightly-reasoned code of 
 criminal law. The results, then, of Theodoric's administra- 
 tion were a gradual amalgamation of race and interest 
 between the conquerors and the conquered, the general 
 security and rapid increase of property throughout the 
 peninsula, and the appearance of all those outward adorn- 
 ments which arise from and distinguish a period of national 
 prosperity. 
 
 " Having been the first who put a stop to so many evils," 
 says the great mediaeval statesman,* " Theodoric deserves the 
 highest praise ; for, during the thirty- eight years he reigned 
 in Italy, he brought the country to such a state of greatness, 
 that her previous sufferings were no longer recognizable." 
 What wonder, then, if men began to believe in the genesis of 
 a new life for Italy and the world 1 Nor were they altogether 
 deceived. It is to this era that we owe the origin or revival 
 of many among the renowned cities of mediaeval times. Then 
 rose Yenice, Ferrara, Aquileia, Chiusa, and Sienna ; then also 
 
 * Machiavelli, Hist, of Florence, book i. ch. 2. 
 
802 ITALY. 
 
 Florence, Pisa, Genoa, Bologna, and Milan, first gathered 
 within their walls the means of wealth and the treasures of 
 beauty which will render them illustrious through all gene- 
 rations of men. Then, too, the little sea-side watering-place 
 of Parthenope began its growth to the most powerful, the 
 most populous, and the most beautiful city of Italy. " At 
 this time also," says Machiavelli, " not only were the 
 names of provinces changed, but also of lakes, rivers, seas, 
 and men ; for France, Spain, and Italy are full of fresh 
 names, wholly different from the ancient." Then, in fact, 
 an entirely new language was developing itself among the 
 mixed population of the peninsula, as the tongue of Virgil 
 and Cicero melted into the melodious accents of Dante and 
 Boccacio. What then prevented this man, with so great a 
 genius for government, and so splendid an opportunity for 
 its exercise, from organizing a Germanic empire, equal in 
 extent and power to that which obeyed the sceptre of the 
 old Roman Csesars ? or why did he fail, when Charlemagne, 
 with a greater complication of interests to deal with, for a 
 time at least succeeded ? 
 
 The causes were mainly these ; causes which we may, 
 perhaps, suspect to be of a very permanent character 
 and very similar, at all times, in their operation. In 
 the first place, Theodoric was an Arian, and there was 
 a power antagonistic to Arianism growing up already 
 on the banks of the Tiber, stronger than the statesman's 
 policy or the soldier's sword — the spiritual power of the 
 Church of Rome. Elsewhere we shall endeavour to say 
 upon this topic what our limited space will admit. At pre- 
 sent it is enough to see that such a power was necessarily 
 altogether incompatible with the existence of an Arian 
 empire. And it proved mightier than its rival ; for it was 
 aided by other powers and influences, adverse to Ostrogoth 
 domination. First among these may be reckoned the jealousy 
 of the Byzantine Caesars. They had precipitated the Barbarian 
 
ITALY AND THE FOREIGNER. 308 
 
 upon Italy, and encouraged him to its conquest, not from 
 any affection towards the Barbarian, but from fear for them- 
 selves j and when the Barbarian had established himself in 
 part of their ancient patrimony, and had lengthened the cords 
 and strengthened the stakes of his rising empire, they began 
 to perceive that his position was more formidable than ever, 
 and they unceasingly intrigued with his personal enemies and 
 their own Roman rival for his destruction. It was, for instance, 
 the Greek emperor Maurice who first prominently introduced 
 Frank chieftains into Italian politics, and Frank armies into 
 the fields of Lombardy.* To these considerations must be 
 added the innate and implacable impatience with which the 
 Italian regards a foreign domination. Unable to tolerate 
 the rule of a stranger, unable to shake it off; alternately 
 calling for and cursing the presence of foreign dynasties ; 
 submitting to yet detesting the houses of Anjou, of Aragon, of 
 Hohenstaufen, — the Hapsburg, the Bourbon, and the Buona- 
 parte, — yet all the while incapable of substituting any native- 
 bom and national power, which might grow, and gather 
 strength, and finally develop into a rival, perhaps a victor 
 state, — from the fall of Augustulusto thefield of No vara, the 
 Italians have struggled against the chains they wore, have 
 substituted for them other chains, have murmured, have wept, 
 have conspired, have assassinated, have fought, have done 
 anything but cordially and manfully unite against a common 
 enemy. The politics of the present hour are beside our 
 purpose, but they throw a living light upon the social causes 
 which disappointed the earliest promise of an Italian empire, 
 and have happily retarded, while they permitted for so 
 many centuries, the triumph of German absolutism beyond 
 the Alps.t 
 
 * See Paulus Diac. de Gestis Langob. iii. 17, 21, 22. 
 
 •f* I have left these words as they were written long ago, if for no 
 other reason, at least to show the uncertainty of all judgments con- 
 cerning Italy and the Italians. The new and splendid future which 
 
804 ITALY. 
 
 The last days of Theodoric were haunted by the appre- 
 hension of conspiracy, and were passed in persecution. The 
 Greek emperor Justin I. had proscribed Arianism in his 
 dominions. Theodoric was not a bigoted Arian, but he 
 felt this proscription as an indignity, and attempted to 
 deprecate its severity by negotiation. Meeting with 
 little success, he unhappily retaliated by a series of exe- 
 cutions, in which fell the heads of the patriarch of Rome, 
 of Symmachus, father-in-law of Boethius, and of the great 
 Boethius himself. In the midst of still further prepa- 
 rations for the suppression of treason and orthodoxy, he 
 was cut off by dysentery in his seventy-third year. After 
 his death, his kingdom became involved in anarchy, and fell 
 for a short, — and for Italy a disastrous period, into the hands 
 of Justinian, emperor of the East, the latter part of whose 
 reign was visited by one of those transitory gleams of splen- 
 dour which occasionally flash across the destiny of falling 
 empires. As the traveller, gazing on the long summit of some 
 Alpine chain, while yet visible by the light of declining day, 
 is sometimes startled by the exceeding glory of purple, rose, 
 and gold which clothes the tinted peaks, but ere he looks 
 again, finds that the glory is departed, and the snow-clad 
 line of crags has resumed its spectral, death-like grey ; so the 
 labours of Justinian and the Jurists, the great exploits of 
 Belisarius and ISTarses, shed a bright but evanescent splendour 
 on the long, dull range of Byzantine annals ; a splendour which 
 soon relapses into a dreary and monotonous tale of effete in- 
 stitutions, dissolute princes, corrupt courtiers, and wrangling 
 sects. The history of this period is gathered from the work 
 of the Byzantine Procopius, secretary of Belisarius. It will 
 amply repay perusal ; for it abounds in interesting details, in 
 striking incidents, and records of great but almost forgotten 
 
 we may trust is opening out for the whole Peninsula, must develop 
 itself more fully, before it will be safe to indulge in any definite con- 
 clusions regarding it. 
 
THE GEEEK INVASION. 305 
 
 men. Gibbon lias largely availed himself of the " Bellum 
 Gotliicnm," and, indeed, has done little more than abridge 
 its minutely-written narrative. We can only mention the 
 principal incidents in their order of occurrence, that we 
 may so be enabled to understand what follows. 
 
 The operation of the causes which we have described as 
 tending to the overthrow of the Ostrogoth kingdom were 
 naturally more effective in a female reign. The accession of 
 Amalasontha, daughter of the great Theodoric, and niece 
 of the Merovingian Clovis, awakened a host of 
 rivalries and ambitious aims amongst the Ostro- 
 goth nobles. The court of Constantinople, by its emis- 
 saries, sedulously fanned them into flame. Doubtless, also, 
 the same object was pursued from Rome; at any rate, 
 a frightful anarchy ensued, in which rapine and assassina- 
 tion were rife. In the mean time, victory had dawned 
 once more upon the imperial eagles. Belisarius, the general 
 of Justinian, in a brilliant campaign, had^ust concluded- the 
 conquest of the African Yandals.* Amalasontha had perished 
 by assassination ; a weak and timid monarch occupied 
 the Gothic throne ; so that the time seemed ripe for the 
 recovery of Italy, and the glorious mission was intrusted to 
 a man worthy to have commanded the legions of Scipio 
 or of Caesar. The prestige of his name enabled Belisarius 
 to achieve his object with little serious opposition from 
 the disorganized Ostrogoths, and to enter Home 
 in triumph. But the unconquered spirit of the 
 Barbarian seemed to gather resolution from circumstances 
 which might have inspired despair. Yitiges, whom the 
 Ostrogoths now obeyed, called upon all the barbarian 
 realms to resist this rehabilitation of the Empire. Rome 
 was fiercely assailed ; but as Rome proved impregnable, 
 Milan was the prize he promised to his allies. Hordes 
 of Franks and Germans flocked to his standard, like 
 
 * See Lecture VII. 
 X 
 
S06 ITALY. 
 
 vultures at the scent of prey. Milan fell, not before mul- 
 titudes had died of famine and disease. Yet these bore but 
 a small proportion to the victipis of the devouring sword. 
 Never had such a slaughter been known within the walls of 
 a civilized city. Keal rivers of blood ran in the streets, 
 human bodies were piled up in huge heaps on either side. 
 But these things only sharpened the exasperation and ven- 
 geance of their foe. 
 
 Though Belisarius was shut up for a short period within 
 the walls of Rome by Vitiges, the arrival of reinforcements 
 from Greece changed the entire future of the war. The 
 Barbarian, as the Greeks still called him, was forced back 
 into Eavenna, — his own capital, and the last stronghold of 
 his power. Kavenna was soon entered by the 
 troops of the Empire, and with it fell the great 
 kingdom of the Ostrogoths; a truly wonderful achieve- 
 ment, when we reflect that it was performed by Belisarius, 
 at the head of /in army which scarcely ever exceeded 
 20,000 men. Then begins the well-known drama of princely 
 ingratitude and dishonoured worth which has so often been 
 employed " to point a moral or adorn a tale." In the very 
 flush of his victorious honours, Belisarius was recalled by 
 the jealousy of Justinian. The Ostrogoths knew 
 their opportunity, and broke out into fierce re- 
 bellion. At this alarming intelligence, the great general 
 was indeed sent back to the seat of his former triumphs ; 
 but so besotted was the mean and envious spirit that 
 ruled the counsels of Constantinople, that no levies of 
 men, no muniments of war, were trusted to his care. To 
 conduct a struggle with brave and desperate foes, under 
 such conditions, was to court certain ignominy and defeat. 
 
 Belisarius demanded his recall. Totila, into 
 
 A D« 541 544 
 
 whose hands the Ostrogoth sceptre had 
 
 fallen, was a leader every way worthy of the occasion. 
 
 He displayed such valour and military skill, that his pro- 
 
BELISARIUS AND NARSES. 807 
 
 gress became every day more formidable ; and it was evi- 
 dent that, unless speedily arrested, he would soon recover 
 all that Belisarius had won, and perhaps consummate at 
 last the conquest of Eome itself But the Empire had 
 still a man to meet the crisis. The eunuch Narses, the 
 reigning favourite of Justinian, exhibits one among the few 
 remarkable instances where a great latent military genius 
 develops itself, under the pressure of necessity, in mature 
 age. Sent to Italy at the head of a well-equipped army, 
 to oppose the startling advance of the Gothic king, he more 
 than rivalled the exploits of the renowned Belisarius. The 
 Ostrogoth struggled desperately, but nothing could with- 
 stand the star of the Bom an general. Five times was 
 Rome lost and won. Totila and Teia, last of the race 
 of Ostrogoth kings, fell as became their heroic 
 
 AT* f{^^ 
 
 blood, sword in hand, upon the field of battle. 
 Then occurred a singular phenomenon, — the annihila- 
 tion and disappearance of a great and powerful people 
 from the world's history. We wonder how the Etru- 
 rian name and nation were absorbed in Bome. A few 
 sepulchral monuments, a few vases in museums, a few in- 
 scriptions which perplex the scholar, here and there a 
 custom or tradition which survives in the story of an alien 
 race, — ^this is all that remains of a people once the most 
 polished, and, perhaps, at the era of its greatness, the most 
 powerful in the ancient world. The same phenomenon is 
 repeated at the fall of the great Semitic rival of Bome. 
 The iron hand of the Bepublic shattered a whole civiliza- 
 tion, as a mirror is shattered by a warrior's glove of steel. 
 The language, the polity, the commercial empire of Car- 
 thage, have left scarce " a wreck behind." " The periplus 
 of Hanno, a few medals, a score of verses in Plautus, 
 and there is all that remains of the Carthaginian world."* 
 And now once again we witness the same strange cata- 
 * Michelet. 
 
 X 2 
 
^08 ITALY. 
 
 strophe ; the more startling, because more nearly connected 
 with existing politics and modern times. A great people, 
 which had organized an enlightened government, and sent 
 200,000 fighting-men into the field of battle, is annihilated 
 and forgotten. A wretched remnant, transported by Narses 
 to Constantinople, were soon absorbed in the miserable pro- 
 letariat of a metropolitan city. The rest fell by the sword, 
 or were gradually amalgamated with the mixed population 
 of the peninsula. The Visigoth kingdom in Gaul and Spain, 
 which had been overshadowed by the glories of the great 
 Theodoric, emerges into independent renown, and takes up 
 the traditions of the Gothic name. In the annals of Europe 
 the Ostrogoth is heard of no more : his place was to be 
 occupied by a race which has exercised a more permanent 
 and pacific influence upon the character of European civi- 
 lization. 
 
 It was, however, in no peaceful guise that the Lombards 
 first appeared upon the stage of history. Four hundred 
 years before this era, we hear of Langobardi between 
 the Elbe and the Oder, as a tribe distinguished for their 
 valour and the formidable long lance, from which they 
 probably derived their name. Tacitus tells us that their 
 numbers were few, but that their courage and hardihood 
 rendered them conspicuous among all other tribes of Teu- 
 tonic descent.* The other etymology, " Long-beards," though 
 deduced from an ancient tradition, which Mr. Kingsley has 
 rendered popular,t and sanctioned by the authority of Gib- 
 bon, I cannot believe to be correct. There seems no reason 
 why so common an appendage as the beard, where all wore 
 beards, should have been selected as a distinctive national 
 mark ; nor is it so easy to understand why this particular 
 tribe should have had any advantages in the growth of such 
 hirsute decoration beyond their neighbours. But any pecu- 
 
 * " Langobardos paucitas nobilitat." — De Morihus Germ. c. 40. 
 t Song ia Hypatia. 
 
THD LOMBAEDS. 80». 
 
 liarity in the fashion of a weapon is at once seized upon 
 among warlike races, and converted into an appellative. 
 Many persons living can recollect that their English auxil- 
 iaries were termed " Blue Flints " by the peasants of Vendee, 
 from the unusual colour of the flints in their musket-locks. 
 But "Long-beards" or " Long- spears," they soon worked their 
 way, like their predecessors, to the Danube. Here they 
 encountered the Gepidse, who, as we may remember, after 
 having taken a leading part in the defeat and dispersion of 
 the Huns in the great battle of N^tad,* had settled in the 
 plains of Upper Hungary and on the Transylvanian hills. 
 For thirty years these two powerful tribes continued a con- 
 test in which both sides sought the assistance of. the Greek 
 emperor, and both were purposely encouraged in their 
 rivalry with a view to their common destruction. The beauty 
 of a Gepid princess, and the advent of a new race from 
 Central Asia, determined the issue of the strife. The 
 charms of Rosamond, daughter of Cunimund, king of tha 
 Gepidse, had attracted a host of noble and powerful suitors 
 for her hand. But it was the fate of this barbarian Helen 
 to be the ruin of her family and people. Alboin, the young 
 and heroic monarch of the rival Lombard race, refused as a 
 legitimate candidate for her favour, accomplished by force 
 and stratagem the possession of her person. The Gepidse 
 were as resolutely bent upon her recovery, as the subjects of 
 Agamemnon and Menelaus who fought for the divine daughter 
 of Leda beneath the walls of Troy. They were aided, too, 
 by imperialist troops ; and Alboin and his Lombards, despite 
 the most valorous efforts, were compelled to relinquish their 
 prize. Their situation became most perilous, and they looked 
 anxiously abroad for assistance. By a remarkable coinci- 
 dence, assistance was at hand. We have already had occasion 
 to record the circumstance. Far away in Central Asia, at the 
 foot of the Altaic chain, 2,000 miles beyond the Caspian, the 
 * Lecture IV. 
 
810 ITALY. 
 
 old causes of migratory movement Lad been at work : a 
 quarrel had taken place among some of tlie races of Turanian 
 stock, and the Turks, nowfirst heard of in history, chased their 
 kinsmen the Ouar-Khouni, or pretended Avars, to the foot 
 of the Caucasus. The latter appeared before the Greek em- 
 peror, and made the usual offer of submission to his authority, 
 coupled with the promise to extirpate his enemies, where- 
 soever they might be found ; but they claimed as the reward 
 of their services the payment of annual subsidies and the 
 grant of lands.* Justinian, now an old man, had not the 
 courage to refuse their friendship ; perhaps he hoped to find 
 in them a counterpoise to the growing power of his barbarian 
 neighbours. He had an idea of granting them a settlement 
 in Pannonia ; but they were strong enough to help them- 
 selves. As Gibbon says, "they boldly advanced into the 
 heart of Poland and Germany, violating the law of nations, 
 and abusing the rights of victory. Before ten years had 
 elapsed, their tents were on the Danube and the Elbe." In 
 these fierce and adventurous Asiatics, Alboin saw the means 
 of salvation and revenge. He invoked their powerful aid 
 against the Gepidse. The request was instantly granted, but 
 upon conditions that plainly showed how great was their am- 
 bition and consciousness of power. The united armies fell 
 upon the Gepidse, who fought with their hereditary courage, 
 but fought in vain against such overwhelming odds. Cuni- 
 mund fell upon the field of battle. The ferocious and 
 revengeful victor caused his skull to be fashioned 
 into a drinking-cup, from which, on festal days, he and his 
 warriors quaffed large draughts of the wine with which they 
 celebrated their feats of arms. Some historians speak of this as 
 a monstrous invention, an unparalleled refinement of cruelty 
 and brutality. It was probably a mere compliance with a 
 barbarous usage imported from Asiatic Scythia into Europe, 
 familiar to all who have read of the banquets of Odin's 
 ♦ Lecture IV. p. 213. 
 
INVITED INTO ITALY. 311 
 
 warriors and remember the Runic legends of the North. In 
 this case it became the cause of a memorable and horrible 
 tragedy. But not as yet. This decisive victory at once 
 established Alboin as the greatest leader of the age. In the 
 days of Charlemagne, the songs of the German peasant still 
 told of his beauty, his heroic qualities, and the resistless 
 vigour of his sword. His renown crossed the Alps, and fell, 
 with a foreboding sound, upon the startled ears of the 
 Italians, now experienced in the varied miseries of invasion. 
 The changes and chances of despotic rule had once more left 
 them defenceless. For fifteen years after his annihilation of 
 the Ostrogoth, Narses had governed Italy in the name of the 
 emperor, as exarch of Eavenna. His administration is 
 accused of having been rapacious and oppressive. This may 
 well have been the case ; for in the political morality of the 
 times, the obligations which he had conferred would in some 
 degree excuse the exactions in which he indulged. But 
 they were made a plea for his recall, and that recall was 
 accompanied by an insult which it was not in human nature 
 to forgive. *' Bid him leave to men the exercise of arras, 
 and resume his proper place, distaff in hand, among the 
 women of the palace," was the insolent message of the By- 
 zantine empress to the man who had saved Italy. " Tell her, 
 I will spin her such a thread as she shall not easily unravel," 
 was the answer. If it be true that, stung to the quick by 
 his unworthy treatment, Narses made the signal to the 
 Lombard king, which summoned him to the crests of the 
 Alps, and told him that Italy lay below at the mercy of his 
 arms, — bitterly was the prophecy fulfilled. Never again 
 from those well-woven toils could Greek authority in the 
 West shake itself free. The treachery of Narses, confidently 
 asserted by some writers, is disputed or entirely disbelieved 
 by others. What remains certain is, that Narses was super- 
 seded in his ofiice of exarch by Longinus, and that soon 
 after, all the bold and adventurous spirits of the barbarian 
 
3ia ITALY. 
 
 world, Saxons, Lombards, and Franks, gathered beneath the 
 
 banner of Alboin, and descended upon helpless Italy in an 
 irresistible torrent of armed men. The description 
 given by historians of that famous and terrible 
 
 march, terrible even after so many predecessors of similar 
 
 character, recalls the language of the poet : 
 
 " Amazement in his van with flight combined, 
 With sorrow's faded form and solitude behind." 
 
 The inhabitants knew their weakness too well to attempt 
 resistance, and this time, without laborious sieges or 
 " decisive battles," the whole centre of the peninsula, from 
 the hills of Trent to the neighbourhood of Bome, passed 
 submissively beneath the yoke of the foreigner. One 
 city alone made a stand. The military genius of the 
 Ostrogoth had discerned the excellent position of Pavia 
 upon the Ticino, and surrounded it with defences, strong 
 enough to arrest the victorious Lombard in his otherwise tri- 
 umphant progress. Infuriated by the obstacle, Alboin swore 
 that within those doomed walls, neither age nor sex should 
 ' escape the sword. Despair lent strength to the citizens : 
 for three whole years they sustained the unequal contest ; 
 but were at last compelled by famine to capitulate. The 
 Barbarian, baring his sword, ruthlessly prepared to fulfil his 
 bloody vow. But superstition achieved what mercy had been 
 unable to effect. As he entered the gate, the horse of Alboin 
 stumbled, and, fearing the evil omen, he consented to sheathe 
 his revengeful steel. Life was spared, but nothing more. The 
 city pleased the taste of the victor j he made it his royal 
 residence ; and thus, for many years, Pavia succeeded to 
 the position formerly occupied by Bome, and then by 
 Bavenna, as metropolis of the whole peninsula. The fate 
 of the fortunate chief who won with his sword these royal 
 realms, and wore for a brief season the perilous honours of 
 the Lombard crown, forms one of those terrible tragedies of 
 
ALBOIN AND KOSAMOND. 313 
 
 real life which surpass the fictitious crimes and sorrows of the 
 stage, or furnish it with horrors, such as the unaided imagina- 
 tion of the dramatist would have been unable to conceive. 
 Alboin, inflamed by wine and song, in a fit of Bersceker frenzy, 
 like that which sometimes inspired the Vikings of the 
 North, bade his attendants fill with wine the skull of Cuni- 
 mund, and bear the cup to his own wife, the daughter of the 
 murdered man, the lovely Lombard queen, who graced the 
 wild banquet with her presence. Rosamond durst not refuse 
 the pledge, but, as she drank, resolved, in her indignant 
 soul, on the instant destruction of the tyrant. Seducing or 
 seduced, she employed her charms to secure what was now 
 the sacred object of revenge. Himilchis, the royal cham- 
 berlain, and another Lombard lord, were drawn into a 
 conspiracy to slay their master. Alboin, oppressed with 
 wine, and perfidiously lulled to rest by the caresses of his 
 
 queen, had at midday fallen asleep in 
 
 ■T. T_ ^ -n 1 1- li? 28th June, a.d. 573. 
 
 his own chamber. Kosamond herself 
 
 unbarred the door, the assassins rushed in with their 
 
 weapons drawn ; but the redoubted hero of so many 
 
 victorious fights sprang to his feet, and seized his sword. 
 
 The traitress had glued it to the sheath. With nothing 
 
 but a footstool, the undaunted victim made a desperate 
 
 resistance; but he was cut down at last, and Rosamond 
 
 gazed with triumph at the bleeding corse. It was not 
 
 given to her to exult long in the joys of vengeance. The 
 
 Lombards seemed to submit, but were in reality ready to 
 
 rise against the adultress at the first opportunity. She 
 
 speedily became alarmed. Accompanied by her trusty 
 
 Gepid guards, who had followed her from her father's halls, 
 
 and loaded with the plundered treasures of the palace, she 
 
 fled in company with her paramour to Ravenna. There, 
 
 her beauty, or reputed wealth, attracted the Greek exarch. 
 
 He made a proposal for her hand, to which she readily 
 
 assented ; but Himilchis formed an insuperable obstacle, 
 
S14 ITALY. 
 
 and of Himilchis, accordingly, they determined to get rid. 
 False to her lover, as to her husband, Kosamond prepared 
 a potent poison, which she presented to him upon quitting 
 the bath. The unfortunate man, before he had finished the 
 draught, detected a flavour in the liquid, or an expression in 
 the Queen's eyes, which experience perhaps had taught him 
 to connect with deeds of treachery and blood. At the point 
 of the dagger he forced her to finish the potion, and both 
 expired within a few hours. How much of Italian history 
 is foreshadowed in this dark tale of the poniard and the 
 bowl ! How often has the fate of Alboin and Rosamond 
 been reproduced in that land of passion and intrigue ! 
 
 It was probably owing to the internal weakness and an- 
 archy which these dire events foreboded or introduced, that 
 the kingdom of the Lombards, despite their acknowledged 
 valour, and the very considerable genius for legislation which 
 their laws display, never attained to the same external 
 development as that of Theodoric. It never, for instance, 
 comprised Sicily within its limits, or, with perhaps one 
 exception, the transalpine provinces ; nor could it lay claim 
 to more than two-thirds of Italy. The extremity of the 
 peninsula was indeed ruled by Lombard dukes ; but they 
 asserted at a very early period their independence of the 
 court of Pavia. Gibbon includes within the circle of Lombard 
 dominion the terra jirma of what was once the Venetian 
 republic, the Tyrol, the Milanese, Piedmont, the coast of 
 Genoa, Mantua, Parma, and Modena, and a large portion 
 of the States of the Church. There were not, however, 
 wanting external causes which assisted the action of domes- 
 tic anarchy in checking the expansion of this formidable 
 power. The Byzantines still retained the exarchate, and 
 several cities on the coast. The little republic of Venice 
 was safe among the Adriatic waves, and offered an excellent 
 'pied ci terre for an aggressive force. The Frank battalions 
 were incessantly surging over the Alps, and menacing the 
 
LOMBAKT) ANARCHY. 315 
 
 safety of the capital itself. The ecclesiastical governor of 
 Rome opposed the Lombard, whom he hated as an emis- 
 sary of Satan, by intriguing with his enemies, and the 
 exercise of that religious awe with which he so well knew 
 how to impress barbarian minds. A haughty Lombard 
 sovereign had spurred his steed into the sea which rolls 
 between Europe and the opposite continent, and smiting 
 with the renowned Lombard spear a pillar erected for the 
 purpose amid its waves, had cried, " Behold the limits of 
 Lombard power." But though the Calabrian coast was 
 ruled by Lombard dukes, they soon discovered that the 
 intervention of the Roman territory placed them beyond 
 the reach of a king who governed from a town of Northern 
 Italy, and those turbulent vassals became the most trouble- 
 some antagonists of their lords. Among the long array of 
 "treasons, stratagems, and spoils" which Lombard annals 
 display, there is little to delay us until we arrive at the fatal 
 period when their confused and hostile relations with the 
 Papal power, occasioned by the ambitious designs of the rival 
 potentates upon the exarchate, brought the Franks over the 
 Alps, and imposed the yoke of a master upon both parties in 
 the person of a new emperor of the West. Alboin 
 was succeeded by Clepho, or Clef, a man of fero- 
 cious spirit, who ruled his subjects with a rod of iron. He soon 
 became intolerable to a proud nobility, who deemed themselves 
 the equals of their monarch in the field of battle, and not 
 inferior in birth, or scarcely in social station at other times. 
 His assassination was followed by a period of anarchy, in 
 which six-and-thirty dukes did what was right in their own 
 eyes, solely with a view to their several interests, and the 
 people suffered frightfully in the feuds which occurred 
 between them. But it soon became manifest, even to the 
 rude political perceptions of Lombard dukes, quickened as 
 they were by the dread of Byzantine intrigue and Frank 
 intervention, that disunion was social death. After an 
 
Sie ITALY. 
 
 interval of ten terrible years, they admitted the claims of 
 Autharis, son of Clepho, who had been a minor at his 
 father's death. In engaging to follow his banner to the 
 war, they agreed to a surrender of half their existing 
 revenue, for the purpose of furnishing a body of troops who 
 should be at the king's disposal. In return for this impor- 
 tant concession, their duchies were made independent and 
 hereditary, subject to forfeiture only for felony, and reverti- 
 ble to the crown when no male successor of full age should 
 assert his claim. Thus, about the year 584, was 
 inaugurated the feudal system in Southern Eu- 
 rope, and historians point to this convention of Lombard 
 chieftains as its origin and earliest type. But it should be 
 remembered that the convention itself was little else than 
 a necessary consequence of the act of Alboin, when he 
 effected the partition of Italy among his followers. And 
 Alboin, in all probability, imitated the policy pursued by 
 Longinus the Exarch, who, it may be remembered, had 
 replaced Narses at Ravenna. To the destruction of that 
 system of centralization which had hitherto given its great- 
 ness to the metropolitan city, this man appointed governors 
 for the several divisions of territory which appeared to him 
 of sufficient importance to demand the presence of such an 
 officer. In this arrangement no special favour was conferred 
 upon the capital, and thus Rome, — which had already been 
 politically eclipsed by Ravenna, — as soon as the Lombard esta- 
 blished his court at Pavia, was compelled to accept the third 
 place among the cities of the Italian peninsula. But be this 
 as it may, during the two hundred years of Lombard domina- 
 tion in Italy, the most prominent features of feudalism were 
 strikingly displayed. Few sovereigns escaped a violent 
 death ; the powers of the crown were altogether incom- 
 petent to curb the nobility, and the nobles, possessing almost 
 uncontrolled power in the " Placita Regni," or great councils 
 of the realm, first made the laws themselves, and then seve- 
 
ORIGIN OF FEUDALISM: AUTHARIS. 317 
 
 rally administered them among their neighbours and de- 
 pendents. No check, therefore, could be placed upon 
 cruelty and exaction, upon their mutual internecine feuds, 
 and their open resistance to the supreme authority. The 
 greatest evil was the presence of the Franks, who had been 
 provoked to retaliate the perpetual inroads made by the 
 Lombard dukes upon GauL Alarmed by the danger their 
 violence and anarcliy had created, they sought its remedy 
 in " the union, secrecy, and vigour " of regal govern- 
 ment.* Autharis may be excused for not foreseeing all 
 the difficulties of his position ; he may be excused, 
 if at the moment when, in all a monarch's pride, he saw 
 80 many stout Lombard spears around his throne, and 
 heard the shout of allegiance from their warrior lords, he 
 indulged in high dreams of the destiny of that race which 
 Alboin had so often led to victory. That he did entertain 
 some such hope, may perhaps be inferred from the fact, that 
 he assumed the gentile name of the royal race of Constan- 
 tine, as if, under the title of Flavins, he expected to rival 
 the role of Theodoric, or revive the glories of the ancient 
 empire. Nor was he personally unworthy of these exalted 
 aims. He enlarged the dominions which he had received ; 
 he baffled his Byzantine enemies ; he three several times 
 rolled back the tide of Frank invasion ; and maintained 
 some degree of domestic order in the duchies. But 
 his principal exploits were in the territory of the Church, 
 which he swept with fire and sword, awakening that 
 passionate hatred towards his race which finds vent in 
 the language of Gregory the Great. In Septem- 
 ber, A.D. 590, he died, after a brief but brilliant 
 reign. The occasion was critical, for the Franks were in 
 the land ; and, had not the invading army been consumed 
 by pestilence, they would have proved on this occasion 
 strong enough to remain there. Theodolinda, the youtliful 
 * Gibbon. 
 
ZIB ITALY. 
 
 widow of the deceased monarch, was eminently beloved by* 
 Lombard chiefs. They agreed to accept as their king the 
 man upon whom she should bestow her hand. Her choice 
 fell upon a kinsman, Agilulf, duke of Turin. Freed from all 
 apprehension on the part of the Franks, he turned upon the 
 exarch, who had been audacious enough to become the 
 assailant, and for the purpose of self-protection, had with- 
 drawn the garrisod from Rome, over which he still exer- 
 cised a semblance of authority in the name of the Greek 
 emperor. This determined the direction of Agilulf's move- 
 ments : he was soon at the gates of Rome. Then occurred 
 one of the strangest events of this strange age. The Lom- 
 bards were, as we have before said, Arians. Theodolinda, a 
 Bavarian by birth, had been brought up in the orthodox 
 faith, and it had ever retained a strong hold upon her 
 affections. Of this fact Gregory took advantage. He ad- 
 dressed to the Lombard queen a series of letters, still 
 preserved, which doubtless were well calculated to influence 
 and overawe the barbarian mind, but which it requires a 
 very large charity and a most favourable consideration of 
 the circumstances to redeem from the charge of the wildest 
 extravagance. They, however, had their effect upon Theo- 
 dolinda, and perhaps aided her in converting her husband 
 from the Arian heresy. Certain it is, that Agilulf soon 
 professed himself a faithful son of the Church, restored the 
 treasures which he had plundered, and reinstated the 
 bishops whom he had deposed. The gratitude of Gregory 
 was manifested in the gift of the far-famed iron crown, so 
 called from an inserted circlet of the metal, fabricated, as it 
 was said, from the nails of the true cross. After all the 
 strange vicissitudes of its fortune, Austria still clings, as 
 though with the tenacity of a dying grasp, to this memorable 
 relic, the sign and symbol of Italian sovereignty. The 
 stranger is surprised to see, that, like other crowns, it 
 consists of gold and gems, and deems, perhaps, that the 
 
THE LOMBARD CODE. 319 
 
 traditional name reflects the iron domination which is the 
 doom of that passionate and restless race. Despite of this 
 gift, the language of Gregory towards the Lombards does 
 not improve, nor do the relations between the two parties 
 become more amicable and undisturbed. To him they are 
 still " the most wicked of men ;" for them he is a hopeless 
 obstacle to their ambition, a stumbling-block, and 
 rock of political offence. Agilulf died, after regu- 
 lating the affairs of his kingdom upon an orthodox model. 
 
 It was also an orthodox king, Rotharis, who at a 
 later period gave to the Lombards their first written 
 code : his example was followed by many of his successors, 
 who both modified and increased his laws. They deserve our 
 most careful study, for, without acquaintance with them, it 
 is impossible to form any just idea of the national character 
 of the people, or the social condition of the age. What is 
 true of the Lombards is, of course, true of the Goths, Bur- 
 gundians, Franks, and all the Teuton races who overthrew 
 the old world, and built up another in its place. But, 
 except by the professed student of history, such a task 
 cannot easily be performed. In a summary of this sort it 
 cannot even be attempted ; but the reader may be benefited 
 even by the information, that Dean Milman's great work 
 upon Latin Christianity contains an admirable chapter upon 
 the subject, well calculated to satisfy any ordinary require- 
 ments. Arianism was finally extinguished by 
 Grinwald, duke of Benevento, a bold and vigor- 
 ous usurper, who drove the Franks back behind the Alps, 
 and crushed the feeble efforts of the Greek emperor Con- 
 stans II. to regain his Italian patrimony. Stormy times fol- 
 lowed : quarrels with the emperors; quarrels with the kings 
 of the Franks ; quarrels with the popes, and intestine quarrels, 
 worse than all the rest. In June, 712, commenced 
 a reign remarkable for the character and ability of '^' * 
 the monarch, but still more remarkable for the series of 
 
820 ITALY. 
 
 events, " the beginning of the end," to which it gave birth. 
 Luitprand, of Bavarian descent, ascended the throne, aspir- 
 ing to the character of both legislator and conqueror. He 
 fulfilled them both ; but his legislation carae too late, and 
 his conquests led to the dissolution of his kingdom. Still, 
 he is highly extolled by Paul. Diaconus as " wise in council, 
 a fearer of God, and friend of peace ;" merciful, chaste, 
 temperate, brave ; no philosopher, but the* father of ^is 
 people, and reformer of the laws."* 
 
 To understand ,however, the true character of the trans- 
 actions which followed, it will be necessary to turn for a 
 moment to the condition of the Christian Church in its 
 temporal relations with the State. However great may have 
 been the growth of its power and influence under Byzantine 
 and Ostrogoth rule in Italy, it was not until the establish- 
 ment of a Lombard kingdom, from which it became dis- 
 tinguished by strong lines of demarcation, that we 
 can discern, in the occupants of the Eoman see, 
 the exercise, or perhaps the idea, of a really independent 
 authority. This, however, very rapidly developed under the 
 conduct of the able man who occupied the chair of St. Peter 
 some thirty years after the establishment of the Lombard 
 kingdom. Gregory, surnamed by a grateful posterity " the 
 Great," was one of those men who stamp the impress of 
 their character upon their own generation, and leave a trace 
 of their actions through all time. He was one of those men 
 so admirably described by Milman, who, "if not great in 
 relation to the true intellectual, moral, and spiritual dignity 
 of man, are yet great in relation to the state and necessi- 
 ties of their age, engrossed by the powerful and dominant 
 principles of their time, and bringing to the advancement of 
 those principles surpassing energies of character, inflexible 
 resolution, the full conviction of the wisdom, justice, and 
 holiness of their cause, and in religious affairs, of the direct 
 * De Gestis Langobar. vi. 58. 
 
GEEGORY THE GREAT. 821 
 
 and undeniable sanction of God."* This is an admirable 
 portraiture of Gregory, of what he was, of his motives for 
 what he did, and of the means by which he did it. Ascetic 
 and fanatical, from his monkish antecedents, he swayed the 
 imaginations of men, who, in those troubled times, were 
 more than ever disposed to regard superior sanctity with 
 awe j lavish, even to profusion, in his self-denying charity, 
 he conciliated their affections by the personal sacrifices which 
 alleviated their wants ; able, eloquent, and politic, he do- 
 minated over their intelligence by his superior genius for 
 affairs. Never yielding a point, never abandoning a purpose, 
 he subdued their wills by his iron resolution, and the on- 
 ward, unswerving course of his ambition. Discerning the 
 favoui*able conditions by which he was surrounded, he 
 availed himself of them to the uttermost. To some extent 
 he was aided in his dealing with foreign potentates by the 
 prestige which surrounded the holy ofiice since the days 
 when Leo went forth in his pontifical robes to meet the 
 barbarian invader. All the world, and especially all the 
 Christian world, looked with wonder and reverence upon 
 that unarmed hero before whose fearless front the terrible 
 Alaric, and still more terrible Attila and Genseric, had re- 
 coiled. Little marvel if, in that rude age, the imaginations 
 of men succumbed before a power which had proved itself 
 mightier than the sword, even when wielded by such awful 
 hands. Gregory found occasion to imitate the example ot 
 his predecessor ; but he united to the moral influence so ac- 
 quired a more subtle and successful dominion over the princes 
 whom he rebuked. The vague elements of a power which was 
 of necessity unstable and ill-defined, because reposing upon a 
 moral rather than a material basis, he converted into a solid 
 and consistent whole, upon which he impressed a palpable 
 form. In his hands, truly says Hallam, all imperfect or 
 disputed claims first assumed a positive shape. He took 
 * Vol. i. p. 401. 
 Y 
 
322 ITALY. 
 
 care that they should never lose it in his own lifetime ; nor 
 have they lost it since. The Papacy, as we know it, un- 
 doubtedly springs from Gregory the Great. Such was the 
 man who inaugurated a policy which enabled the bishops 
 of Rome to dispute with the Lombard kings the question 
 of Italian supremacy. But before this question could be 
 settled, there was another which demanded solution. Few 
 points of common interest existed between these rivals. 
 The Lombard king chafed at the impediment offered by the 
 Boman territory to the progress of his arms towards the 
 South, and the chastisement of his rebel vassals at Spoleto 
 and Beneventum. He showed his irritation; perhaps at- 
 tempted to carry out his ambitious and aggressive designs, 
 by frequent ravages of the open country and expeditions to 
 the very gates of Rome. The smoke of burning towns and 
 villages, seen by priests and citizens from leaguered walls, 
 inspired them with a bitter hatred of the Lombard name, 
 which they did not hesitate to express with a vehemence of 
 language which sometimes startles the reader's calmness. In 
 the correspondence and other ecclesiastical documents of the 
 day, the Lombards are always " the children of perdition" 
 and " the most abominably wicked of human beings ;" yet 
 there was one "existing fact" which affected the prosj)ect3 
 and the feelings of both parties very much in the same way — 
 the exarchate of Ravenna. So long as they could point to 
 the presence of a third power in Italy, claiming a traditional 
 authority over both, they were equally anxious for its expul- 
 sion. The Greek exarchs formed a standing obstacle to either 
 the temporal or the spiritual domination of any other potentate 
 in Italy, not merely from the fact that they maintained a 
 court at Ravenna, but much more from the associations which 
 such a viceroyalty contributed to keep alive. While the 
 Byzantine Caesar retained a representative in the peninsula, 
 the shadow of the Empire still projected itself into the 
 West ; in an unreal and distorted shape it is true ; but 
 
ICONOCLASM. S23 
 
 such shadows often affect the imagination more powerfully 
 than a closer view of the substance itself. And therefore a 
 stronger motive than the lust of territorial acquisition, 
 although this motive was, doubtless, very powerfully called 
 into action, induced Lombard sovereigns and Roman pon- 
 tiffs to seize the first favourable opportunity for shaking off 
 the incubus of imperial traditions and foreign rule. Yet it 
 may be doubted whether the Roman world would ever have 
 endured to see the Barbarian in possession of what the Greek 
 had lost, or to have taken any steps which might lead to such 
 a result, had not a revolution arisen in Constantinople, which 
 for ever alienated the affections of the Western Church from 
 its sister of the East, and ultimately led to hopeless rupture 
 between them. ^ 
 
 A man of barbarian birth, an Isaurian adventurer, had 
 been raised to the imperial purple in one of those 
 tumultuous revolutions which had now become so 
 common in the disorganized empire of Constantine. Leo 
 was a soldier, a tried and brave one, but he chose to become 
 a theologian also, and, like most theologians reared in camps, 
 he entertained strong notions on the subject of discipline 
 and the necessity of implicit obedience to the commander-in- 
 chief. The decoration of the Christian churches by paintings 
 and images, originating in the uneradicated influences of 
 heathen taste, and greatly promoted by the example of 
 Helena, the mother of the first Christian emperor, had by 
 this time been exaggerated into an abuse easily capable of 
 producing most serious evils. Leo was determined to crush 
 these evils before they acquired invincible strength. His 
 motives it is not now easy to ascertain. Perhaps the growth 
 of such a cult interfered with his political projects or 
 some details of his military system. Yet why, after all, 
 may we not ascribe his conduct to its most obvious cause, 
 a conscientious conviction, originating in the early asso- 
 ciations of a faith which had been nurtured among rude 
 
 Y 2 
 
824 ITALY. 
 
 regions and in a life of hardships, remote from the pomp 
 and sj)! en dour of the metropolitan worship 1 But what- 
 ever may have been the purity of his motives, his measures 
 cannot escape the charge of injudicious haste. He 
 ^'^' ' addressed himself to the task with the prompti- 
 tude of his profession. No allowance was made for existing 
 interests ; no tenderness shown for tastes which, if mistaken, 
 still could not have been the oflfspring of vice or malignity ; 
 no account was taken of the hold possessed by a practice emi- 
 nently adapted to human weakness, upon the affections of an 
 impressible and fiery race. And, indeed, it would be incorrect 
 to describe the attachment of the Italians to image- worship as 
 a mere blind or sentimental devotion to a picturesque prac- 
 tice, ratified by authority, and hallowed by increased length 
 of time. It was much more than this ; for it had entered 
 into the very heart of their religion, and had become the real 
 exciting cause of perhaps the greater part of their religious 
 emotions and acts. Sanctity attached to the actual material 
 representation of the mother of God, and to that of the saint or 
 martyr whom the peasant, and persons much higher in social 
 position than the peasant, adored in prayer ; and this sanc- 
 tity in their fast-rooted instincts no philosophy might 
 question, no symbolism dilute. With what feelings, then, 
 must they have regarded the employment of physical force, 
 the actual imposition of sacrilegious hands upon the holy 
 thing ! Another circumstance added in no slight degree to 
 the general horror : Islamism had by this time arisen in 
 the East ; the Saracens were sweeping round and through 
 the outlying provinces of the Byzantine empire ; their 
 scaling-ladders were only hurled from the battlements of 
 Constantinople by the skill and resolute valour 
 * of Leo himself, and showers of that formidable 
 compound known to later ages as Greek fire. With the 
 Saracen, therefore, in all men's minds, were associated ideas 
 
THE SAEACENS. 825 
 
 of hatred and alarm ; for the Saracen proclaimed the mes- 
 sage of his faith — the immateriality of the Godhead, not to 
 be shadowed forth in symbol, sign, or image — with a most 
 furious fanaticism, with devouring fire and steel. No relic of 
 ancient art, or offering of later piety, escaped the devastating 
 zeal of these sanguinary enthusiasts. The Koran forbids the 
 imitation of any living thing by a material image. The gor- 
 geous tracery of the Alhambra contains no pictured shape 
 of beast or bird or fish, or " human face divine." We may 
 easily, therefore, imagine the destruction wrought by their 
 arms among the richly-decorated shrines of the Christian 
 Church, and the repugnance excited by the half-naked zealots 
 who traversed the world proclaiming the terrible alternative : 
 " Believe or die — the Koran or the sword." When, then, 
 the emissaries of Leo entered upon a not dissimilar course 
 in the West, it is scarce surprising that the bitterest animo- 
 sity should have been aroused, and their master assailed with 
 the epithets of Atheist, Jew, Demon, and Mohammedan. 
 An imperial edict had decreed the instant destruction of all 
 pictures and images in Constantinople. The edict was 
 angrily received, and blood was shed in the streets, in the 
 churches, and beside the statues of the saints. Behind the 
 spears of his barbarian body-guard, and among his degenerate 
 Byzantine subjects, the emperor might safely venture on 
 such a measure, but in Italy the popular mind was stirred to 
 its profoundest depths. The exarch had received orders to 
 carry out the edict by force in the Western provinces, and 
 his emissaries addressed themselves to the task with the 
 zeal of the soldiers of De Montfort or the Ironsides oi 
 Cromwell. In every province, in every town, resistance 
 was esteemed a sacred duty. Italy rose as a single man 
 in defence of its beloved images : everywhere was tumult 
 and insurrection. Even the children in the schools joined 
 in the tumult, and, says Pope Gregory II., " mocked at the 
 
826 ITALY. 
 
 heretic emperor, and would have thrown their slates at 
 his head, had he ventured to appear within the doors."* 
 The pope adroitly threw himself into the front of the battle, 
 as champion of the national cause, and by his energetic op- 
 position contrived to satisfy at one and the same time the 
 demands of orthodoxy, patriotism, spiritual ambition, and 
 territorial aggrandisement. 
 
 Luitprand, when he ascended the Lombard throne, suc- 
 ceeded to those relations with the Roman pon- 
 A.D. . ^.g.^ which, despite the affectionate interlude of 
 the Iron Crown, never ripened into anything like political 
 friendship. But now that Rome was in open insurrection 
 against the Iconoclast Leo, the politic Lombard deemed 
 that he might calculate upon her non-interference with his 
 ambitious designs upon the Exarchate. He accordingly 
 advanced upon Ravenna. Nor was the Greek emperor in a 
 condition to send any effectual assistance. The Bulgarians 
 pressed him hard upon the northern frontier. These were 
 the fiercest and most brutal of all the wild tribes who 
 had poured from the Asiatic steppes across the boundaries 
 of Europe, and for many years they afforded ample occu- 
 pation to the imperial troops. But east and south, in 
 all the more distant provinces, seas, and islands, were 
 gathering the legions of a still more formidable foe. The 
 Saracens, as we have already said, had drawn a fiery girdle 
 round their destined victims, the circumference of which 
 was daily contracting, until it seemed that the strength of 
 the Empire must collapse and wither in its embrace. It is 
 not surprising, therefore, that fleets and armies were not 
 forthcoming for the defence of a distant dependency, the fate 
 of which could exercise no material influence upon that de- 
 sperate battle for life or death in which the B}^zantines were 
 engaged. When Luitprand reached Ravenna, he found the 
 
 * Epist. Greg. II. ad Leonem, in Baronius, vol. ix. 
 
LUITPRAND. 827 
 
 citizens prepared for defence. But no sooner had he pro- 
 claimed himself champion of the images, than a large party- 
 attached themselves to his cause, and he speedily became mas- 
 ter of the town, and of the whole Pentapolis, or dis- 
 trict of the "five cities." Gregory II. is by some sup- 
 posed to have encouraged the attempt. He seems at least to 
 have viewed it for a time with complacency; but no sooner was 
 it accomplished, than he recurred to the traditional distrust of 
 the Lombard name and policy. He looked abroad for aid, 
 and discovered it in a quarter to which, from thenceforth for 
 many centuries, the eyes of the world were directed. The 
 dawn of Venetian glory emerges like a star from the dark- 
 ness of the eighth century, when Orso, the first Doge or 
 Duke, appears at the head of a fleet, as the powerful ally 
 who recovered Ravenna for a Greek emperor and a Koman 
 pontiff. Yet the emperor seems to have shown but little 
 gratitude for the co-operation of Gregory, if that co-operation 
 was sufficiently disinterested to deserve the name ; for 
 we soon find the imperial and papal factions in internecine 
 feud throughout the Pentapolis, and the politic Lombard 
 professing profound reverence for, and united in alliance 
 with the pope. But fresh quarrels arise ; the ally once 
 more appears at the gates of the sacred city in the character 
 of a conqueror, and Gregory goes forth, like his predecessors, 
 to appal a barbarian army by the awful presence of the 
 Head of the Church. Luitprand submitted, either from 
 awe or policy, prostrated himself before the pontiff's chair, 
 and offered his crown at the tomb of the apostle. Gregory 
 II. died in 731. His successor bore the same 
 name, and inherited the same policy. The com- 
 plicated and unintelligible relations with the Lombards are 
 again renewed. But this time a new actor is introduced 
 upon the scene, who speedily assumes the most important 
 part in the great drama of Italian history. Affairs had at 
 last reached their crisis, the pope felt that Lombard do- 
 
W8 ITALY. 
 
 mination no longer loomed in the distance ; it had been 
 retarded for a time, but was systematically advancing, even 
 through and by the very circumstances which had been 
 devised to arrest its progress. Within a few years, a bar- 
 barian kingdom would be once more established in Italy, 
 as extensive as that of Theodoric, and far more fatal to the 
 aspiration for temporal power and territorial dominion which 
 had now assumed the character of a fixed idea in the mind 
 of the spiritual head of the Church. If the Exarchate 
 should be absorbed, and the rebel dukes of Southern Italy 
 reduced to allegiance, it was seen that the court of Pavia 
 would soon tower to the full proportions of Imperialism ; 
 that the papacy would dwindle to the dimensions of a 
 Lombard bishopric, and Rome itself be reduced to the 
 position of a municipal town. The necessity, therefore, 
 of succour from a foreign power had become imperative ; 
 and there was but one arm in Europe which could 
 wield the weapon of deliverance. A future lecture will 
 be devoted to the gradual development of the Frankish 
 power on the lower Rhine and in Gaul. We can only 
 now refer to the fact, that just at this period its glories 
 had culminated in the ever-memorable triumph 
 won by Charles Martel in the field of Tours, where 
 he appeared as the champion of Christendom, against the 
 Saracen invaders. All eyes were directed to the man who 
 had saved society, and to his faithful Franks, who, unlike 
 their barbarian brethren, had from the first adopted the 
 orthodox belief. The pontifi" believed that the hour had 
 come, and with it the man — the victorious and formidable 
 Frank. The Gallic Church, too, had attained a splendid 
 prosperity, which even that of Italy could not rival. Its 
 abbeys, monasteries, monuments, saints, martyrs, relics, 
 bishops ; its sanctity, its enormous wealth, and the bril- 
 liant abilities of its leading teachers, might well attract 
 the eyes of the Romans in their struggle for the supremacy 
 
POPE APPLIES TO CHARLES MARTEL. 329 
 
 of their own Church, and induce them to seek the aid of 
 that same warrior race beneath whose protection their Trans- 
 alpine sister had learned to rest. It now seems agreed that 
 some time before the dissolution of the Byzantine power in 
 Italy, in the days of Gregory II., secret negotiations had 
 been begun for the sake of obtaining the aid of the Franks 
 against the Lombards ; but the policy, or the necessities, 
 of Gregory III. cast aside all concealment. With an " ex- 
 ceeding bitter cry" he bemoans the desperate fortunes of 
 the Church, and calls upon Charles Martel to cross the 
 Alps, and win for Christ's people another deliverance, as 
 glorious and as needful as the famous fight of Tourraine. 
 He proflfers to the Frank king the title of Roman Consul ; 
 he tries to bribe him with filings from the chains of the 
 apostle Peter and the keys of his tomb. The Barbarian 
 hesitated. "We may believe that he dimly descried in these 
 magnificent offers the opening of that path by which his great 
 descendant climbed to the height of more than Csesarean 
 power. But the Lombards had crossed the Alps at his 
 call; had stood by his side and struck with him on the 
 field of Tours, and elsewhere.* Something of gratitude was 
 due for this. Nor was an internecine enmity with the 
 strongest and most compact power of kindred race then 
 existing in the European world to be lightly undertaken. 
 He had a quarrel, too, on his hands with the Church of 
 Gaul, arising from a somewhat arbitrary notion of his right 
 to an ample share in the property which his sword had 
 saved; and he was occupied with that spoliation which, 
 despite of his victory over the infidel, and his vested rights 
 in the keys of Peter's sepulchre and the filings of Peter's 
 chains, has gained for him the curses of Catholic tradition, 
 and exhibited him, in the immortal verse of the great 
 Catholic poet, as writhing amid sulphurous flames in the 
 
 * See Paulus Diaconus, de Gestis Langob. vi. 53. 
 
$80 ITALY. 
 
 lowest abyss of hell.* Charles Martel, therefore, though 
 very courteous and conciliatory, made no decided move- 
 ment, marched no armies over the Alps in answer to this 
 appeal. It is, however, certain that he accepted the title 
 of " Patrician" from the Roman government ; and as this 
 title had hitherto been borne by the officers of the Eastern 
 emperor, it is not unreasonable to conjecture that there 
 existed in his mind the germs of the policy which was 
 so effectually developed by his successors. And 
 now the most prominent actors in this great 
 drama pass away from the scene ; — Charles Martel and 
 Gregory both die in 741 ; three years after Luitprand 
 
 is no more : but the relative positions of the 
 A D. 744 
 
 parties remain the same. The Greek emperor, 
 
 ever since the failure of his last attempt at invasion, 
 
 and the destruction of his fleet by the Adriatic 
 A D 733 
 
 storms, has practically abandoned the Exarchate, 
 
 and it lies in a defenceless state, ready to become the 
 
 prey of the power which shall assume the first place 
 
 in Italy. There is another Lombard monarch on the 
 
 throne, as eager for the prize as his predecessor, and 
 
 far less capable of being restrained by spiritual terrors. 
 
 There is another pope in Peter's chair, who calls as loudly 
 
 as ever on the Franks; and another Frank is leader of 
 
 his race, who is bound to the pope by the strongest ties 
 
 of gratitude for the extraordinary consecration which has 
 
 constituted him a king, and dethroned the Merovingian 
 
 family in favour of his own. Pepin le Bref has 
 
 been raised by his rude warriors on the buckler 
 
 at Soissons, and, despite his treasonous deposition of the 
 
 Merovingian line, has received the holy oil of anointiug from 
 
 ♦ The story originated in the Visio S. Eucherii, supposed to be a 
 forgery of Abp. Hincmar, in which the saint beheld Charles Martel in 
 the flames of hell. Unfortunately it has been proved that Eucherius 
 died first. 
 
MEETING OF THE POPE AND PEPIN LE BEEF. 331 
 
 the hands of an archbishop* This mixed ceremony, half 
 pagan, half Christian, is eminently characteristic of the era 
 and the man. His brother and co-heir to the royal office, 
 Carloman, eldest son of Charles Martel, is in the monastery 
 of Monte Casino, whither he has been followed by another 
 discrowned king, — Rachis, the Lombard, whom Pope Zacha- 
 rias has persuaded to abandon the regal purple for the cowl. 
 But he has done an evil thing for the interests of 
 Rome. The bold and ambitious Astolphus vaults 
 into the vacant seat, and Zacharias dies, leaving to his 
 successor Stephen an adversary very different from the 
 monarchs whom he himself had cajoled or overawed. Astol- 
 phus is instantly on the way to Ravenna. He is in pos- 
 session of it before an opposition can be organized ; and 
 nothing now remains but the old expedient of embassies 
 and entreaties, with mingled caresses and commands. They 
 succeed for the moment ; but in four months' time, Astol- 
 phus reappears as the exasperated and inexorable enemy of 
 the pope : he menaces Rome with instant assault, if the 
 citizens do not ransom their lives by a heavy poll-tax, levied 
 on them man by man. But it was not for nothing that the 
 Church had made the Carlovingians a race of kings, and 
 compromised the sacred character of her authority by the 
 solemn sanction of a usurper. Stephen took the bold 
 resolution of passing the Alps, and appealing in person to 
 Pepin le Bref. It affords a strange, but instructive picture 
 of the times, and of the sanctity which had gradually 
 attached to the person of the Romish bishop, to find him 
 traversing safely those very territories upon which he was 
 about to let loose the most formidable army in Europe. 
 The pope and Pepin met at Pontyon ; their conference was 
 of the most edifying character. French writers describe 
 the prostrations and supplications of the ecclesiastics clothed 
 in sackcloth and sprinkled with ashes. The Italians are no 
 * See Lecture VIII. 
 
882 ITALY. 
 
 less positive that the monarch kissed the ground before the 
 pontiff's feet, and walked bareheaded beside his palfrey. 
 But the result was satisfactory, however brought about. 
 Pepin promised to cross the Alps, and instantly made 
 preparations to do so. Astolphus attempted to avert the 
 danger by a singular and, as it seems, a somewhat impolitic 
 expedient. He induced Carloman to quit his monastic 
 retreat at Monte Casino, and sent him to plead the Lombard 
 cause at the Frank court. The presence of one who had 
 so lately shared, and might again rival his authority, was 
 anything but pleasing to the proud and ambitious Pepin. 
 The Lombard effected nothing by his scheme ; but his un- 
 fortunate emissary was delivered over as an apostate monk 
 to the ecclesiastical authority, and was imprisoned in the 
 cloister at Vienne, where he almost immediately died. 
 Meanwhile Pepin and Pope Stephen collected and concen- 
 trated their forces. ' The latter appears to have striven with 
 some earnestness to avert a war which he believed would be 
 of a most sanguinary character. More than once he tried 
 the effect of negotiation ; but Astolphus treated menaces 
 and embassies with equal contempt. The event 
 by no means justified his confidence. A change 
 appears to have come over the Lombard character. Intes- 
 tine sedition, and the enervating influence of a warmer 
 climate, had deteriorated the rude energies of that race 
 whom Tacitus distinguishes for valour and hardihood amid 
 their Teutonic brethren, and who, two hundred years before, 
 descended, under the banners of Alboin, like sons of the 
 giants, upon the fair cities and fertile plains of Italy, de- 
 termined to make them the booty of their bow and spear. 
 But now they could offer no effectual resistance to men who 
 brought with them from behind the mountains a fresher 
 importation of the same old heroic blood. The Prankish 
 battleaxe soon thundered at the gates of Pavia, and Astol- 
 phus immediately gave way. He engaged, under solemn 
 
AUTOGRAPH LETTER OF ST. PETER. 333 
 
 jjledges, to restore to Borne all the places lie had captured. 
 The dreaded Franks retired, a-s they had come; but no 
 sooner were they beyond the Alps, than the perfidious 
 Lombard, calculating upon the difficulty of again re-organ- 
 izing among Barbarians an expedition which had just ter- 
 minated without any splendid feat or prize of arms, be- 
 lieving also that the impatient spirit of the Frank king 
 would at last be wearied by the importunities of Stephen, 
 and trusting perhaps, in the main, to the chapter of acci- 
 dents, refused to fulfil the conditions of the treaty, and, 
 advancing to the very gates of Bome, threatened to take 
 the town by assault, if the sacred person of the pontiff 
 were not delivered into his hands. The consternation of 
 Stephen may be imagined. The fear of personal indig- 
 nity, if not of personal danger, quickened his appre- 
 hension for the fate of the patrimony of Peter, and in 
 the most moving strain, not un mingled with spiritual 
 menace, he implored by letter his beloved son, the king 
 of the Franks, to come with all all speed to the succour 
 of the Church. The zeal of the Frank was too cold or 
 his movements too slow for so grave a crisis. It was 
 necessary to quicken them, and the pope had recourse to a 
 singular expedient, — nothing less than the old "Deus ex 
 machina" of heathen tragedy. An epistle from Peter 
 himself was despatched to the lingering Pepin. History 
 does not say whether this notable letter was an autograph, 
 or the work of an amanuensis; but those accustomed to the 
 style of the Vatican would probably recognize the " fine 
 Boman hand " for which its missives are so remarkable. 
 The Carlovingian family owed too many obligations to the 
 successors of Peter, and Pepin was too faithful and too politic 
 a son of the Church, to neglect his apostolic correspondent. 
 With immense rapidity, he appeared once more in Lombardy, 
 and, as on the former occasion, the Lombards showed them- 
 selves utterly unable to resist him. Astolphus was not 
 
9U ITALY. 
 
 only compelled to surrender his designs upon Rome, and to 
 promise respect for the future to the Head of the Christian 
 Church, but he was also stripped of his recent acquisitions 
 from the Empire. These became the property of the Frank 
 king by right of conquest. He did not hesitate as to their 
 disposal. The Byzantine emperor put in a feeble claim for 
 his undoubted rights by the mouth of an ambassador; but 
 Pepin was a great deal too pious to listen to an earthly 
 potentate when Peter himself had spoken. Por Peter's 
 honour alone had he drawn the sword, and none but Peter 
 should receive the spoil. Accordingly, he at once bestowed 
 upon the pope and the " Holy Roman Republic" — for so the 
 document ran — all the Pentapolis and the exarchate of 
 Ravenna. The commissioners of the pope, in the name of the 
 republic, passed through the whole territory, receiving the 
 allegiance of the inhabitants and the keys of the cities. To 
 revive old traditions and to strengthen a new claim, it was 
 deemed advisable to re-christen the district with the old 
 imperial name. Henceforth it is known by the now world- 
 famous name of Romagna, and this, with the March of An- 
 cona, constituted the first real temporal sovereignty of the 
 Roman pontiffs.* Later historians, enlightened by the course 
 of events, have not failed to insist upon the immense impor- 
 tance of the revolution effected by the celebrated " dotation 
 of Pepin." Thus, says Milman,t "the successor as he was 
 declared of the fisherman of the Galilean lake, the apostle 
 of him whose kingdom is not of this world, became a tem- 
 poral sovereign." Ranke fixes definitively on the same peiiod 
 as the critical moment in the history of the papacy, and, con- 
 
 * On the extent of the cession, see Gibbon, ch, xlv. He adds in a 
 note : "The papal advocates may justly claim the valley or morass of 
 Coramachio as part of the exarchate ; but the ambition of including 
 Modena, Reggio, Parma, and Placentia, has darkened a geographical 
 question somewhat doubtful and obscure." 
 
 t Vol. iv. p. 11. 
 
CESSION OF THE EXARCHATE : ITS EFFECTS. 835 
 
 sequently, as critical also in the history of all the countries 
 ■with which it maintained relations ; or, in other words, in 
 the early history of modern Europe.* " He caused the keys 
 of the conquered towns to be placed on the altar of St. Peter, 
 and in this act he laid the foundation of the whole temporal 
 power of the popes." And Gibbon also, though perhaps 
 this particular aspect of the question was not so immediately 
 present to his mind, has clearly seen and stated, that the 
 reciprocal obligations of the popes and the dynasty of the 
 Carlovingian kings, constitute the link between ancient and 
 modem, between civil and ecclesiastical history. To us who 
 are enabled or compelled to contemplate the results of that 
 spiritual imperialism inaugurated by Gregory and completed 
 by Hildebrand, this introduction of a purely secular element 
 into the constitution of the Church, appears an unqualified 
 evil. The growth of mere worldly interests, as implied in 
 the exercise of a temporal dominion, in no respect distin- 
 guishable from the kingdoms of the world, might, ct priori, 
 have been judged incompatible with the character of a 
 society professing, as the kingdom of God, purely spiritual 
 interests. History has abundantly verified the truth of such 
 a judgment, and the change of Peter's patrimony from 
 " farms and houses " into " cities and provinces," has natu- 
 rally been regarded as the one great cause, humanly speak- 
 ing, of all the corruptions in the doctrine and practice of the 
 Church of Rome, of the arrogance and ambition exhibited 
 by her sovereign pontiffs, and of her unwarrantable inter- 
 ference in the political affairs of Europe. Even as we write, 
 the matter assumes an importance which renders it perhaps 
 the great question of the age, the question which involves 
 the future religioiis relations of Christendom. Regarded by 
 the light of subsequent experience, the dotation of the Ex- 
 archate must be felt and described as an extraordinary evil, 
 
 * Kanke, Hist, of the Popes, ch. i. 2. 
 
 C 
 
836 ITALY. 
 
 a perennial fountain of future difficulties and woes ; yet we 
 shall find those writers who have looked at the history of 
 the Church from the most strictly Protestant stand-point, 
 very generally ascribing to a providential arrangement the 
 position and influence exercised by the see of Rome upon 
 the western nations, as they were emerging from barbarism 
 and gradually consolidating themselves into the existing 
 types of civilized government. And there can be little doubt 
 but that these authors are right. The Church not only 
 modified the internal policy, but in a great measure directed 
 the external relations of these young nationalities, partly by 
 the influence of her teaching, and partly by ofiering a com- 
 mon point of association, through which they might commu- 
 nicate, and establish a sort of federative society. The dis- 
 cordant elements of barbarian life could never have been 
 agglutinated into a common Christendom without the action 
 of a central power, whose general interest coincided with the 
 advancement of civilization and the preservation of peace. 
 The profound genius of Leibnitz, it is well known, recog- 
 nized the fact, and he went so far as to recommend that a 
 sort of temporal jurisdiction over Christian princes should be 
 accorded to the pope, for the purpose of securing these and 
 similar objects. But it may well be doubted whether any 
 such scheme as that sanctioned by the authority of Leibnitz, 
 would have been suited to the era of Lombard domination 
 and Carlovingian l5;ings. A merely moral authority, resting 
 upon no material support, would have been too shadowy and 
 intangible a power to be respected, perhaps to be compre- 
 hended, by a rude and violent age, living under the law of 
 the sword. Had a power of the sort ever been bold enough 
 to assert, it would assuredly never have been able to main- 
 tain, such a supremacy as the occasion required. They, 
 therefore, who admit the beneficial action of Roman ecclesi- 
 astical policy upon those troubled times, must also be pre- 
 pared to admit that, without the dotation of Pepin, it could 
 
 t 
 
ACCESSION OF CHARLEMAGNE. 337 
 
 not have acquired sufficient consistency and force for the 
 effectual discharge of its mission. It is not for us to say 
 whether the difficulties of the situation have passed away 
 with the age, or whether the expedient of Villa-Franca — 
 " a federation of the Italian nationalities, under the presi- 
 dency of his Holiness the Pope" — is a more hopeful scheme 
 in the nineteenth century than it would have been in the 
 eighth. 
 
 The Greek emperor appears to have occasioned very little 
 trouble to the new lord of the Romagna. Indeed, the method 
 by which the old traditional allegiance to the court of Con- 
 stantinople was repudiated or transferred to the ruler of the 
 Franks, and the exact period when its claims were finally aban- 
 doned, is one of the most obscure questions connected with 
 these important transactions. Rome certainly continued to 
 Pepin, as to Charles Martel, the title of Patrician, which had 
 previously been borne by the envoys of the Empire. Money 
 was coined in his name in Italy, and an oath of fidelity 
 taken to him by clergy and people. From the time of the 
 dotation, moreover, the popes no longer dated their bulls by 
 the reigns of the Eastern emperors, yet Hallam, speaking of 
 this period, has observed,* " A good deal of obscurity rests 
 over the internal government of Rome for nearly fifty years, 
 but there is some reason to believe that the nominal sove- 
 reignty of the Greek emperors was not entirely abrogated." 
 It is not necessary to dwell upon a matter of no practical 
 importance. A few writers have considered that it adds 
 to the imperial glory of Charlemagne to believe that he 
 succeeded the Byzantine Caesars as emperor of the West, 
 and have for this purpose imagined a formal cession bv 
 Cdbstantine Y. The pretended document was, doubtless, a 
 forgery ; but from the day when Stephen vainly appealed 
 to Coustantine Copronymus for aid against Astolphus, the 
 
 * Hallam, vol. i. p. 11. 
 
 z 
 
838 ITALY. 
 
 star of Empire began to "glitter in tlie west," and to the 
 west all eyes were turned, never more to revert to the shores 
 of the Bosphoriis. 
 
 Pepin died in 768. He had divided his dominions between 
 his two sons, Charles and Carloman. To the former, 
 the consentient voice of ages has assigned the name 
 of " Great," and he is known to history as Charlemagne. 
 There seems, however, reasonable cause to doubt whether this 
 be an adaptation from the Latin Carolus magnus, or from the 
 Teutonic Karl-mann, " strong-man." We must leave to the 
 rival critics of France and Germany, a question so gravely 
 affecting their respective nationalities. In a succeeding lec- 
 ture, we shall have to regard this great man in his character as 
 emperor of Europe and reviver of civilization. At 
 present we have merely to speak of his relations to 
 Italy. At his accession, the Lombard rule in Italy, though 
 greatly enfeebled, had not as yet expired. Desiderius, 
 duke of Tuscany, had been elevated to the throne of Pavia 
 the year after the dotation, and he appears to have deserved 
 the elevation. While Charlemagne had the rivalry of his 
 brother or his brother's children to contend with, he was 
 sensible of the advantages afforded by such an alliance. For 
 this purpose, apparently, he united himself in marriage with 
 Desiderata, daughter of the Lombard king. At Rome, the 
 political horizon was dark with the shadow of these events. 
 The union of her protector with her ancient and hereditary 
 foe, seemed to menace destruction to her newly-acquired dig- 
 nities and her independence. But ere the pope had time to 
 organize the means of defence, by supplication or intrigue, the 
 dark hour had passed, and all peril from the Lombard spear 
 was about to be dissipated for ever. Charlemagne had beSn 
 relieved of all possible rivalry from his brother's children, and 
 proceeded to dispose of his Lombard wife. The unhappy 
 princess was repudiated by the Frank with circumstances 
 of great indignity, for the purpose of marrying a royal lady 
 
DOTATION OF CHAELEMAGNE. 339 
 
 of Suabian descent, and returned upon her father's hands. 
 Whether this was a determination to pick a quarrel, an act 
 of passion, policy, or caprice, it was fraught with grave con- 
 sequences for the world. Desiderius, in his anger, welcomed 
 to Pavia the widow and children of the deceased Carloman, 
 for the purpose, we may naturally suppose, of fostering the 
 seeds of rebellion against the usurpation of his son-in-law. 
 He had the insanity at the same time to quarrel with 
 Eome. Some years before, he had visited that city to deliver 
 the pope from the trammels of a domestic sedition, and 
 was accordingly for a brief period in good odour at the 
 Seat of Sanctity. But now another pope, Hadrian I., 
 of Eoman origin, was sitting in Peter's seat. Desiderius, 
 blinded by hatred to his son-in-law, pressed upon him the duty 
 of anointing the children of Carloman to a throne which 
 their uncle had disgraced by his crimes. Hadrian was a 
 great deal too f.ir-sighted to hesitate in a choice between 
 the Lombard and the Frank : he declared for the latter. 
 Desiderius fell furiously upon his territory with an army, 
 sacked his cities, and came, like his predecessors, to settle 
 his quarrel at the gates of the capital. Hadrian was a sol- 
 dier as well as a priest. He strengthened his defences, 
 barricaded his gates, and sent forthwith for Charlemagne, 
 whom the Lombard supposed to be involved inextricably 
 in a Saxon war. But the Prankish monarch was prepared 
 for a contingency which he doubtless foresaw, and in all 
 probability desired. He dispatched his ambassadors before 
 him, but followed close upon their steps. His army 
 appeared in two divisions, at the foot of the passes of Mont 
 Cenis and the Great St. Bernard. The Lombards, under 
 their kiug, made a gallant, and for the moment, a successful 
 defence in the Alpine defiles. But the population was in 
 general adverse to the conquering race in occupation, and 
 favoured the invader. Desiderius was speedily shut up in 
 Pavia. The town was strong, and had to be approached 
 
 z 2 
 
840 ITALY. 
 
 in regular form. Charles availed himself of the delay, to 
 visit Rome. Like his father, he had received the hon- 
 ourable title of Patrician, and in this capacity he might 
 claim to be the civil head of the Koman republic. He was 
 received with almost extravagant demonstrations of joy 
 and loyalty ; the whole population came forth to meet him 
 beyond the walls. All the ceremonies formerly observed in 
 honour of a visit from the emperor's representatives, were 
 scrupulously repeated. The crosses were carried to the 
 gates ; the pontiff stood upon the steps of St. Peter's to 
 welcome his approach. Charles behaved with edifying 
 piety, and exhibited the most profound respect for the sacred 
 shrine of Peter and the person of his representative. 
 What was of still greater importance, he ratified the 
 donation of Pepin, and gave a solemn significance to the 
 act, by placing the legal document upon the altar of the 
 apostle. The document has unfortunately been lost, and 
 it is not easy to recover or conjecture its exact terms. " It 
 is said," writes Dean Milman, " to have comprehended the 
 whole of Italy, the exarchate of Ravenna, from Istria to the 
 frontiers of Naples, including the island of Corsica. The 
 nature of the papal tenure and authority is still more diffi- 
 cult to define. Was it the absolute alienation of the whole 
 temporal power to the pope 1 In what consisted the sove- 
 reignty still claimed and exercised by Charlemagne over the 
 whole of Italy, even over Rome itself?"* What an im- 
 mense increase of interest attaches to these questions, even 
 since they were penned by the accomplished historian of 
 Latin Christianity. 
 
 Meantime the course of events proceeded rapidly in the 
 north. The Franks were everywhere irresistible aud tri- 
 umphant. Despite of its defences, Pavia fell. Desiderius 
 retired into a monastery ; for, in that age, the cowl was the 
 
 * Hist. Lat. Christ., vol. ii. p. 148. 
 
PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF THE LOMBARD. 341 
 
 common covering for discrowned and dishonoured brows. 
 Adelchis, his gallant son, fled to Constantinople, and re- 
 appeared fitfully upon the scene, as commander of a Greek 
 fleet in the Italian waters, and the originator of a vain 
 conspiracy against the overwhelming power of the Frank. 
 Charles assumed the title of " King of Lombardy," and 
 passed beyond the Alps, to mingle in stormier, but not in 
 more eventful scenes ; and the old heroic dynasty of the 
 Lango-bardi, the boldest of the Teuton stock, after a domina- 
 tion of two hundred years, was extinguished, never more to 
 rise again. But not so the memory of their race and name. 
 Those magnificent plains, which stretch from the Alpine 
 spurs to the banks of the Po, commencing in mountain- 
 terraces bright with the verdure of the vine, watered by 
 noble rivers breaking from the blue bosom of lovely lakes, 
 which yearly attract the pilgrimage of the world, and sweep- 
 ing far away towards the south in fields rich with the olive, 
 the mulberry, and cereals of every class, may become the 
 spoil of the Austrian, the French, or the Sardinian sword, but 
 they bear, and probably will for ever bear, the Lombard name. 
 The Lombard genius for art has stamped an enduring re- 
 cord of itself in ecclesiastical architecture ; yet it is perhaps 
 for capabilities of another class, that the nation has most 
 conspicuously merited the eulogium of an ancient poet.* 
 The shop of the patient worker, who, in troubled times, 
 moulded the jirecious metals into fabrics of ornament or use, 
 naturally became the depository of these metals themselves ; 
 and thus the ingenious Lombard artificer in gold and silver 
 developed by degrees into the mediaeval banker. In the 
 greatest city of the world, the " Street of the Lombard " 
 debouches upon that magnificent edifice where the wealthiest 
 
 * Grunterus, secretary to the emperor Frederic I., thus descrihes 
 the Lombards : — 
 
 " Gens astuta, sagax, prudens, industria, solers, 
 Provida consilio, legum jurisque perita." 
 
312 ITALY. 
 
 people of modern times have enshrined their national trea- 
 sure, and recalls by its name, by its situation, and by the 
 splendid establishments which it contains, the Lombard 
 genius far commerce, and our own obligation to it as the 
 organizer of a system which alone has rendered possible 
 those vast monetary operations that cover the whole globe 
 with a network of human interests and obligations. But it 
 is not only the wealthier son of traffic who preserves a 
 remembrance of the Lombard. The poor man knows him 
 too ; and the three balls of gold, the symbols of a useful, 
 though abused institution, connect the memory of an 
 heroic and victorious race, with the humble associations oi 
 the peasant and the artisan. 
 
 But we must hasten on to the closing scene of the 
 century, a scene which may well be described 
 'as closing also the first epoch of post-Christian 
 history. On three different occasions, Charlemagne sub- 
 sequently visited Italy. The first was for the baptism 
 of his son, another Pepin, for whom he destined a title 
 dear to tlie ambition of French rulers, — " the king of 
 Italy." Again he was summoned to suppress a Lombard 
 conspiracy, headed by the powerful duke of Benevento, and 
 supported by Byzantine intrigue ; and again the faithful 
 son of the Church unsheathed his sword in her behalf. But 
 it was unnecessary to strike. The Lombard dared not 
 encounter that terrible weapon, and was glad to obtain peace 
 by an annual tribute of 7,000 pieces of gold. Upon his 
 death, which almost immediately followed, Charlemagne 
 appointed Grimwald, his son, to succeed his father at Bene- 
 vento. It is a curious proof of the growth of 
 Frankish influence, and the gradually increasing 
 prestige associated with the name, that we find Grimwald 
 abandoning his national customs and costume, and adopting 
 the usages of the Franks. Charlemagne was recalled from 
 Italy by a revolt in his German provinces, and by an invasion 
 
CORONATION OF CHARLEMAGNE. 343 
 
 of the Huns. For more than ten years the Saxon and the 
 Saracen found ample employment for his arms; 
 but in the mean time Hadrian I., the great and 
 able pontiff who had administered the destinies of Rome 
 beneath Frank auspices, was called to his account. The 
 next election fell upon Leo III. It was for him a perilous 
 elevation ; for the nephews of the late pope, instigated by 
 personal ambition, organized against him a plot, which they 
 carried out with more than Italian ferocity. The time of a 
 solemn procession was chosen for executing their scheme. 
 Assailed by armed men, the head of the Church of Christen- 
 dom was hurled from his horse, cruelly beaten, mutilated, 
 and nearly deprived of sight. The occasion was worthy oi 
 the august interference of Charlemagne. He appeared at 
 Kome, not only to avenge, but to sit in judgment upon 
 the life and actions of the pope. Leo, by a public decla- 
 ration, which was so arranged as to assume a voluntary 
 appearance, established his own innocence, confounded 
 his accusers, and secured the favour of Charlemagne. 
 And now an eventful moment was at hand. 
 It was the festival of our Lord's Nativity, 
 the Christmas-day of the eight hundredth year after the 
 birth at Bethlehem. The pope, the dignitaries of the 
 Church and the Holy Republic, the populace of Rome, the 
 great Frank himself, with his gorgeous court and glittering 
 array' of "Paladins and peers," thronged the magnificent 
 edifice which had arisen over the mortal remains of the 
 Galilean fisherman. The grandeur of the occasion and tjie 
 solemnities of the mass had wrought up the audience to the 
 highest pitch of religious exaltation, when the pope, amid 
 the profound silence of that vast assemblage, advanced to 
 Charlemagne, and placed upon his brow a crown of gold, 
 hailing him, at the same time, as Caesar Augustus, Emperor 
 of the West ! " God grant life and victory to the great and 
 pacific emperor." The thunder of a thousand voices ratified 
 
844 ITALY. 
 
 an act which announced to Europe that a new era had 
 arisen in her history. The star of empire, which had long 
 glittered in the western horizon, towered upward to its 
 zenith, and a new Order of things was born into the world. 
 
 The coronation of Charlemagne proclaimed, with unmis- 
 takable significance, that the old traditions of Csesarean 
 empire and universal dominion were at last revived, but 
 revived in a way which gave assurance to the world that in 
 their ancient form they could never again return. It pro- 
 claimed that Eome had broken for ever with Byzantium, 
 that the city of Komulus and Peter had shaken herself free 
 from the city of Constantine, and that the phantom of 
 empire, which, amid an entourage of women, eunuchs, and 
 slaves, still dared to mutter the old magic words, once all- 
 powerful over the minds of men, was now at last to learn 
 that the spell was broken, the sceptre departed, and the 
 kingdom divided among the heroic races of the West. But 
 it also proclaimed, that the seat of empire was henceforth 
 not to be sought beside the Tiber, or within the charmed 
 precincts of historic Italy ; but beyond the Alps, beyond the 
 Rhine, among regions and nationalities which Home had 
 never known. And yet the ceremonial contained a presage 
 which might have consoled the Roman, as he gazed upon the 
 skirts of that departing glory. It shadowed forth the growth 
 of k new power, impalpable and indefinite, yet for that very 
 reason more mighty than its predecessor, — a power which 
 should one day set its foot upon the necks of Kaisers and of 
 K^ngs, and gather once more the nations of the earth within 
 the walls of Rome, as to the capital of the world. How 
 much of all this was foreseen by the actors in that memora- 
 ble pageant ? how much of it designed, or even understood ? 
 Did Leo act from gratitude or policy ; with a dim prescience 
 of the future, or under a blind impulse, originating and ter- 
 minating in the present % Was Charlemagne sincere when 
 he declared that, had he known the pope's purpose, he would 
 
WERE ITS RESULTS FORESEEN? 345 
 
 never have set foot within the church 1 or did he, with deep 
 and far-seeing policy, desire the mysterious prestige of con- 
 secration by Peter's successor in Peter's seat ? Had he any 
 real idea of its possible influence upon the destiny of his 
 successors, any prophetic vision of the gigantic claims which 
 boundless ambition and boundless spiritual pride would one 
 day justify by this eventful precedent 1 When he accepted 
 the homage of the grateful and compliant Leo, could he have 
 imagined that, ere the dawning century had passed away, 
 men would assume his functions and sit in his apostolic 
 chair, whom the future historian might truly describe as 
 " imperiously dictating to sovereigns, ruling, or attempting 
 to rule, the higher clergy in foreign countries with a des- 
 potic sway, mingling in the political revolutions of Europe, 
 awarding crowns and adjudging kingly inheritances " 1 Or 
 did Leo, on his part, anticipate the intimate relations be- 
 tween the spiritual rulers of Rome and the Caesars of bar- 
 barian blood, to which this recognition of their great 
 progenitor was hereafter to give rise 1 Could he have 
 believed that foreign princes from beyond the Alps, a Henry 
 or an Otho, would dominate in the sanctuary of Peter 
 over the Vicar of Christ and the Head of the Christian 
 Church 1 Nay, stranger still, could he have dreamed that 
 " the aspiring blood of Italy would sink into the ground," 
 and the great office of the Church itself would soar to its 
 most towering height, and assume its most colossal propor- 
 tions in the hands of pontiffs of an alien name and race ? 
 Who can answer these questions? AVho can arrange the 
 historical phenomena of that strangely agitated age in 
 definite plans of policy, or draw them out into one con- 
 sistent scheme, intelligible in its motives, its developments, 
 and its results ? Or who can describe, with anything like 
 accuracy and truth, the real character of the rapidly- 
 alternating relations between the temporal and spiritual 
 powers which followed upon this memorable meeting of 
 
S:i6 ITALY. 
 
 E-oman pontiff and Teutonic king ? It would be as easy 
 to arrest the fantastic cloud-shapes in the summer sky, or 
 the fleeting shadows on the mountain's side, and arrange 
 them in the definite forms of geometrical science. At any 
 rate, the attempt, if it be practicable, must be left to the 
 professed historian. For a time, the history of Italy, as of 
 all other European kingdoms, centres in Charlemagne. We 
 must turn, after a brief but necessary digression, to the for- 
 tunes of the race, dynasty, and country with whioh he is 
 more immediately connected. 
 
LEGTIJEE VII. 
 
 THE SLAVES— THE VANDALS. 
 
 Africa loquitur : — " Venio pars tertia mundi, 
 Tnfelix felice uno, famula satus olim. 
 Hie praedo et dominis extinctis, bax-bara dudum 
 Sceptra tenet tellure mea, penitusqvxe fugata 
 Nobilitate furen's, quod non est, non amat hospes. 
 O, Latii sopite vigor ! tua mcEnia ridet 
 Insidiis cessisse suis ; nou concutis hastam ? 
 Non pro nie vel capta doles ? tua nempe putantur 
 Surgere fata malls, et celsior esse ruina." 
 
 SiDON. Apoll., Fan. Maj. v. 54 — 62. 
 
 Synopsis. — The Slaves : tbeir origin and connection with the Goths, 
 Huns, and Avars. — Revolt under Sarao. — Wars with the Franks ; their 
 final distribution. — The Vandals : whether Slaves or Teutons ? — Their 
 movements until settled in Pannonia ; join the great invasion of Gaul, 
 A.D. 406 ; pass over into Spain ; receive a grant of lands from Honorius : 
 their prosperity. — The Goths are sent by the emperor to eject them ; 
 they maintain their ground, and become nearly masters of Spain. — Their 
 migration into Africa ; the reasons for it. — Genseric king ; his history and 
 character. — War in the Eoman province. — Genseric makes himself mas- 
 ter of Carthage. — Account of the City ; its wealth, luxury, and crime. — 
 Continued war with the Western empire. — Picture of a Vandal foray. — 
 Capture of Rome by Genseric ; great moral effect of it. — Genseric defeats 
 the invasion of Majorian ; supports Olybrius as a candidate for the 
 Empire ; destroys the great Byzantine armada ; dies : provisions as to his 
 successor. — Huneric king. — Strife between Catholics and Arians, — 
 Gundamund and Trasamund. — Quarrel with the Ostrogoths of Italy. — 
 Hilderic, grandson of Genseric, king ; deposed by Gelimer. — Dispute 
 with Justinian ; he determines to invade Africa. — Belisarius appointed 
 to the command. — Skilful conduct of the expedition. — Carthage taken. — 
 Gelimer in flight pursued by John the Armenian ; death of the latter. — 
 Gelimer captured after a long siege ; brought in triumph to Constanti- 
 nople. — Utter dispei'sion of the Vandals. 
 
 Hitherto we have dwelt upon the fortunes of the Tura- 
 nian and Teutonic tribes who dashed up against the Eoman 
 
348 THE SLAVES. 
 
 empire, and by the force of tliat irapact precipitated its fall. 
 To the Teutonic peoples we shall presently recur. This would, 
 however, seem the proper place — if our plan is to be sym- 
 metrically arranged — for saying what the subject requires 
 concerning the third great primary family of the human 
 race — the Slaves. Could we agree with those writers 
 who believe that to this belong the two Vandal tribes, we 
 should be enabled to flatter ourselves that, in these lectures, 
 the just literary proportions between the different divisions 
 of the subject had been rigorously maintained, and the 
 Slaves, like the Turanians, would have the advantage of 
 a separate chapter devoted to themselves. For those who 
 still retain this opinion, our work will possess the merit of 
 superior symmetry. "We ourselves can only regard the once 
 favourite hypothesis of the Slavonian origin of the Vandals, 
 as indicating the place where the few and uninteresting 
 remarks, which the ancestors of the former demand from us, 
 may be most appropriately introduced. 
 
 To the Slavic races, it is said, — perhaps in some quarters it 
 is believed, — belongs the Future of the world. The historian 
 who declines the prophetic office, can only venture to declare 
 that they have not possessed its Past. During the period 
 of which we write, — from the fall of the Caesars to the death 
 of Charlemagne, — they neither established themselves per- 
 manently in any part of the old Roman empire like the Van- 
 dals, nor," like the Huns, created a rival empire of their own. 
 It has not, therefore, been found necessary to treat of them in 
 a distinct lecture. Their national characteristics, their rela- 
 tions with the Avars and the Franks, the settlement of some 
 of their tribes in the modern Servia and Croatia, have already 
 been briefly mentioned. What, therefore, we are concerned 
 to know of them may be very briefly recapitulated. Their 
 first settlement in Europe is referred to the immemorial 
 period when Central Asia poured the fathers of the human 
 race upon the Western world. Apparently less vigorous, 
 
THEIR EARLY SETTLEMENTS. 849 
 
 enterprising, and brave tlian the cognate races of Celt 
 and Teuton, they everywhere gave way before the im- 
 pact of these later comers, and closed again like a fluid 
 after the passage of a solid body. The Goths — the 
 strongest and most active of the great Teutonic family — 
 first displaced them in their own passage to the South, and 
 exercised dominion over such of their scattered tribes as 
 came within reach of the wide-spread empire of Ermanaric. 
 But the Goths, we have seen, were themselves displaced by 
 the Huns, and forced for a time to submit to the horsemen 
 of Attila. The Slaves easily accustomed themselves to new- 
 servitude under a Turanian instead of a Teutonic empire, 
 and followed the banner of the Scourge of God almost to 
 the walls of Rome, and the great battle of the nations at 
 Chalons. 
 
 When the battle of Netad broke up the Hunnic empire 
 and dissolved the dynasty of Attila, the Slaves, in the 
 wild confusion which followed, regained such precarious 
 independence as they had formerly enjoyed. But it was 
 an independence which placed them at the mercy 
 of the first comer with arms in his hands. Tor 
 nearly a hundred years, we hear very little of them. Then 
 they are discovered in the train of the Bulgarians, one 
 of the wildest and most brutal hordes that ever broke in 
 upon the empire of the East. The particular inroad in 
 which the Slaves participated was signalized by the last 
 triumph of the veteran Eelisarius, whose military glory shot 
 upwards with a broader and a brighter flame as it was on 
 the point of expiring for ever. In the graphic account 
 which Gibbon has given of this remarkable combat, the 
 fighting seems to have been nearly confined to the Bul- 
 garians. The Slaves, however, shared in all the consequen- 
 ces of the defeat, and relapsed into their original obscurity, 
 until we hear of their submission to the Avars when the 
 latter entered Europe, as detailed in the fourth lecture. 
 
350 THE SLAVES. 
 
 Their miserable condition under Avar thraldom, and their 
 successful revolt, headed by Samo the Frank, have 
 been described in the same place. The empire 
 which he established was more coherent and powerful than 
 its antecedents would have induced us to suppose. Feeling 
 its way towards the West, it came into collision with the 
 Franks ; or, more probably, the Merovingian monarchs, in- 
 spired by jealousy of its rising power, gladly availed them- 
 selves of an opportunity to assail it. Some Frank 
 ' ' ' merchants travelling for the sake of commerce in 
 the Slavic territory, were robbed of their goods, and killed; — 
 no unusual event, it may be imagined, in those wild countries 
 and wild times. It was, however, enough to form the basis 
 of a respectable quarrel, and Dagobert, king of the Franks, 
 availed himself of it without delay. He dispatched an 
 ambassador to Samo at once. Samo, with a cunning 
 which he seems to have borrowed from his adopted people, 
 long baffled the envoy's attempts to obtain an audience. 
 But this man was as great a master of the strange state- 
 craft of the times as Samo himself, and ultimately effected 
 his purpose by a singular ruse. 
 
 Having disguised himself and his attendants in the Slavic 
 dress, he penetrated into the royal presence, and at once 
 began to pour forth the tale of his wrongs, and his demands 
 for redress. He went so far as to allege that Samo, and by 
 consequence his subjects, owed allegiance to the Frank 
 monarch as their master. Samo answered calmly, that his 
 territory should be considered as Dagobert's property, and 
 his people subjects of the Frank crown, if only Dagobert 
 would remain at peace. This very humble answer had no 
 effect upon the foregone conclusion. The ambassador was 
 probably instructed to provoke war, at any cost. " There 
 can be no alliance," he savagely said, " between a Christian 
 people, the servants of the true God, and dogs like you." 
 " If," replied Samo, " ye are the servants of God and we are 
 
WAE UNDEPv SAMO AGAINST THE FRANKS. 351 
 
 his dogs, so long as ye act against his will, we have per- 
 mission to rend you." 
 
 In the war which followed, Dagobert, though aided by 
 the Lombards and Alemanni, did not obtain any signal 
 success. The Slaves maintained their independence for the 
 time, and the divided state of his own kingdom compelled 
 Dagobert to relinquish his angry or ambitious designs 
 against them. But they were without the genius for go- 
 vernment or empire. When Samo died, no native-born 
 leader arose to consolidate their scattered tribes and give 
 them a national life. We have already noticed the settle- 
 ment of some of them, Croats and Serbs, in Moesia and 
 
 Dalmatia, which occurred about this time. It 
 
 , . , T . ^ A.D. 640. 
 
 was a success; but again they owed it to a lo- 
 
 reigner, — Heraclius, the Greek emperor. Their own con- 
 federation hung very loosely together, and seems to have 
 accepted, without any important resistance, their ancient 
 position of dependence upon their neighbours. Some of 
 them fell under the dominion of the Lombard kings, who 
 were anxious to strengthen themselves upon the Adriatic. 
 The Czekhs of Bohemia, the most important offshoot of the 
 race, eventually became tributaries of Charlemagne. Many 
 Slavic tribes on the borders of the Baltic rose to some con- 
 sideration, from their commerce and extensive marts at 
 Arkona, in Rugen, Kiel, and Novgorod. They long con- 
 tinued pagans. Indeed, the conversion of their southern 
 brethren in Moravia and Bohemia was the work of a later 
 period than that of which we treat. It was not until fifty 
 years after the death of Charlemagne, that the Greek 
 emperor, Michael I., dispatched two men of piety, learning, 
 and a thoroughly missionary spirit, — Cyril, whose real name 
 was Constantine, and Methodius, — into these wild districts, 
 for the purpose of reclaiming the inhabitants from heathen- 
 ism. These men performed the same office for the Slavic 
 language and literature which Ulphilas did for the Gothic 
 
352 THE VANDALS. 
 
 German. By a translation of the Scriptures, they formally 
 constructed, if they did not altogether found, the 
 existing Slavonian dialect. These were, however, 
 events of a period subsequent to that which we have fixed 
 for our present goal. They find mention here only, lest it 
 should appear that we had altogether forgotten the destinies 
 of one among the three great barbaric races which came 
 into collision with the Koman empire during its decline and 
 fall. What may be their future destiny it is no part of our 
 task to determine. Where they have risen to importance, 
 strange to say, it has been under an alien dynasty. In 
 Mecklenburg alone, a Slavic family has retained its place 
 among the royal families of Europe. The descendants of 
 Pribislas, who became a Christian in the twelfth century, 
 were made dukes by Charles lY., in 1348 ; and though 
 the duchy has been divided, their children's children are 
 dukes even now. 
 
 Having dismissed the Slaves, we turn to the history of a 
 race once considered to have been the most remarkable scion 
 of the Slavic stock — the Yandals. It has been found de- 
 sirable to anticipate, to a certain extent, the course of events 
 in relating the history of the Huns, for the sake of treating 
 that subject consecutively as a whole. And in the case of 
 the Huns this course was justifiable; because the empire 
 which they established, though vast in its extent, was brief 
 in its duration, entirely independent of local ties, and 
 unconnected with later local associations. The other bar- 
 barian nationalities took root in European countries, which 
 have been the birthplace of other dynasties, more or less 
 connected with their immigration. Thus the Ostrogoths and 
 Lombards belong to Italy and the history of Italy ; the 
 Angles and Saxons to Britain ; the Burgundians, the Visi- 
 goths, and the Franks, to Gaul ; the Sueves, the Alani, and 
 the Visigoths to Spain. One other race, however, estab- 
 lished themselves beyond the limits in which is comprised 
 
TEUTONS NOT SLAVES. 353 
 
 the States-system of modern Europe — the Yandali, or 
 Vandals. Though they passed through Gaul, and settled 
 for a brief time in Spain, we shall not be justified in re- 
 garding them under any other aspect than the conquerors- 
 and occupants of Roman Africa. This was the scene of 
 their extraordinary military successes, their short-lived do- 
 minion, their sudden and disgraceful fall. It seems, there- 
 fore, desirable, in their case, as well as in that of the Huns, 
 to give a brief and independent account of what we are 
 concerned to know regarding them, before we enter upon 
 the special histories of France and Spain. 
 
 Gibbon declares that a striking resemblance, in manners, 
 complexion, religion, and language, indicates that the Goths 
 and Yandals were originally one great people ; and he cites 
 the testimony of Pliny and Procopius in support of this 
 belief.* According to this theory, therefore, the Vandals 
 are of the Teutonic stock. Other learned men have en- 
 deavoured to identify them with the Wendes ; and the 
 Wendes, as we have seen, according to the authority of 
 Jornandes and others, were members of the Slavic race. 
 The question has been examined, with great learning and 
 ingenuity, by M. L. Marcus, Professor at the College of 
 Dijon, in a work upon Vandal history. His conclusion, 
 drawn from a comparison of what Tacitus, Pliny, Procopius, 
 and Jornandes have left us upon the subject, is favourable 
 to the hypothesis of Gibbon. Between the Wendes and 
 the Yindili of Pliny, who were undoubtedly Vandals, he 
 considers that no nearer point of unfon can be found than 
 that of the Asiatic origin common to all nations of Slavic 
 and Teutonic blood. t He accounts for the fact that some 
 confusion upon the subject subsists in ancient writers, by the 
 supposition that the Slaves, after the great migration of Goths 
 and Vandals to the South, occupied the locality they had 
 abandoned on the coasts of the Baltic, and became inheritors 
 
 * Hist. Nat. iv. 14 ; Bell. Vand. i. 1. f See Lecture IH. 
 
 2 A 
 
854 THE VANDALS. 
 
 of the name, as well as of the land, of their predeces- 
 sors. Hence they were commonly, though incorrectly, called 
 Vindili, or Vandals. An etymology for the word Vandal, 
 more ingenious than true, has found favour in the eyes of 
 some modern writers. They pretend that the German verb 
 wandeln, ' to wander,' was selected as the national appel- 
 lative, from the nomad and erratic habits of the race ; and 
 this hypothesis is confirmed, they declare, by the " wander- 
 ings" of the Vandals in Gaul, Spain, and Africa. This is a 
 somewhat ex 2:)ost facto method of reasoning ; and we might 
 well inquire, with the old Pythagorean poet, 
 
 Tig TTor' bjvofiaaav u>d' Ig to ttclv irrjrvfuog 
 
 * * * vpovoiaim rov TTSTTpojixsvov 
 
 yXuiacrav tv tvx<} vifiuiv ; 
 
 But the hypothesis is singularly at variance with the real 
 facts of the case. Among all the German tribes, the Van- 
 dals are precisely those who earliest applied themselves to 
 the pursuits of agriculture and commerce. We are told by 
 Olympiodorus,* that the Goths were compelled to purchase 
 wheat for subsistence from their Vandal brethren ; and in 
 the peace made with Aurelian, a.d. 271, they stipulated 
 for the right of trajBfic with all the Danubian towns ; a pri- 
 vilege veiy rarely accorded by the emperors to any barbarian 
 people. Salvian, indeed, who regarded the Vandals with 
 much partiality, and has largely eulogized them at the ex- 
 pense of the degenerate Eomans, holds language which is 
 inconsistent with the belief that they were naturally inclined 
 or adapted for warlike ^ursuits.t 
 
 The earliest locality of the tribe, so far as authentic history 
 can trace them, seems to have been the district between the 
 Vistula and the Elbe. Here they were found by the Lango- 
 bardi in their migration towards the South. A conflict 
 
 * Apud Photium. See Montesquieu, De la Grandeur et Ddc. des 
 Eomains, ch. 19 — 21. 
 t De Gubernatione Dei. 
 
EARLY MIGRATIONS. 855 
 
 ensued between the two, which terminated in the triumph 
 of the invaders, and their establishment on the banks of the 
 Elbe, where they were in all probability found by the Ro- 
 mans in their famous expedition under Tiberius. 
 In the time of Pliny, we have that writer's testi- 
 mony to the fact that the Vandals were still to be found 
 between the two rivers. But during the next two 
 centuries their unwarlike habits must have tended 
 to diminish their importance among their fierce and active 
 neighbours, of whom the Goths were the most formidable, 
 and probably the most aggressive. Tacitus, at any rate, in 
 his tractate upon the Germans, merely notices 
 them by name, without devoting to them any of " ' 
 the attention which he has bestowed upon other eventually 
 less-distinguished tribes. Another half-century finds them 
 in a strong position among the mountains which form the 
 northern frontier of Bohemia. It is certain that they 
 took part in the great Marcomannic war. This 
 war was occasioned by an event very similar to 
 that which we have already recorded in the fourth lecture, 
 as precipitating the Germanic tribes on the Empire. The 
 passage of the Don by the Alani was a foretaste, on a 
 smaller scale, of what happened when the same river was 
 crossed by the Hunnish hordes ; and the war itself derives 
 its importance from the fact, that it was, perhaps, the first 
 example of those leagues or federations, among nations of 
 barbarian blood, which gradually gathered strength until 
 they became more than a match even for the colossal mili- 
 tary power of the Csesars. In the general movement of the 
 German populations at this period, we find the Vandals in 
 combination with the Marcomanni, the Sarmates, and the 
 Quadi, all of whom were defeated by Marcus 
 Aurelius in Pannonia. The defeat, thouifh 
 
 A.D. 170 
 
 severe, was not decisive j for, eight years afterwards, they 
 
 again united themselves with some Sarraatian tribes, as 
 
 2 A 2 
 
856 THE VANDALS. 
 
 the lazyges, and others of Teutonic extraction, in an 
 attack upon the Empire. They succeeded in conciliating 
 the respect, if not the favour, of Rome ; for in the treaty 
 made by Commodus, the son of Marcus Aurelius, with 
 the Marcomanni, the Vandals are one of the tribes secured 
 
 from the hostility of those persevering enemies of 
 A.D. 180. ^-^^ Koman empire. At this time, Ptolemy in- 
 forms us that the Vandals occupied the districts lying 
 around the sources of the Elbe ; and all other investiga- 
 tion confirms the statement. They were the neighbours 
 of the Marcomanni ; and their relations, notwithstanding 
 the former feud, became so intimate as to occasion alarm 
 at Rome, which had by this time begun to understand 
 the serious peril involved in these barbaric leagues. 
 It was not, however, till the reign of Aurelian that the 
 danger was developed. Then a general, systematic, and 
 
 violent attack was made by all the tribes who 
 ^'^' ' dwelt along the Danube against the great power 
 which held its southern bank. The Alemanni, the Mar- 
 comanni, and the Yandals, menaced Noricum and Rhaetia. 
 The Goths were prepared to precipitate themselves upon 
 Pannonia. Aurelian was successful enough to impose 
 a peace upon his adversaries ; and in the account given of 
 this peace, we find that the two Yandal monarchs visited 
 the Roman camp with the intention of depositing their 
 children as hostages. The fact deserves notice ; because it 
 shows us that the twofold form of the Vandal monarchy was 
 of early date, and that the subsequent partition of the tribe 
 in the Spanish peninsula into Yandals proper and Vandali 
 Silingi, was a natural result of the national institutions, and 
 analogous to the division of their great rivals and contem- 
 poraries into Eastern and Western Goths, a division asserted 
 by Jornandes to be as ancient as the existence of the people 
 themselves.* Not more than seven years elapsed before we 
 * De Reb. Get. § 14. 
 
SETTLEMENT IN PANNONIA. 857 
 
 find the Vandals again engaged with Probus, the successor 
 of Aurelian. The Roman enticed the choleric barbarians 
 across the Danube, and, taking them at a disadvantage, slew 
 many in the field : the remainder he made prisoners ; and 
 the deportation of at least a portion of these captives into 
 the most distant locality of his empire — the neigh- 
 bourhood of the modern town of Cambridge — 
 afforded to the splenetic Byron the opportunity of a small 
 sneer against his own university : — 
 
 " Learning's boast and its disgrace. 
 The dark asylum of a Vandal race." 
 
 It is the opinion of those who have traced with care the 
 scattered notices to be found of the Vandal movements, 
 that by this time they had quitted the Kiesen-gebirge, and 
 were posted near the banks of the Danube; a supposition 
 which seems to be supported by the provisions made in their 
 treaties with Rome for the privilege of trading with the 
 towns situated upon that river. It is unimportant to deter- 
 mine the eiact period when they established themselves iu 
 the districts lying between the Theiss, the Maroxh, and the 
 Danube ; all that we know for certain is, that, after a san- 
 guinary and stubborn contest with the Goths, they were 
 ejected from their seats, and compelled to take refuge in 
 Pannonia. This was, however, the closing scene of a war, or 
 rather, of a series of wars, concerning which a contemporary 
 Roman rhetorician wrote, in language well worthy of being 
 recorded, because it shows how thoroughly alive, by this 
 time, the Empire had become with respect to the peril 
 to be apprehended from the barbarians, and how thoroughly 
 it understood, even though it only imperfectly practised, 
 the policy of producing dissension among them. " How 
 prosperous is thy reign, O Maximian ! Everywhere the 
 barbarians are rending each other ; they furiously cut each 
 other's throats on the field of battle ; they double the effect 
 of their defeats by the snares in which they involve one 
 
858 THE VANDALS. 
 
 another. One might suppose it was their intention to 
 exhibit to the world a repetition of thy expeditions into 
 Sarmatia, Rhsetia, and the country beyond the Rhine, so 
 terribly do they rage against each other in their wrath ! 
 Praise be to Jupiter ! Praise be to propitious Hercules ! 
 You have at last succeeded in carrying civil war into the 
 borders of these nations ; you have banished it from the 
 
 territories of this emT)ire into those of your ene- 
 
 A.D. 292. • »* TT 1 • • ^- ^ i? 
 
 mies. ^ Had we m our possession a history of 
 
 these centuries composed by German annalists, we should 
 find that this destructive war changed in many important 
 respects the relations of the German tribes, and materially 
 affected their destiny. It fixed the Burgundians in Fran- 
 conia and on the banks of the Main, the Gepidse in Silesia, 
 and the Vandals in the district which we have described, 
 until, that is to say, the period of their expulsion by the 
 Goths. We have in a previous lecture recorded briefly the 
 series of events by which the Gothic nation, foiled in its 
 unsuccessful wars with Kome and the Sarmatian tribes, 
 was induced to direct its restless ambition and formidable 
 military strength against the Vandals. In accordance with 
 a custom which indicates something of the chivalric spirit, 
 the growth among the same races of later days, both parties, 
 as the Cimbri and Teutones proposed to Marius, determined a 
 time and place in which to combat for victory and dominion. 
 The Goths slew Vicimer, the Vandal king, and routed his 
 countrymen. Humbled and despairing, the defeated Vandals 
 applied to Pome for admission within her frontiers, and 
 Constantine, counting on their animosity towards 
 the Goths, and expecting to find in the suppliants 
 a useful auxiliary against such a formidable enemy, per- 
 mitted them to settle in Pannonia. They re- 
 mained there for seventy years, exhibiting the 
 gi-eatest aptitude for commerce and the arts of peace. 
 * Mamertinus, Paneg. ii. 16, 
 
CONVERTED TO CHRISTIANITY. 359 
 
 During this period, the nation furnished several of the most 
 able men, who distinguished themselves in the service of 
 the Empire. It is only necessary to mention Stilicho, who, 
 in 395 A.D., espoused Serena, niece of the emperor Theodo- 
 sius the Great. To his valour as a soldier, and extraordi- 
 nary skill as a leader, Rome, as we have seen, more than 
 once owed her existence. It was he who beat and baffled 
 Alaric and his Goths, thereby justifying the policy which 
 had united the Yandals to the standard of the Empire. In 
 Pannonia, too, the Yandals were converted to Christianity. 
 The earliest converts, most probably, as in the similar case 
 of the Goths, were attached to the orthodox faith. But the 
 process of Christianizing a whole nation of Pagans had not, 
 it is most likely, proceeded far when Constantine died, in 
 the spring of 337 a.d. The personal example of the occu- 
 pants of the throne, and the entire influence of the imperial 
 government, were then thrown into the opposite scale ; and it 
 is therefore but little surprising that Arianism should have 
 prospered and taken deep root among races of uncontrover- 
 sial warriors, such as were the Vandals and the Goths. How 
 far the teaching and example of XJlphilas, the Gothic bishop, 
 may have contributed to the result among a cognate people, 
 speaking the same language as his own, it is now impossible 
 to decide, or even to conjecture. But it is certain that 
 when, in the year 406 a.d., the Vandals passed from Panno- 
 nia into Gaul, they all professed the Arian form 
 of Christianity. On the last day of this year, the 
 Vandals, in combination with the Alani, and perhaps the 
 Sueves, crossed the Rhine, on that memorable expedition 
 into Gaul, to which reference has already more than once 
 been made. Sfc. Jerome associates with these three j^eoples 
 the Quadi, Sarmatians, Heruli, Gepidse, and Saxons. Very 
 probably many members of these warlike tribes accompanied 
 the standard of the confederates. It seems to have been a 
 well-understood and well-organized adventure, a "Hourra" of 
 
360 THE VANDALS. 
 
 barbarism upon the undefended riches of the Gallic province; 
 and, as such, it attracted bold spirits wherever they were to 
 be found. Radagasius, Alaric, Alboin, all came with a similar 
 following, in search of a similar prize. The Yandals passed 
 the river between Mayence and Cologne. But already had 
 the Franks marked out Gaul as a possession for themselves. 
 They would not, therefore, deliver it up to the invaders 
 without a struggle, and fought a bloody battle in its defence, 
 wherein, says Gregory of Tours, they would have annihilated 
 the Yandals, had not the Alani come opportunely to the 
 rescue. No mention is made of the Suevi in this passage ; 
 and there is other authority for believing that they entered 
 Gaul much further to the south, by the passes of the Alps. It 
 is impossible here to enter upon all the other considerations 
 which render it probable that Gibbon is mistaken in his 
 positive assertion concerning the combined movement of 
 these three Germanic nations, and in the belief which has 
 generally been accepted, on his authority, that they formed 
 part of the army with which Radagasius intended to make 
 himself master of Italy. It is very improbable that, at a 
 time when barbarian leaders of great military skill were 
 to be found on all sides, these numerous nations should 
 have put themselves beneath the guidance of an Incapable 
 like Radagasius ; it is very improbable that three hundred 
 thousand men could have been collected by any single chief 
 for a single military expedition ; it is, once more, very im- 
 probable that, had they been so combined, any force to be 
 found in Italy could have resisted them. And it is some- 
 what strange that an hypothesis of the kind should have 
 been thought necessary to account for a movement which 
 occurred at a time when the tribes upon the boundaries of 
 the Empire were perpetually casting themselves upon her 
 territory, and combining against her power. Perhaps the 
 story may have had some connection with the absurd calumny 
 against Stilicho, that, namely, these Alani, Sueves, and Van- 
 
PASS THE EHINE INTO GAUL. 861 
 
 dais, were induced, by his treachery, to enter Gaul, while he 
 was meditating the transference of the imperial purple to his 
 own son. Whether this be the case or not, Procopius,* in 
 asserting that the Yandals and Alani were expelled from 
 Pannonia by famine, most probably gives us a hint of the 
 true causes which prompted their migration. Ever since 
 the advent of the Huns, the Gothic and Roman armies had 
 been traversing the country and exhausting its resources. 
 The unfortunate inhabitants doubtless adopted the resolution 
 of abandoning, as soon as a fit opportunity should occur, 
 a locality which it was useless, perhaps impossible, to retain. 
 This opportunity was furnished by the onslaught of Rada- 
 gasius upon Italy, and the withdrawal of the Gaulish gar- 
 risons for its defence. Gaul, therefore, became defenceless. 
 The gallant attempt of the Franks to stay the progress of 
 the invaders was made in vain. Sooner or later, the triple 
 federation became a fact ; the Germans united their arms, 
 and poured across the frontier. Orosius, though adhering 
 to the story about Stilicho, briefly and accurately describes 
 the result : — " In the mean time, the tribes of the Alani, 
 Suevi, and Yandals, and many others with them, called into 
 action by Stilicho, trample down the Franks, effect the 
 passage of the Rhine, invade the Gallic provinces, and ad- 
 vance in an unbroken course to the foot of the Pyrenees. 
 Repulsed for the moment by this great barrier, they scatter 
 themselves among the surrounding provinces." t Perhaps no 
 greater period of suffering has ever visited any country, than 
 that which the Celtic inheritors of Roman wealth, luxury, 
 and refinement, were now called upon to endure. In after- 
 time, every church and monastery in the land, by its com- 
 memorative services, long perpetuated the memory of those 
 who were slaughtered and tortured by these fierce Teutons, 
 either in the search for concealed treasures, or under tlie 
 inspiration of a relentless proselytism in favour of Arian 
 * Beil. Yand. i. 3. t Oros. vii. 38. 
 
862 • THE VANDALS. 
 
 doctrines or pagan rites. St. Jerome has left us a picture 
 of their progress. " Mayence," says he, " that once famous 
 town, was taken by assault and pillaged. Several thousand 
 persons were massacred in the church. Worms, after a long 
 siege, was captured and destroyed. Rheims, that powerful 
 city, Amiens, Arras, St. Omer, Tournay, Spires, and Stras- 
 burg, became German towns. In Aquitaine, in the Lyon- 
 naise, in the province of Narbonne, everything was ravaged 
 except some places still assailed by the sword of the enemy 
 from without and by famine from within."* Salvian, too, 
 has given us, in the work to which we have already referred, 
 a similar account. " They spread themselves first of all over 
 Germania Prima, that is to say, through the territories of 
 Mayence, Worms, Spires, and Strasburg. When these 
 countries were reduced to ruin, the conflagration extended 
 to Belgium, or the districts lying between the Rhine, the 
 Maine, the Seine, and the ocean ; next, it reached opulent 
 Aquitaine, and finally, the whole of Gaul."t The devasta- 
 tion was cruel and complete. Whole populations were 
 exterminated or led into captivity. Neither sex, nor age, 
 nor holy office, were spared the degrading torments in- 
 flicted upon the vilest of the rabble. Cities and churches 
 were given to the flames, while the wretched inhabitants, 
 laden with their own property as booty for their victors, 
 were pricked on with lances, in order that they might keep 
 pace with the war-horses and waggons of the invading host. 
 "Not the ocean itself," bitterly complains the Christian poet, 
 "when it has burst in upon us with an inundation, is wont to 
 leave so terrible a ruin. They have borne away our flocks, 
 our fruits, our corn ; they have cut down our olives and our 
 vines ; they have destroyed our country dwellings by fire or 
 water : the little which remains to us is a desert and a 
 desolation." if 
 
 * Epist. ad Ageruchiam, de Monogamia. + De Guber. Dei, lib. vii. 
 t Hyuinus de Provid., ascribed to St. Prosper of Aquitaine. 
 
PASS THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 363 
 
 It is the main difficulty of a complicated subject like that 
 with which these lectures deal, to avoid unprofitable repe- 
 titions. The evil cannot be entirely avoided, and even 
 partial success can only be acquired by a coup d'ceil of the 
 whole topic, which implies an exactness of knowledge not very 
 easily attainable. We can merely attempt what seems the 
 most intelligible arrangement of the facts, and in pursuance 
 of this object, will leave to the lecture upon Spanish History 
 the involved relations, imperial and provincial, the confused 
 struggles between Constantino, Constantius, Astolphus, 
 Gerontius, Honorius, and others, during which the Vandals 
 obtained a footing in the Peninsula. The Marcomanni, to 
 whom, as auxiliary troops of Constantine, the passes of the 
 Pyrenees had been confided, are generally believed to have 
 invited their countrymen into Spain, in disgust at their \ 
 weary and unprofitable watch on those inhospitable peaks. y( 
 The Teutons, in a triple league, Sueves, Alani, and Yandals, 
 plunged into those dangerous defiles, on the 29th 
 of October, a.d. 409, and emerged on the southern 
 side, bent upon renewing the rapine which had devastated 
 Gaul. How well they succeeded will be told elsewhere. 
 The portion of Spain which, in its general partition, fell to 
 the share of the two Vandal tribes, will be described in the 
 same place. In the year 411 or 412 A.D., the ^ ^ 
 
 . .... A.D. 412. 
 
 emperor Honorius ratified this partition, and the 
 Vandals seemed to hold a large part of Spain under the 
 sanction of the Empire. That the concession, however, was 
 wrung only from the emperor's weakness, was made mani- 
 fest by the treacherous reservation which accompanied it. 
 According to Roman law, a prescription of thirty years 
 constituted a full right to possession. Honorius published 
 an edict, expressly providing that no such prescription 
 should apply to the tenure of the Spanish provinces by the 
 Vandals and other German invaders.* It was obviously 
 * Procop., Bell. Vand. i. 3. 
 
Z6i THE VANDALS. 
 
 liis intention to resume one day, by force, what he had lost 
 by feebleness. So far as Rome was concerned, that day 
 never arrived. For the moment, prosperity produced an 
 excellent effect upon the Vandal character. They resumed 
 the pastoral and agricultural life which they had begun in 
 Pannonia, and with increased energy and success ; for the 
 bright skies of Andalusia were a welcome exchange from 
 the cold and mist which then distinguished the German 
 climate. Abundant harvests covered the plains ; the hills 
 were once more white with those flocks, whose breed had long 
 produced a wool famous throughout the ancient world. The 
 inhabitants shared largely in the general amelioration. 
 From the great senatorial proprietors of land, the Vandals 
 practically took little more than the numerous districts which 
 had long been lying uncultivated from want of an arm to guide 
 the plough. The luckless municipal Decurions were allowed to 
 live in peace, and no longer hunted over sea and land, if they 
 absconded, from utter inability to make up the defalcations 
 in the enormous imposts levied by the imperial treasury. 
 The land wore a universal aspect of prosperity, the people 
 one of content. " They treat the Romans who remain there 
 so kindly," said Orosius, " that there are found those who 
 prefer freedom with poverty among the barbarians, to a life 
 rendered wretched by taxation (tributariam solicitudinem) 
 among their own countrymen."* And Salvian, with an 
 affectation of epigrammatic point, declares, " They prefer to 
 live as free men under the guise of captivity, rather than as 
 captives under the guise of freedom." t The imperial court 
 could not tolerate good government within the possible 
 cognizance of its subjects. It determined to destroy the 
 Vandal dominion in Spain, and, unfortunately, it succeeded. 
 It brought the Goths, the ancient rivals of the Vandal race, 
 over the Pyrenees, expecting by this master-stroke of policy 
 * Orosius, vii. 41. f De Gub. Dei, v. 
 
THE STRUGGLE WITH THE GOTHS. 365 
 
 to reap the benefit of their mutual hostility. The Goths 
 were to annihilate their enemy ; but it was calculated, that 
 in the struggle their own strength would waste away. We 
 shall hereafter, in treating of the Visigoth settlement in 
 Spain, find it necessary to recur to this subject. At present, 
 we are merely concerned with the fact, that in the war 
 prosecuted by Wallia, king of the Goths, 
 against the confederation which possessed the 
 peninsula, he entirely annihilated, it is said, the "Silingi 
 Vandals," and so roughly handled the Alani, that hence- 
 forth we find them incorporated with the " Vandals proper," 
 whose leader bore the name of King of the two Nations. So 
 far the intrigue concocted upon the Palatine had succeeded. 
 But the progress of events opened the eyes of the Gothic 
 king ; he perceived how little it would further his own 
 ambitious projects to subdue Spain for an imperial master, 
 and his proximity to the coasts of the Mediterranean re- 
 vived in his mind a project which, since the time of Alaric's 
 unsuccessful attempt upon Sicily, had probably never been 
 entirely absent from the thoughts of his countrymen. He de- 
 termined to pass over into Africa, the richest province of the 
 Koman empire, and the one which offered the best oppor- 
 tunities for the establishment of an independent kingdom. 
 His fleet, like that of Alaric, was unfortunate : it perished 
 before his eyes in the Straits of Gibraltar. Probably, he 
 would have renewed the attempt ; but the court of Rome 
 had now caught the alarm. Africa was the granary of the 
 capital ; fatal indeed would be the result, if it fell into the 
 hands of the Goths. The emperor hastened to buy off Wallia 
 by a grant of land in Gaul, which was, as we shall see in a 
 future lecture, the real foundation of the Visigoth 
 kingdom on both sides of the Pyrenees. The whole 
 of Spain was now left in the hands of the three original 
 tribes, or rather, the remains of these tribes enfeebled by 
 
866 THE VANDALS. 
 
 warfare and demoralized by the cruel policy 6f Rome. The 
 hand of the Goth had fallen most heavily upon the Alani 
 and the Silingi Vandals ; how fjxr the Vandals proper were 
 involved in the war, or whether they took part in it at all, 
 has not been recorded, and cannot now be known. It is 
 certain that they emerged from those evil days more scath- 
 less than their brethren, and, consequently, henceforward 
 assumed the leading place. United to the Alani and the 
 wreck of the Silingi, — for it is unreasonable to suppose that 
 the latter were utterly destroyed, — they now became a com- 
 paratively powerful body. None were left, save the Sueves, 
 to dispute with them the sovereignty of Spain. But the 
 Sueves, upon crossing the Pyrenees, had established them- 
 selves in the north and north-western part of the penin- 
 sula. Their position was strong, and they seem to have 
 disputed with the Vandals the possession of the whole 
 peninsula. According to Gregory of Tours, the two armies 
 met, and were preparing for conflict, when the Suevic king 
 proposed to decide the question by the chivalric expedient 
 of a single combat. The proposal was accepted ; the Vandal 
 champion was successful, and all Gallicia submitted to 
 
 Vandal rule. Accordin*; to another account, the 
 A.D. 420. 
 
 battle was prevented by the appearance of a Ro- 
 man force sent to succour the Sueves, which excited the 
 suspicion of both the belligerents. Each story may be true. 
 Rome, at any rate, made one great and final effort for the 
 recovery of her favourite province. Gaul and Italy were 
 exhausted to produce an armament which should recall the 
 earlier magnificence and vigour of the imperial rule. Cas- 
 tinus was placed at its head. He passed the Pyrenees, and 
 apparently carried all before him. The Vandals were driven 
 into Andalusia, and inclosed within a narrow space, where 
 they were unable to provision their army. Surrender was 
 talked of ; we may imagine with the intent of producing a 
 
DOMINANT IN SPAIN. 367 
 
 delusive security in tlie assailants; for suddenly the Vandals 
 turned upon the Romans, and inflicted upon them 
 a signal and bloody defeat. Twenty thousand 
 men were left dead upon the field of battle, and Castinus 
 never ceased his flight until he reached the gates of Tarra- 
 gona. The Roman writers ascribe their misfortune to the 
 defection of some Gothic auxiliaries. That these Goths did 
 eventually unite with the Vandals is certain, for they joined 
 them in Africa. But is it probable that they should have 
 chosen for the time of their defection the moment when the 
 fortunes which they sought to share were in so desperate a 
 condition 1 
 
 And now it might seem that Spain was entirely delivered 
 into the hands of the Vandal. For a time, indeed, it was 
 so. He traversed the whole country, burning, pillaging, 
 destroying, and, above all, persecuting the clergy and people, 
 who would not accept the Arian form of faith. It seems 
 as if the abominable policy pursued by Rome had entirely 
 changed the nature of the race, or rather, revived and 
 exaggerated its more odious features. For the two years 
 which followed the defeat of Castinus, " Vandalism," in all 
 senses of the word, was dominant throughout the whole of 
 Spain, on the opposite Mauritanian coasts, in the Balearic 
 Isles, in Corsica itself. That this state of things passed 
 away ; that the devouring torrent changed its course, and 
 ceased to menace the kingdoms of Europe and the interests 
 of Catholic Christianity, is to be ascribed to the genius and 
 policy, though not to the goodwill, of one man — Genseric, 
 king of the Vandals, the worthy rival of Alaric and Attila 
 in that sanguinary renown which so nearly approaches to 
 infamy. We have the man's portrait, it is true, from the 
 writers of the party whom he humbled and cruelly ill-used ; 
 but, after all allowance for exaggerated colouring, the picture 
 is dark indeed. He was, we hear, a more frightful barbarian 
 
368 THE VANDALS. 
 
 than any who had as yet arisen among the foes of Rome. 
 
 Lame and hideous in aspect, of slow speech, but of iron will, 
 
 inconceivable duplicity, and boundless ambition, he had 
 
 never been known to listen to the voice of justice or of 
 
 mercy; he had never recoiled from any act of perfidy or 
 
 blood which he believed his interests to demand. He is 
 
 admitted to have been temperate in his personal habits, but 
 
 utterly incapable of controlling himself when roused to 
 
 anger. His perspicacity saw to the bottom of everything ; 
 
 he never missed an opportunity ; he carried out a project in 
 
 less time than others spent in meditating upon it ; — of all 
 
 men who ever lived, he was the most adroit in sowing the 
 
 seeds of animosity and dissension among others.* Such 
 
 was the leader who now directed the destiny of 
 A.D. 428. , . , 
 
 his i)eople. 
 
 It was not until the year 428 A.D., that Genseric 
 actually succeeded his elder brother Gunderic on the throne, 
 of whom it is confidently asserted that he rid himself by foul 
 play.t But there is every reason to suppose that, for many 
 years previous, Genseric was the real governor of the nation. 
 It was he who, according to Jornandes, struck the severest 
 blows against the Roman power in Spain, long before he 
 passed into Africa. J " Of the two sons of Godigischus, 
 Gunderic," says Procopius, " the legitimate son, was inca- 
 pable j but Genseric, the bastard, was trained up in arms, 
 in the use of which he surpassed all men upon the earth." § 
 To him, therefore, we may safely ascribe the conquests, 
 rapine, arid persecution which followed the defeat of Castinus. 
 But when he had overrun Spain, he was perspicacious enough 
 to perceive the difficulty of retaining it. He could not 
 count upon the allegiance of the inhabitants of the province, 
 who had never forgotten the old imperial traditions, and 
 were more than half-romanized in their feelings and habits : 
 
 * Jornandes, de Reb. Get. c. 33. 
 
 t Procopius, Bell. Vand. i. 3. t /6zd § Ibid. 
 
GENSEPJC KING. 369 
 
 he could not count upon a continuance of the treachery of 
 the Goths, by which he had so largely profited during or 
 after the defeat of Castinus ; but he could count upon the 
 certain rivalry and opposition of the Visigoth power, now 
 rising up beyond the Pyrenees, backed by all the aid which 
 the Roman court might be able to furnish in the way of 
 secret treachery or open force. On the other hand, across 
 the narrow straits lay wealthy and fertile Africa, — more 
 rich as a prize, more defensible as a military position, more 
 favourable in respect of its social state for his ambitious 
 enterprise. Undeterred, therefore, by the failures of Alaric 
 and "Wallia, to Africa he turned his eyes. Africa was un- 
 approachable, save by sea ; but the Empire of the Decadence 
 was especially weak in its marine. To these inducements 
 Professor Marcus, in his excellent work before alluded to, 
 adds two others, which must have had a powerful effect, — 
 the hostility of the Moors to the Roman power, and that 
 of the sectaries and religious refugees to the Catholic 
 Church. The Moors had never accepted the domination 
 of the Romans in Africa. A race of rude herdsmen, igno- 
 rant of the use of letters, of unknown origin,* and habi- 
 tuated to the freedom of the desert, they felt profound 
 irritation at the neighbourhood of a power which brought 
 the constraints of civilization and settled government into 
 contact with their nomad life. This irritation had been 
 increased by the recent destruction of the temple 
 of the goddess Cselestis ; " under whose invoca- 
 tion," says M. Marcus, " the Moors, two centuries later, thrice 
 chased from Africa the nation which had just destroyed 
 the Persian empire, and wrested from the Greeks the most 
 beautiful provinces of Asia." Again : the sands of the 
 desert and the caverns of the Atlas were now filled with 
 men as bitter enemies to the religion of Rome, as were the 
 Mauritanians to her rule. Africa had been converted into 
 
 * Gibbon, ch. xli. 
 2 B 
 
370 THE VANDALS. 
 
 an asylum for sectaries of every sort ; Circumcelliong, 
 Donatists, Priscillians, Pelagians, Manicliseans, and a hun- 
 dred other heretical bodies, expelled from the great centres 
 of Christian action and authority, dreamed throughout their 
 monotonous exile of no other object than vengeance against 
 the dominant dogmas of Constantinople and of Eome. ISTo 
 other country, therefore, in the Empire proffered to the 
 astute monarch of the Yandals so fitting a field either for 
 proselytism or feats of arms. And, finally, there was a 
 personal motive which induced Genseric to prefer a new 
 empire beyond the sea to the hereditary seat of Yandal 
 dominion in Europe : — he was an illegitimate son ; the 
 widow and the ten sons of Gunderic were still living, and 
 might at any moment assert their right. This right it 
 would be easy for the conqueror of Africa, and the founder 
 of a new dynasty, to resist in a distant land, where the 
 partisans of the deposed family would naturally exercise 
 less weight. These reasons are, I think, sufficient to solve 
 that somewhat interesting historical problem why Genseric, 
 at the hour of his triumph, and in the plenitude of his 
 power, abandoned the country which had witnessed this 
 triumph, and where this power seemed on the point of con- 
 solidation, to risk his fortunes in another land. The asser- 
 tion of the Goth Jornandes, that it was the sword of 
 his countrymen which drove the Vandals across the strait,* 
 though in his usual style of national self-exaltation, is 
 in contradiction to ascertained facts, and unworthy of the 
 slightest credit. 
 
 As Genseric stood on the coast of the Mediterranean, 
 with his eyes fixed upon its southern shore, meditating, no 
 doubt, the means of effecting a more successful transit than 
 his Gothic predecessor, one of those wonderful coincidences 
 which men call Chance, placed in his hands the exact object 
 of his desires. Owing to an intrigue in the imperial court, 
 * Jornandes, de Reb. Get. §§ 32, S3. 
 
CROSS OVER INTO AFRICA. 871 
 
 whicli has been recorded in its proper place,* Boniface, count 
 of Africa, who had been invested with this important office 
 by Honorius, invited the aid of the Vandal king, and pro- 
 mised him vessels for the transport of his troops. He 
 promised, it is said, a third of Africa to each of the Yandal 
 princes, intending to retain the remaining third for him- 
 self t In the early spring of 429 a.d., the whole Vandal 
 nation — warriors, women, children, and serfs — were 
 gathered to the Strait of Gibraltar. After sub- 
 tracting the women, the whole number is said to have 
 reached 80,000. But this is probably an exaggeration, or 
 the fighting-men were disproportionately few ; for during 
 their subsequent exploits, the Vandal army does not seem 
 to have exceeded 30,000 combatants. We cannot suppose 
 that the whole population at once attached themselves to 
 Genseric j indeed, there is evidence to show that many re- 
 mained for a time in Spain ; nor, again, is there any doubt 
 but that warriors of various other Teutonic tribes were 
 attracted to the Vandal standard by the reputation of the 
 leader and the magnitude of the prize which he proposed 
 to their cupidity. Partly in the vessels of Boniface, and 
 partly in those which the inhabitants of the country were 
 only too glad to furnish, this mixed multitude crossed the 
 strait. Genseric returned for a moment to cut to pieces a 
 Suevic army which was ravaging the country in his rear, 
 but immediately rejoined his fleet. The storm burst at last 
 upon this Africa which had so long enjoyed an immunity 
 from the evils that were afflicting Europe. Of all the 
 Teutonic tribes, the Vandals had won for themselves the 
 most terrible name. Their coming was the signal for utter 
 consternation and headlong flight. The distant oases of the 
 desert, the gorges and caverns of the Atlas, were crowded 
 with fugitives forced from the luxurious homes of a civilized 
 
 * Lecture V. p. 249. 
 
 + The account of Procopius, Bell. Vand. i. 3. 
 2 B 2 
 
372 THE VANDALS. 
 
 and prosperous people. The Vandals more than justified 
 their ill-omened reputation : they burnt the villages before 
 them; put men, women, and children to the sword; destroyed 
 the growing crops and agricultural implements, and even 
 cut down the trees. To their native ferocity was added 
 vengeance for their wrongs in Spain, and a furious fana- 
 ticism, fanned into still fiercer flames by the Donatist sec- 
 taries and other unrelenting enemies of the Catholic party. 
 The Moors, too, exultingly seized the occasion to indulge 
 their unquenchable hatred against civilization and Rome. 
 They swelled the ranks of the invaders, or secured a path- 
 way for their advance by that renowned cavalry which still 
 swoops like the eagle upon its prey, and, like the eagle, dis- 
 appears in a moment from the sight. In the mean time, 
 Boniface had been undeceived : he found that the empress 
 Placidia was still his affectionate and confiding mistress, 
 and that his new ally was a formidable and unscrupulous 
 foe. In vain did he attempt negotiation. The Vandal 
 listened for a moment, then suddenly assailed him in the 
 field. He was speedily besieged in Hippona, a 
 Numidian town. The German barbarians, like all 
 others, were little skilled in siege operations, and are said 
 to have borrowed a horrible expedient from the Moors for 
 reducing the place. All the prisoners, and all the cattle upon 
 which they could lay hands, were slaughtered, and cast into 
 the moat before the walls, in order that their corrupting 
 carcasses might taint the air, and compel, by pestilence, that 
 submission which they could not obtain by arms. The town, 
 however, held out till the autumn of the following year ; 
 and in the mean time succours arrived both from Rome and 
 Constantinople, and with them Aspar, the ablest officer of 
 the Eastern empire. The result was a pitched 
 battle, in which the Vandals were victorious. 
 Aspar returned to the Byzantine court ; Boniface was re- 
 called by his mistress to oppose the rising influence of 
 
MAKE PEACE WITH VALENTINIAN. 373 
 
 Aetiiis, and to perish, though victorious, in the disastrous 
 combat of Eavenna. Before quitting Africa, he made peace 
 with Genseric, who, now, as ever, — calm, subtle, and 
 treacherous, — saw in this suspension of hostilities, not only 
 the opportunity to consolidate his conquests and 
 recruit his strength, but also the prospect of an 
 internecine conflict in Italy between the two most powerful 
 and skilful soldiers of the West. 
 
 By the terms of this peace, Genseric obtained the three 
 Mauritani and istricts, a part of the old Roman province, much 
 less fertile than Eastern Africa. The relations of the two 
 parties must have been in a very unsettled state ; probably, 
 Genseric was encroaching upon the richer and more valuable 
 territory ; for in the year 435 a fresh peace, or 
 ratification of the previous one, was contracted 
 between the Yandal king and the Count Trigetius, envoy of^ 
 the Roman court. We know little of the events which imme- 
 diately followed. Yalentinian had made peace, and assigned 
 certain territories to the Vandals ; but Yalentinian, like Ho- 
 norius, had also taken care to inform his Roman subjects 
 that the usual thirty years' prescription was not applicable 
 to this grant,* — a measure which can only have been meant 
 to keep alive the hope of deliverance from a barbarous master 
 and a foreign yoke. Genseric probably became aware of the 
 reservation, and understood it. There is not the slightest 
 reason for supposing that he meant to observe his own pro- 
 mises, or that he ever intended to stop short of the plunder 
 of Carthage, and perhaps of Rome. But the duplicity of his 
 enemies deprives their outcry against barbarian faithlessness 
 of its force. The wrath of the Yandal king first broke forth 
 against the Catholic clergy. He attempted to enforce Arian- 
 ism upon all, and expelled those who refused obe- 
 dience from their benefices and sees. Some writers 
 ascribe this violent access of Arian zeal to the injudicious 
 
 * Cod. Theodos. Nov. Valent. ; quoted by Marcus, iii. 2, notes. 
 
37^ THE VANDALS. 
 
 attempts at proselytism made by the orthodox, and the 
 bitter controversial language with which their writings were 
 at this period tilled. To a certain extent it may be so; but 
 it is beyond doubt that, ever since the attempt of Castinus 
 in Spain, a revengeful hostility to the Catholics, and a fixed 
 resolve to substitute the Arian faith for the Confession of 
 Nice, had taken possession of the Yandal mind. These per- 
 secutions were, or should have been, a warning to Rome and 
 Catholic Christendom ; — a sombre presage of the storm about 
 to burst with such fatal fury upon their coasts. Yet they 
 seem to have been lulled into an inconceivable 
 apathy; for on the 19th of October, 439, the world 
 was thunderstruck by the ominous tidings that Genseric, 
 without warning, without any declaration of hostilities, had 
 made himself master of the magnificent city of Carthage, 
 the rival of Rome and the queen of Africa. Since the days 
 when Marius sat among her grass-grown ruins, an immense 
 revolution had taken place in her appearance and her fortunes. 
 When Constantinople became the seat of the Eastern empire, 
 Carthage supplied Rome with the means of subsistence. She 
 had outgrown even Alexandria in wealth, external splendour, 
 and population, and became the seat of a power of sufficient 
 prestige and material resources to threaten the capital itself. 
 Here, in the year 413, a governor of Africa had fitted out a 
 fleet of seven hundred ships of war, for the purpose of de- 
 throning Honorius ;* and here, after the sack of Rome by 
 Alaric, had gone many of the most powerful families of the 
 Roman patriciate to enjoy that luxury which the Alps and 
 the Adriatic had been unable to protect. But let us hear the 
 language of a contemporary. " Where," says Salvian, " can 
 we find treasures which surpass those of the Africans ? 
 Where shall we see commerce more flourishing, or store- 
 houses more full ? The prophet Ezekiel said to Tyre, ' Thou 
 
 * It is this expedition which is connected with the plot of Professor 
 Kingsley's novel of Hypatia. 
 
GENSERIC SEIZES ON CARTHAGE. 375 
 
 art filled with silver and gold because of thy merchandise;' 
 and I say, that her commerce so enriched Africa, that not 
 only were her treasure-houses filled themselves, but they 
 were capable of filling those of all the world. Carthage, 
 once the rival of Rome in power and military renown, was 
 now her rival in majesty and splendour. Carthage, the 
 Rome of Africa, was the central seat of the imperial govern- 
 ment : there were her magistrates j there her officers of 
 state ; there the schools of the liberal arts ; the professional 
 chairs of philosophy, language, and jurisprudence. There, 
 too, was a military commandant and a numerous garrison ; 
 a governor with the title of proconsul, but who really exer- 
 cised a consul's power."^" Such was the city which, in a single 
 hour, at the height of her prosperity, and in the midst of her 
 luxurious and efieminate life, fell into the hands of a bloody, 
 faithless, and perfidious race, the most dreadful, as the most 
 dreaded, among all the men of barbarian descent who tram- 
 pled out the dying glories of the Empire. But with the 
 exceeding bitter cry which went up from the suffering city, 
 there was heard also the voice of the people of God, pro- 
 claiming that this terrible visitation was a most just judg- 
 ment, a retribution for unexampled sin.f It is from no desire 
 to dwell upon so revolting a topic, that we repeat the words of 
 the preacher who proclaimed to an unheeding generation, "the 
 burthen of Carthage," as Ezekiel proclaimed that of her Phoe- 
 nician ancestress. But, once for all, and as in crucial instance, 
 we may see in the fall of this great metropolitan city, the crimes 
 of the age, and the curse they engendered, the type of that 
 old-world corruption which it was needful to purify as by 
 fire, ere a new world could be born from its ashes. Africa, 
 according to Salvian, was " the home and household of all 
 
 * De Gubernatione Dei. 
 
 + ndaa idea avjxipopag is the strong expression of Procopius. 
 " Calamity of every conceivable kind encompassed the Africans." — 
 Bell. Vand. i. 5. 
 
376 THE VANDALS. 
 
 the vices;" " the seething caldron of iniquity;" " the bloody- 
 city, the pot whose scum is therein," described by the pro- 
 phet.* " They have all the vices," he exclaims, " that the 
 Romans have ; but their avarice, their drunkenness, and 
 their perjury, are immeasurable. Every vice of all the 
 world is found among them, unredeemed by the national 
 virtues which palliate the crimes of other men. The Goths 
 are perfidious but chaste ; the Alani unchaste, but less re- 
 markable for perfidy ; the Franks are liars, but hospitable ; 
 the Saxons are men of brutal cruelty, but marvellous con- 
 tinence. All nations, in short, have their peculiar defects. 
 In the whole African race, or nearly the whole of it, every 
 evil that I know of may be found. It is an ^tna blazing 
 with the fires of impurity and lust. Impure and African 
 are synonymous in signification, and inseparable in fact." 
 He then goes on to describe the wealth, splendour, and 
 public institutions of the great city ; its universal and 
 frightful debauchery, where every class was drunk with wine 
 and lust ; the miserable condition of the poor, ground down 
 with such relentless oppression that they called upon God, in 
 their misery, for the coming of the barbarian, and did not 
 call in vain ; above all, the pervading prostitution, which he 
 depicts in language too plain and emphatic to be repeated 
 here. Yet worse remained behind. The fires of Heaven 
 consumed the cities of the plain, yet their guilt was not as 
 the guilt of Carthage ; for with Carthage, though the crime 
 was as universal, the opportunities of knowledge were very 
 different. And then is disclosed the secret of the Vandal 
 visitation. " Who could have marvelled," asks Salvian, " if 
 the barbarian Yandals, in the heat of their triumph, and 
 revelling in the luxuries which their sword had won, had 
 given way to such iniquities." But no ; they refused to 
 pollute themselves with Roman vice; they would not wallow 
 in this great defilement. " Who," says he elsewhere, " after 
 * Ezekiel, xxiv. 6. 
 
SALVIAN ON THE AFRICANS. 877 
 
 this " — the account just given of Roman society — " could 
 refuse the tribute of his admiration to the Yandal tribes, 
 who, though they entered cities of most lavish wealth, where 
 all these things were done before their eyes, yet rejected the 
 licentiousness of these corrupted men, as pollution to their 
 morals, and sought that which was good to possess, avoiding 
 the stain of evil. This were enough to say in their praise ; 
 but I have more to add. They treated as an abomination 
 the peculiar crime of the conquered ; nay, they treated as 
 abomination all the incentives to female prostitution, har- 
 lotry, and sin."* Who can wonder, after these things, at the 
 fall of Roman society 1 " What hope," truly says Salvian, 
 " can there be for Rome and the Romans, when barbarians 
 are more pure and chaste than they ?" When the fountain 
 of family life in Southern Europe and Africa was so utterly 
 polluted at its source, was it not needful that the stream 
 should be cleansed by the cold clear waters which came 
 rushing down from Scandinavian snows 1 The temperament 
 of the Teutonic tribes, fiery only in the heat of battle, was 
 pure in the relations of domestic life. The reverence for 
 woman ; — the sanctity of home, which had their birth in the 
 German forests, coming into contact with, and catching the 
 spirit of Christianity, breathed the breath of a regenerate 
 life into a society which had already been laid within the 
 tomb, and was exhaling the odour of the charnel-house. The 
 sentiment of Teutonic chivalry, the spirit of Christianity, 
 were the guardian Genii which sat beside the cradle of modern 
 national life, and first gave the modern world assurance of a 
 '' Nation." 
 
 But we must resume our narrative. Carthage fell, a 
 defenceless and opulent city, into the hands of an 
 armed and rai)acious barbarian. The historian, 
 like the poet, finds the power of language too feeble for 
 
 * Salv. de Gub. Dei, vii. 251, 252. 
 
378 THE VANDALS. 
 
 great sufferings and great crimes. He is compelled to take 
 refuge in silence. 
 
 " Sorrow it were, and shame to tell, 
 The butcher- work that there befell." 
 
 The terrible cry of agony which rose from the perishing 
 city, echoed across the Mediterranean, and told Rome that 
 her own hour was at hand. She looked around her on all 
 sides for assistance ; but the crafty Vandal had chosen well 
 his time. In Gaul, Theodoric, king of the Visigoths, whose 
 daughter was espoused to the son of Genseric, had just cut 
 to pieces a Eoman army, and was giving full employment to 
 the legions of Aetius. In Spain, the Sueves were daily 
 gaining ground. Attila once more menaced the Eastern 
 empire with a new invasion of Greece. Nevertheless, by 
 superhuman efforts, the imperial court made such prepara- 
 tions for resistance, that Genseric did not deem it wise as 
 yet to strike at the heart of his enemy. He descended upon 
 Sicily and Calabria, knowing that, since the loss of Carthage, 
 Eome depended upon these provinces for her subsistence. 
 He counted, also, on finding a population favourably disposed 
 to himself; for, as we have explained in a previous lecture, 
 all the public domains of the state were cultivated by slaves, 
 whom cruel treatment and a life of degradation had rendered 
 bitter enemies to their masters. We have already had the 
 picture of a combat between the German barbarians and a 
 Roman army, described by a contemporary ;'"■ as a pendant, 
 we will extract from another contemporary the picture of a 
 scene scarcely less common and characteristic of the age — a 
 Vandal descent upon the coast of Italy. " At their ease 
 the enemy were roaming over the open sea, when, by the 
 common consent of all orders of the state, the people, the 
 senate, the soldiery, and by thy colleague himself, the Empire 
 was conferred upon thee" [Sidonius is addressing the new 
 
 * Lecture III. p. 139. 
 
A VANDAL FORAY. 87P 
 
 emperor Majorian]. " Borne by the favouring southern 
 breeze, the foe invades the Campanian shore, and assails with 
 his Moorish soldiery the unguarded husbandman. The sleek 
 and lazy Vandal, seated upon the rowing-benches of his 
 ship, awaits the prey which he had bid his captive capture 
 and bring to him on board. But in an instant your bands 
 precipitate themselves between both parties of the enemy, 
 just where the level ground divides the sea from the heights, 
 and a winding river forms by its mouth a port. At first 
 the frightened crowd make for the hills, and, excluded from 
 the banks which it had abandoned, becomes the booty of 
 those of whom it would have made a booty. Then the 
 whole pirate band, excited into wrath, unite for combat : 
 some disembark their well-trained steeds from rudely-fashioned 
 boats ; some clothe themselves in iron mail, of which the 
 rusty hues resemble their own skin ; some string their pliant 
 bows, and make ready the shafts which infuse into a wound 
 the poison in which they have been dipped, and strike two 
 victims, though but once discharged. And now the dragon- 
 banner flies between the foes ; his throat swells with the 
 inflating breeze : with gaping jaws the pictured image seems 
 to ravin for his prey ; the winds stir into wrath his form 
 upon the flag, as their breath contracts his twisting back, 
 and his belly can no longer contain the blast. Soon the 
 hoarse trumpet gives forth its crashing notes ; shrilly the 
 clarions answer ; and valour kindles even in the coward's 
 breast : on all sides falls the arrow-flight, but from ours only 
 does it wound. One lies prostrate, pierced by the whirring 
 javelin, which will scarce at a second death arrest its flight ; 
 another is rolled over by a spear-thrust ; one pierced by a 
 flying missile, another by a lance, tumbles from his steed j. 
 this one again falls by a winged shaft, the victim of a far- 
 distant arm :*"' some with the sinews of their legs cut through, 
 
 * ** Absentera passus dextram : " one of the conceits of which several 
 specimens are to be found in every page. The French editor, whose 
 
380 THE VANDALS. 
 
 linger on, denied the power to die. Here a warrior 
 cleaves away part of the helmet, and with it the brain 
 within : there the stout arm of a second hews piteouslj 
 asunder the skull with his two-edged sword. Soon as t}^e 
 Yandal, turning from the field, betakes himself to flight, 
 indiscriminate massacre succeeds to combat ; the plain is 
 strewn with the corses of the slain : in the headlong rout 
 the coward is forced to valorous deeds ; the horseman, pale 
 with terror, pushes into the sea, and mingles with the 
 fleet ; then, swimming in disgraceful flight, re-ascends his 
 bark from amidst the waves."* Such were the exploits of 
 Grcnseric abroad. 
 
 In the mean time, it was necessary to place his power at 
 home upon a safe basis, to gather together his resources, to 
 prepare a fleet and to man it, to gain the supremacy of the 
 sea. For this, peace was necessary ; and peace he easily 
 obtained. By an understanding with Attila, at which we 
 have already hinted, he precipitated the hordes of the Huns 
 upon the empire of the East, and pledged himself, most 
 probably, to aid the Hun in a "hourra" upon Rome.t Upon 
 this, Theodosius felt himself compelled to put an end to the 
 war with Genseric, lest Constantinople should be 
 taken between two fires. Without the aid of 
 Theodosius, Yalentinian could do nothing in the West ; and 
 therefore Valentinian also hastened to make peace. By 
 this peace Genseric acquired time to mature his designs, and 
 territorial resources to carry them out. Of all that Bome 
 had held in Africa, the province of Tripolitana alone re- 
 mained. All things seemed to favour the Vandal king; 
 
 edition I possess^, strangely interprets " pour avoir mal k propos 6ca.Tt6 
 son bouclier," forgetting that soldiers did not wear their shields on their 
 right arms, or that, if they did, in the phrase "pati dextram," the ob- 
 jective case must express that from which the action proceeds to which 
 the previous verb refers. 
 
 * Sidon. Apollinaris, Pan. Majoriani, v. 384 — 422. 
 
 t Jornandes, Eeb. Get. § 36. 
 
GENSEEIC AND ATTILA. 381 
 
 but his plans were interrupted by domestic treason. In the 
 
 year 443, or in that which followed, a formidable 
 
 A.D. 444 
 conspiracy broke out, which was only suppressed 
 
 by such a lavish effusion of the best blood of the nation, 
 that the Yandals, we are told, suffered more from the axe of 
 the executioner than they had done in any of their wars.* 
 This, then, was apparently the cause which hindered the 
 promised coalition between Genseric and Attila; and by 
 reprieving the Western empire for a few short years, gave 
 her destinies into nobler hands than those of either the 
 Vandal or the Hun. 
 
 Cassiodorus, grandfather of the historian whom Jornandes 
 has abridged, claims the glory of driving the Yandals 
 both from Italy and the mainland. But it is not likely 
 that on this occasion Genseric meant to effect a per- 
 manent occupation. He struck, and recoiled to strike 
 again with more effect. To these and similar causes we 
 must ascribe the fact that, though perpetually engaged in 
 predatory expeditions, it was not until the year 
 4:55 that Genseric actually appeared in arms before 
 the gates of Rome ; and the emperor, on his part, was too 
 much engrossed with the Huns, who lost the great battle of 
 Chalons in 451, to turn his thoughts to the perils which 
 menaced him from Africa. We have already briefly men- 
 tioned the miserable court intrigue and the treacherous 
 vengeance of a woman, which brought the barbarian to the 
 fruition of his long-cherished ambition, and to the summit 
 of the Capitol. To the annals of Italy belongs the story of 
 her ancient Queen ; how again and again she arose, after 
 every fall, and wrapt around her faded form the imperial 
 purple, though pierced in a hundred places by the barbarian 
 dagger, rent by faction and trampled in the dust. No 
 enemy more fierce, cruel, and rapacious than the Yandals 
 had ever appeared beside the Tiber ; never had the great 
 * Prosper., p. 196. 
 
382 THE VANDALS. 
 
 metropolitan city been despoiled of a larger portion of that 
 wealth and magnificence which she herself had gathered 
 from every known country in the civilized or uncivilized 
 world. But, after all, the Yandal was a less formidable 
 enemy than the Ostrogoth and the Lombard ; for the latter 
 were ever at her doors, ever prepared to establish a kingdom 
 of Italy ; while the home of the former was beyond the 
 seas. The real injury inflicted upon Rome by the successful 
 raid of the Yandals, was the violation of her sanctity and 
 the loss of her prestige. It is true that Alaric had stormed 
 her gates and plundered her treasures half a century before ; 
 but since that eventful day, Alaric had perished by a sudden 
 retribution, and Attila had recoiled before the shadow of the 
 great Name ; and the Gothic sword had compensated for its 
 irreverent violence, by triumphs, won in the name of Rome 
 in Southern Gaul and beyond the Pyrenees ; and Aetius 
 had once more wooed victory to the Roman eagles in the 
 " battle of the nations" upon the plains of Champagne. 
 
 Rome, therefore, though nolonger a living power, by the 
 terror of her memory, like the corpse of the Cid or the dead 
 Douglas, might still have opened a pathway through her ene- 
 mies on the battle-field. " It was Genseric," to borrow an 
 expression from a French writer, "who taught the nations to 
 know, by a language expressed in acts most terrible and most 
 intelligible, that the expiring lion has no longer claws, and 
 that a giant in swaddling-clothes (un geant en maillot) is 
 nothing more than an infant somewhat larger than the rest.'* 
 A corse in its winding-sheet would have been a fitter image ; 
 for the life and strength of Rome were gone, instead of 
 being as yet to be developed. The nations were not slow 
 to learn the lesson. Tlie Visigoths seized upon Spain and 
 Southern Gaul ; the Burgundians firmly planted them- 
 selves in her western and central districts ; the Franks 
 began to make themselves masters of the North. In Italy, 
 Ricimer, a barbarian, was for fifteen years master oi the 
 
THE EXPEDITION OF MAJORIAN. 883 
 
 situation, imposing and deposing Roman emperors at his 
 pleasure. These strange events have been recounted in their 
 proper place, and do not require repetition here. 
 
 Genseric, who paved the way for them all, upon his return 
 made himself master, as might have been expected, of the re- 
 mainder of Africa. He reigned as undisputed lord, from the 
 Straits of Gibraltar to the frontiers of Cyrenaica. But it was 
 mainly upon the Mediterranean that he now exerted his mili- 
 tary force ; for here was at once the last remaining support 
 of the Empire, and the best resource for carrying out his own 
 future designs. The timber of the Atlas, and the cunning 
 shipwrights of the African province, gave to the captors of 
 Home and Carthage an excellently equipped fleet, which 
 rendered them masters of the midland waters, and struck 
 terror into all the islands and cities on the coast which still 
 retained allegiance to the name of Rome. Avitus, who had 
 been seduced from peace and happiness in Auvergne to tlie 
 misery and peril of the imperial purple, was not the man to 
 organize resistance to such active enemies. It was in vain 
 that Majorian, his successor, after a romantic visit in disguise 
 to the capital of his enemy, attempted to descry the weak 
 points in his political position.* Upon his return to the 
 forces which he was amassing, he found that the deceit of 
 Genseric had been more deep and successful than his own. 
 It had tampered with his Gothic confederates ; and the 
 treachery of these men cost him his fleet. Majorian him- 
 self was but the puppet of Ricimer, as the Empire was the 
 plaything of the barbarous races. He fell by the hand 
 of an assassin, and at the command of Ricimer, near 
 Tortona, a.d. 461. Genseric, there can be little doubt, 
 subtle in policy as formidable in war, was more or less con- 
 cerned with all the barbarian movements by which the 
 domination of Rome was finally cast off", and Italy subjected 
 to the Northern sword. He intrigued with Attila and his 
 * Lecture V. p. 256. 
 
884 THE VANDALS. 
 
 Huns, as we have already seen ; he brought the Alani upon 
 Majorian while the latter was indulging in a vision of con- 
 quering Africa, and engaged in listening to the premature 
 congratulations of official flattery, which the pen of Sidonius 
 was ever ready to pour forth ; he pushed the Pannonian 
 Ostrogoths upon the Greek empire in 459 and 462, and 
 paralyzed thereby the political action of the Byzantine court 
 upon the West ; he comforted and abetted, if he did hot en- 
 tirely instigate, Euric, the Visigoth king, in his final defalca- 
 tion, which, in 473, stripped the Empire of all that remained 
 to it in Spain and in Gaul, of Provence, Auvergne, and Nar- 
 bonne. In the mean time, courted by Leo in the East, and 
 by Ricimer himself in the West, despite of several local 
 disasters, the necessary results of wide-spread and adven- 
 turous expeditions, he maintained the prestige of the Vandal 
 name, and assumed, perhaps, for a time, the position of the 
 most powerful potentate in the world. The peculiar genius 
 of the leader and his people, less distinguished for military 
 qualities than that of many among the new contemporaneous 
 nationalities, were there not such strong evidence to the 
 contrary, might almost tempt us to ascribe their origin to 
 the Slavic rather than the Teutonic stock. The war, for 
 instance, between the Franks and Romans upon the one 
 part, who were eager to avenge the assassination of Majo- 
 rian, and the Visigoths and Burgundians on the other, 
 who stood forth as the defenders of Ricimer, was fostered 
 by Vandal intrigue, and enabled Genseric to make himself 
 master both of Corsica and Sardinia. It nearly, also, 
 gave him Sicily, the necessary complement of his conquests, 
 and the great object of his ambitious designs ; for, now 
 that Alexandria and Carthage had been alienated, Sicily 
 alone could feed the Italian peninsula. The Italians them- 
 selves, wearied with the revolutions in the palace, which 
 were revived at the pleasure of one who was an Arian in 
 religion and a barbarian in blood, threw themselves, as a last 
 
DEFEAT OF THE BYZANTINE EXPEDITION. 385 
 
 resource, upon the emperor of the East, and requested him 
 to patronize and support an emperor who was connected 
 with his own court — Anthemius, grandson of that An- 
 themius who had administered affairs at Byzantium during 
 the minority of Theodosius the Youuger. Leo, therefore, 
 the Eastern emperor, flattered by the application, supported 
 the claims of Anthemius. Genseric naturally supported, or 
 more probably suggested, the candidateship of Olybrius, 
 not only because he could not tolerate any combination 
 between the East and West, but because, also, Olybrius was 
 the husband of Placidia, daughter of Yalentinian, whose 
 other daughter, Eudocia, had been married to Huneric, his 
 own son. These matters, however, have been already 
 narrated, with more minuteness, in a former lecture.* The 
 Vandal king commenced hostilities by his usual forays on 
 the coast. But the court of Constantinople had not yet 
 reached the military decrepitude of Rome. A menacing 
 embassy was sent to Carthage, which declared in express 
 terms to Genseric, that, if he did not desist, the united 
 forces of the two emperors would be directed against him. 
 Genseric still continued his opposition. A formidable 
 armament was collected to vindicate the majesty of what 
 was, for the last time, a combination of the forces, moral 
 and material, which once obeyed the summons of Rome. A 
 fleet of eleven hundred and thirteen galleys, an army of 
 one hundred and thirteen thousand men, sailed from Con- 
 stantinople to conquer Carthage, and expel the Vandals 
 from Africa. The means were assuredly more than suffi- 
 cient for the purpose. Sardinia and Tripoli at once suc- 
 cumbed. The array was close upon the capital. The 
 Vandal troops are described as demoralized in spirit and 
 greatly reduced in number. The Byzantine historian, in 
 the usual vainglorious style of his court, is certain that, had 
 BasiliscuS; the imperial general, advanced at once, the enemy 
 
 * See Lecture V. 
 2 c 
 
386 THE VANDALS. 
 
 must have been swept from land and sea ; but, by one of 
 those sudden and singular revolutions of fortune which 
 chai'acterize the history of these times, in a few hours all 
 is changed. Genseric obtains a truce for three days ; he 
 gets up a fleet of fireships, precipitates them upon the great 
 Koman armament, and assails them fiercely under cover of 
 the confusion. The immense armada, which had cost 
 130,000 lbs. of gold, is utterly scattered and destroyed, l:ke 
 its modern antitype, to which it has been frequently com- 
 pared. The success of Genseric is, of course, ascribed to 
 treason ; though, in this case, it is diflicult to fix upon the 
 traitor. Procopius makes no scruple of directly accusing 
 the commander, Basiliscus ; but no evidence is brought 
 forward which justifies such a charge. Basiliscus gallantly 
 clung to the wreck of his armament, and, after obtaining re- 
 inforcements, reappeared in the Sicilian waters, and avenged 
 himself by defeating a Vandal fleet. Idatius, the Spanish 
 chronicler, with more plausibility, ascribes the victory of the 
 Vandals to the treasonable complicity of Aspar and Arda- 
 burus, Arian Goths of distinction and high command in the 
 exi)edition. At this distance of time it is impossible to do 
 more than vaguely speculate upon the amount of sympathy 
 which identity in religion, and close communion in blood 
 and political interest, may have produced among the bar- 
 barians beneath the Koman banners and the enemy against 
 whom they were brought into the field. But whether with 
 or without assistance in the hostile camp, the Vandal king 
 evidently overreached his victorious foe, as he did once 
 before, when on the point of perishing in Spain. It is 
 not surprising, therefore, that ancient opinion should have 
 ascribed the successes of the Vandals to policy, meaning 
 thereby stratagem and deceit, rather than to valour in the 
 open combat. Not only were the Vandals saved for the 
 moment, but the recoil of its long-meditated blow was 
 nearly fatal to the Eastern court. Genseric united himself 
 
TEEATY WITH THE GREEK EMPEROR. 38'7 
 
 « 
 
 with tlie Ostrogoth chieftains, who, by a sudden coup, nearly- 
 made themselves masters of Constantinople. The capital, 
 however, was saved from the Goths by the same Basil- 
 iscus who has been accused of conspiring with 
 them. But he and the emperor Leo were alto- 
 gether incompetent to arrest the progress of the Vandal 
 ravages elsewhere. In Italy, the long crumbling relics of 
 the fabric of imperial power at last collapsed. On the 
 23rd of August, 476, Odoacer placed his foot upon the 
 steps of the throne, and proclaimed to the world that the 
 Empire of Rome had passed away. Leo died at Constan- 
 tinople in hopeless depression : nothing was left for his 
 successor Zeno but to make peace with the Yandals, who 
 were ravaging the coasts of Epirus, and had sacked Nicopolis. 
 The terms of the treaty remain. We will give them*, because 
 they explain the limits and power of the Vandal kingdom 
 at what may be regarded the period of its highest prosperity. 
 The Vandals were to remain masters of all Northern Africa, 
 from the frontiers of Cyrenaica to the shores of the Atlantic 
 Ocean : the Balearic isles, Sicily, Corsica, and Sardinia, were 
 to be theirs : perpetual peace was henceforth to subsist 
 between the Eastern emperors and the Vandal king : an « 
 amicable arrangement between the courts of Constantinople 
 and Carthage should determine all claims based upon the 
 dowry of Eudocia, wife of Huneric, and all possible disputes 
 arising out of the commercial relations of the two countries. 
 A fair and strong dominion, a brilliant political prospect ! 
 and yet, in a few years, not only the Vandal dominion, 
 but the civilization of Northern Africa, had passed away 
 from the face of the earth.* The treaty was managed on 
 the part of the Eastern emperor by Severus, a man whose 
 virtues were worthy of the ancient days of Kome. To the 
 respect inspired by his personal character must be ascribed 
 
 * Procopius, Bell. Yand. i. 7. 
 2 C 2 
 
388 THE VANDALS. 
 
 the favourable terms obtained for the Catholic clergy from 
 such an unpromising negotiator as the Vandal king. The 
 churches were reopened ; the bishops recalled ; the captives 
 permitted to return to Italy, upon payment of a stipulated 
 ransom. Genseric pressed barbaric presents upon the noble- 
 minded ambassador. " The only gift I can consistently with 
 my duty accept," was the reply, " is the permission to redeem 
 from slavery, at my own expense, my countrymen who have 
 been made captive by the sword." 
 
 Henceforward the brief annals of the Vandal race are 
 simply a tale of disaster and decay. The great, though 
 savage and remorseless mind, which had given organization 
 to the rude elements of barbaric strength existing in his 
 tribe, and breathed into that tribe the wonderful spirit, 
 undefinable in words, which is a national life, was now about 
 to pass away, and none other arose to supply its place. If 
 individual genius could create nationality, the genius of 
 Genseric might perhaps have achieved the task. Of the great 
 Theban* commander who fought at Leuctra and Man tinea, 
 it has been said, that he made the glory of his country by 
 his life, and destroyed it by his death ; that 
 
 ** her warlike pride 
 Eose by his aiin, and perish 'd at his side." 
 
 Of Genseric,, king of the Vandals, the same assertion may 
 be made, in a sense still more emphatic and complete. 
 When he assumed the supremacy, the Vandals were sur- 
 rounded by powerful enemies, enfeebled by their devotion 
 to the pursuits of peace, in an age and in a country 
 where war and the arts of war were everywhere para- 
 mount j nor could they adopt the ordinary expedient 
 of barbarian tribes when hard pressed by famine or the 
 sword. Migration was impossible. Europe had been 
 already traversed ; no more unravaged lands lay before 
 them j the broad waters of the Mediterranean, as they 
 
DEATH OF GEXSERIC. 339 
 
 washed up against tlie Spanish shores, interposed a barrier 
 to their further progress, and denied them a refuge from 
 the vengeance alike of their natural enemy and their 
 hereditary rival, — the Roman and the Goth. . But at the 
 death of their daring and successful leader, the Yandals 
 were lords of a dominion which promised to assume a posi- 
 tion among the great powers of the world : they had beaten 
 the Roman in Spain, and supplanted him in his favourite 
 province of Africa; they had, for the moment, far outstripped 
 the Goth in the race for political power and consolida- 
 tion which had now arisen among the new barbarian 
 nationalities ; they had set their foot upon the neck of the 
 imperial mistress of the earth ; they had sacked Rome, scared 
 Byzantium, despite of her impregnable position j scattered her 
 armaments, and swept the Mediterranean. Yet, within a few 
 years, these traditions were disgraced, the brilliant promise 
 falsified, and this solid power shattered into fragments which 
 were never again to unite. Genseric died January 
 25th, 477. Like Augustus, he desired to secure the 
 .stability of the fabric of his own creation by the testamentary 
 provisions of his will. With one only of these we are ac- 
 quainted, and its wisdom, though intended to remedy an 
 acknowledged evil, is perhaps open to dispute. As we shall 
 see, in reviewing the history of the Merovingian and Carlo- 
 vingian Franks, the common practice among the barbarians 
 of dividing an inheritance between the existing male chil- 
 dren of the deceased, was a fruitful source of rivalry, 
 bloodshed, and political weakness. Genseric devised a some- 
 what singular remedy for the mischief produced by this 
 practice. He determined, by his last testament, that the 
 eldest male member of the royal family for the time being 
 should always sit upon the Vandal throne.'"" Thus, if the 
 brothers of Huneric, the elder son, were disappointed of 
 
 * Procopius, Bell. "Vanrl. i. 7. 
 
390 THE YANDALS. 
 
 the usual share in the royal heritage upon their father's 
 death, they were consoled by the reflection, that at the death 
 of Huneric himself, they would supplant his sons by the right 
 of seniority. The consequences may be easily conjectured. 
 Huneric contrived to make away with most of the heirs 
 who would inherit on this principle, in favour of his own 
 child Hilderic ; and so " thorough " were his measures, that 
 Hilderic eventually succeeded to the throne without dis- 
 pute, though entirely Grecized by education and long resi- 
 dence in Constantinople, and more than suspected of a 
 leaning to the dogma of Athanasius, 
 
 The history of the Yandal decadence under the succes- 
 sors of Genseric is not pleasant to contemplate or to 
 relate. As the constitution of an individual distinguished 
 for great physical strength, rapidly deteriorates when his 
 previous exertions are relaxed, so it often is with the 
 military strength of nations. The Vandals, perpetually 
 fighting battles upon the Mediterranean waters, swooping 
 upon the provinces of both empires, laying siege to cities, 
 and defeating the armies sent to relieve them, resembled a 
 victorious athlete in the full perfection of his training and 
 his powers. But the same Vandals, sunk in the lap of 
 Carthaginian luxury, amid the meretricious allurements of 
 that civilization which they once had deemed it their special 
 mission to destroy, debased by the passion for spectacle, by 
 the soft^and splendid clothing, the rich viands, the wines, 
 and the courtesans of Eome, may be compared to the athlete 
 who has quitted the arena for a life of profligate indulgence 
 and debauchery.* Both illustrate the old maxim, " Corrup- 
 
 * It is thus that Procopius describes the new-born luxury of the 
 Vandals : — 'E^ orov Ai[3vriv i(Txov, jSaXavdoig re oi trvfiTravTiQ 
 iTTtxP^VTO iQ UdaTriv t)fxkpav, Kai rpuTrs^y uTraciv TrXrjOovffy, cxra 
 0/) ytj TS Kai QaXaaaa 7]di(TTct re Kal dpitrra ^spei. 'Expv<TO(}>6povv 
 dk wg STTi TrXfXcTTOv Kai MrjdiKi^v t(j9r\Ta rjv vvv "ErjpiKriv KaXovmv 
 dfiTrexofifvoi, ky re Oedrpoig Kai 'nrTodpofxloig Kai ry aWy eviraOeit^^ 
 
THEODOEIC COMPAEED WITH GENSEEIC. 391 
 
 tio optimi est pessima." The great military activity of 
 the nation which, under Genseric, had battled for fifty years 
 against Rome, sank suddenly into inaction, and none of its 
 leaders had the wisdom to launch their warriors once more 
 into a new sphere of activity. This is the more remarkable, 
 because such a sphere might have been found at their very 
 doors, and subsequently was found by the perspicacious genius, 
 of Justinian or his generals. The restless and turbulent tribes 
 of the Moors had been a thorn in the side of the Roman 
 , empire, and they continued to be a thorn in the side of the 
 Vandal kings. Yet the latter failed to see the immense 
 advantage to be gained, moral as well as political, by the 
 prosecution of sustained operations against them, and the 
 erection of forts upon their frontier. There was yet another 
 cause which materially contributed to the rapid decadence 
 of the Vandal power. The frightful disputes, or, indeed, 
 the actual conflicts between the Arian and orthodox parties 
 in the Church, rent the very vitals of the state, and brought 
 about its dismemberment. It is natural to contrast the 
 policy of Genseric in this respect with that of the gi^eat 
 Italian Ostrogoth, Theodoricj nor can we contemplate the 
 two without pronouncing a judgment in favour of the 
 latter. Both were Arian princes, both had to deal with a 
 strong Catholic element in their newly-organized empire. 
 But Theodoric had the more difficult task, for he was 
 involved in personal relations with the metropolis of 
 Catholic Christendom, and had the all-powerful prestige of 
 Rome for his antagonist. Only ten years were left to the 
 successors of Theodoric to carry out his policy and consoli- 
 date their power, before they were assailed by the whole 
 force of the Eastern empire ; more than half a century 
 
 Kai 7rdvT<t)v iiakiara Kvvrjy^rioigy rag diaTpi(3dg Ittoiovvto. Kal 
 (Ttpicriv opxtlOTal Kal fxifiot aKovafxaTci re avxva Kai QiajxcLTOiv oaa 
 fiovaiKo. T€ Kai a^io9'eaTa kv dvOpuTroig KvfJijSaivei elvai. — JBell. 
 Vand. i. 6. 
 
392 THE VANDALS. 
 
 elapsed between tlie death of Genseric and the appearance 
 of Belisarius upon the African shores. Yet, despite of its 
 distant situation, its special advantages, and accumulated 
 means of defence, the "Vandal kingdom and its Arian church 
 were overthrown by the Greeks in the short space of three 
 months, while it took the same Greeks twenty years to 
 eradicate the Ostrogoths from Italy. Fanaticism, we may 
 gather from Salvian and others, was a prominent feature in 
 the national character of the Vandals. " Against whom are 
 we to go ]" said some of his officers to Genseric, when start- 
 ing upon an expedition. " Against those with whom God 
 is wroth," was the reply." In the spirit of fanatics, they 
 accepted their mission, to slay, burn, and destroy, as the 
 instruments of God's vengeance to punish the crimes of 
 Rome ; in the same spirit they appear to have undertaken 
 an Arian propagandism which brought them into contact 
 with a power more mighty than their own, and, chafing at 
 opposition, their zeal attained a fervour which rendered 
 them incapable of toleration, charity, policy, or forethought ; 
 and they fell, as they deserved to fall. There was this 
 excuse for their blindness. The fall of the empire of the 
 West seemed doubtless, in their eyes, to involve the fall of 
 Latin Christianity. The Burgundians, the Visigoths, the 
 Ostrogoths, the Sueves, were, like themselves, partisans of 
 Arius. The Frankish battle-axe had not yet become arbiter 
 of the destinies of Italy, and the ignominious defeat of the 
 great Byzantine armada removed even the remotest appre- 
 hension of peril coming from the East. Yet it was from 
 the East that the storm broke upon them, and they were 
 utterly unable to protect themselves against its fury. With 
 a brief glance at its coming, and its effects, we must close 
 this lecture, Huneric succeeded his father 
 'in the year 476 : he sat upon the Vandal 
 throne until the close of 484. The incidents of his 
 * Procopius, Bell. Vand. i. 5. 
 
HUNERIC iriXG. 393 
 
 reign may briefly be summed up. The quarrels and con- 
 flicts of the reigning family, the persecution of the Catholics, 
 the increasing brigandage of the Moors, exhibit the feebleness 
 of tlie government, and the gradually deteriorating condi- 
 tion of the people. The negotiations with the court of Con- 
 stantinople, consequent upon the treaty already mentioned, 
 prepared the way for the interference of the strong and politic 
 Justinian in African affairs. The provision made by Gen- 
 seric in his will, insured assassination, or murder disguised 
 imder legal forms, for all possible claimants of the throne. 
 Accordingly, Huneric almost immediately proceeded to make 
 away with his sister-in-law, his nephews, and many other 
 members of his family; nor was the sanguinary process stayed 
 except by his own decease. With respect to the hostility 
 and gradual encroachments of the Moors, we have information 
 which shows the singular uniformity subsisting through all 
 ages in the character of those wild tribes ; in their way of 
 life, and method of warfare. Assailing their enemy simul- 
 taneously at several points, and always falling back before 
 serious and solidly-organized resistance, they wearied out 
 the Yandals by years of this intangible warfare, and pushed 
 their conquests so far, that the later rulers of the latter 
 nation w^ere in danger of seeing their dominion confined to 
 the old proconsular province. With the Catholics, the earlier 
 relations of Huneric had been exceedingly amicable. He 
 permitted them to re-open their churches, to celebrate 
 divine service in accordance with their own ritual, and even 
 to elect a metropolitan bishop of Carthage. But he was 
 resolute in his refusal to permit proselytism among his own 
 subjects. The Catholic clergy were as resolute in their 
 endeavours to attempt it ; and hence arose a conflict of 
 persecution on the one side, and of unyielding defiance on the 
 other, which, as has been already said, insured the success of 
 Belisarius when he appeared as the champion of Catholic 
 rights against Arian injustice and oppression. One curious 
 
394 THE VANDALS. 
 
 feature in the contest affords a graphic picture of the times. 
 The Vandal king forbade his subjects to enter the Catholic 
 churches j he strictly prohibited Catholic ministers from 
 receiving within their walls an individual clad in the Vandal 
 garb. The Catholics replied, that all garbs were admissible 
 into the house of God, and that, so far as they were con- 
 cerned, none should be excluded. The king rejoined by 
 placing soldiers at the entrance of the churches, armed with 
 a long pole terminated by an iron comb. When a wor- 
 shipper approaciied clad in the Vandal garb, and wearing 
 the long hair which ^vas still the cherished indication of free 
 Teutonic blood, he was assailed by the sentinel, and his hair 
 torn out by the roots with this formidable implement.* 
 
 The measures of Huneric did not stop here. When 
 making his concessions to the Catholics at the instance of 
 of his sister-in-law Placidia, and Zeno, the Eastern emperor, 
 he had not unreasonably stipulated for the accordance of 
 similar privileges to the Arians in the dominions of the 
 latter. These concessions Zeno was either unwilling or 
 unable to ratify. Exasperated by what he considered the 
 unfair dealing of his Catholic rival, and the insolent pre- 
 tensions of his own Catholic subjects, Genseric closed their 
 churches and banished five thousand of them among the 
 Moors. The edict, addressed in Latin, by " Hunerix, Rex 
 Vandalorum et Alanorum," to "all the nations subject to 
 his authority," against the " Homoousioi," or Athanasian 
 Catholics, still exists, and is one of the most important and 
 interesting documents of its class. The churches of the 
 Catholics were shut up, their worship prohibited, their 
 ecclesiastical property confiscated, and their metropolitan, 
 with his bishops, banished to Corsica or the most barbarous 
 districts of the African mainland. This edict was 
 * to take effect in the middle of the year 484. 
 Huneric died in the following September, " eaten of worms," 
 * Victor Vitensis, ii. 14. 
 
PERSECUTION OF THE CATHOLICS. 395 
 
 and recalling to the orthodox sufferers under his persecution, 
 
 the fate of S jlla and the blaspheming king of the Jews. They 
 
 might well be excused for imagining a special intervention of 
 
 Providence in their behalf During the last few months of 
 
 the tyrant's reign, all the apparatus of pagan persecution had 
 
 been revived against them ; the scourges of steel wire, the 
 
 horrible iron pincers and knives, the plates of heated metal, 
 
 even the wild beasts of the amphitheatre. The executioner 
 
 and the Arian priest were everywhere : gibbets and crosses 
 
 lined the roads. Gundamund, who succeeded to the throne, 
 
 materially modified these tyrannical ordinances. Throughout 
 
 his reign, and that of the two monarchs who followed him, 
 
 the Catholics, though still regarded with jealousy, once more 
 
 regained the exercise of their privileges. In the 
 
 AD 487 
 year 487, we find deliberations held at Borne 
 
 upon the conduct of those who had lapsed under Arian 
 persecution. The Roman Church, with that rigidity ot 
 practice and inexorable will which has been so long the 
 secret of her triumphs, visited the guilty with the severest 
 retribution. A life-long penance alone could obtain com- 
 munion for ecclesiastics upon their death-bed. The laity 
 were treated with proportionate sternness. Such were the 
 means by which Rome finally subdued Arianism, and has 
 since subdued so many scarce less formidable foes. Her 
 whole history has been an illustration of this policy. Is it 
 likely she should change it now 1 
 
 The reign of Gundamund, which lasted until 496, and that 
 of Trasamund, which lasted until 523, present 
 no special subjects of interest, except so far * ' 
 as the relations of these monarchs with the Ostrogoths 
 assist us to understand what is otherwise unintelligible ; 
 how, namely, the Yandals of Africa suffered a kindred 
 people to perish in Italy by the sword of a common enemy, 
 and so paved the way for their own destruction. Trasa- 
 mund, the Vandal ruler, had married Amalafreda, the sister 
 
396 THE VANDALS. 
 
 of Theodoric, the great Ostrogoth king of Italy. TJi)ou her 
 husband's death, Amalafreda, a woman of haughty and 
 ambitious spirit, and intolerant of a private station, con- 
 spired against Hilderic, the new king, who had seized the 
 throne in agreement with the testamentary regulation of 
 the founder of the dynasty. The authority of Genseric, and 
 his royal blood, which ran in Hilderic's veins, were too 
 strong for the alien queen. Her party were routed, she 
 herself was pursued into exile, captured, and imprisoned. 
 While Theodoric lived, his world-wide fame and influence 
 protected his sister ; but immediately upon his death, the 
 unfortunate Gothic princess was brought forth from prison 
 and beheaded. A large number of the nobility of her 
 nation, who had accompanied her to Africa upon her mar- 
 riage, shared her fate. The effusion of so much Gothic 
 blood awakened the ire and indignation of their kinsmen 
 beyond the seas. Nothing but the want of a fleet pre- 
 vented the Ostrogoths from taking immediate vengeance. 
 Bat the cruel wrong rankled in their hearts ; and when 
 Justinian meditated his fatal blow against the Vandal 
 empire, he received valuable counsel, refuge for his fleets, 
 and the material aid of an excellent cavalry, from the very 
 men whose union with their compatriots of German origin 
 might have foiled his carefully-planned enterprise. 
 
 But it is time to speak of the causes from which 
 this enterprise more directly sprang. Hilderic, grandson 
 of Genseric, was educated, as has been said, at Constan- 
 tinople. There he had acquired Greek tastes, and was 
 honoured by the friendship of Justinian. This, indeed, 
 recommended him but little to his compatriots, for Jus- 
 tinian was the sworn enemy of all heretics in general, 
 and of Arians in particular. JS'oth withstanding this, his 
 grandfather's name obtained for him the throne. It could 
 not secure it for him : for this, personal qualities were 
 needed which he did not possess. He hated the mention of 
 
GELIMER USUEPS THE THRONE. 39 r 
 
 anything connected with warfare ; he was said to shiver at 
 the clash of arms. His campaigns were, therefore, vicariously 
 carried on by a general whom common report designated as 
 the Achilles of the Vandals. The Vandal Achilles, how- 
 ever, did not justify his name, and was shamefully defeated 
 by the Moors. Gelimer, a brave and skilful leader, was, on 
 the Vandal principles of inheritance, heir-apparent to the 
 throne. He took advantage of the occasion, led his troops 
 against the victors, and avenged the dishonour of the Vandal 
 arms. His soldiers proclaimed him king upon the field of 
 battle. He soon practically asserted his authority by im- 
 prisoning Hilderic, and taking possession of the 
 seat of government. Justinian, indignant at the de- 
 position of his early friend and complacent ally, immediately 
 dispatched a menacing embassy to Carthage, demanding his 
 restoration. The embassy was treated with neglect; but 
 Justinian was, as yet, unprepared for war, and tried the 
 effect of a second message, in which he requested that 
 Gelimer and his two nephews should be sent to Constanti- 
 nople. Geli-mer haughtily answered, "that the Vandal 
 nation had deposed Hilderic, in the undoubted exercise of 
 its right ; that he himself had occupied the throne as its- 
 legitimate heir; and that if the Greek violated the treaty 
 which Zeno had concluded, he and his people would know 
 how to defend their rights." Justinian was infuriated, and 
 at once resolved on war. His councillors by no means par- 
 ticipated in their master's zeal, and Procopius, to whom we 
 owe the whole narrative, records the arguments for and 
 against the invasion of Africa, with a minuteness very in- 
 teresting at a period, which, like the present, is so frequently 
 occupied with kindred topics. But we must pass them over. 
 A dream which visited Justinian, really or in pretence, and 
 the more substantial assistance afforded by the treason of 
 Godas, governor of Sardinia, overcame the scruples of the 
 emperor's advisers, and brought affairs to a crisis. The 
 
398 THE VANDALS. 
 
 illustrious Belisarins, already distinguished in Persian war- 
 fare, was appointed to command the new armament. It was 
 composed of ten thousand infantry and five thousand cavaliy. 
 A fleet of five hundred vessels and twenty thousand mari- 
 ners conveyed this army to the shores of Africa, at the very 
 spot where Caesar had landed upon his African expedition, — 
 a place called Caputvada, on the confines of the provinces of 
 Byzacene and Tripolitana. This place was selected because 
 the last-mentioned district had lately been acquired from the 
 Vandals by the revolt of a Roman officer, and offered a secure 
 retreat upon Cyrenaica and Eg}"pt, in case of disaster. Pro- 
 copius, who was secretary to the general, was, it seems, 
 determined by another dream, in which he beheld men 
 carrying earth and the flowers it bore into the palace of 
 Belisarius, to accompany the favourite of fortune to the war.* 
 His account of the expedition affords us an insight into the 
 character and constitution of what still was called a Boman 
 army. Under the old eagles had now crowded the various 
 populations of the world, — Greeks, Germans, Sarmatians, and 
 Orientals ; the Goth, with his long lance and formidable 
 broad-sword ; the Alani, covered from head to foot with 
 curious mail, formed of bones, and resembling scale-armour j 
 the riders of the Asiatic desert, swarthy, mis-shapen Huns, 
 and Parthians, wielders of the far-famed Parthian bow ; the 
 Syrians, bearing ponderous maces of iron, which crushed 
 helm and cuirass at a stroke; the Armenians, with their 
 broad bucklers, and sabres of double edge, which seem to have 
 resembled the modern yataghan. The maintenance of disci- 
 pline among such an heterogeneous army, and their judicious 
 combination in action, a task greater than that achieved by 
 Alexander, by Caesar, or even by Hannibal, is no small 
 proof of the moral courage and military genius of Belisarius. 
 Before quitting the Dardanelles, he hung up two Huns 
 mast high, who, in a drunken fit, had murdered a comrade, 
 * Bell. Vand. i. 12. 
 
JUSTINIAN INVADES AFRICA. 399 
 
 and when their savage and irritable countrymen showed 
 symptoms of insubordination, he assembled the whole army, 
 and addressed them in an admirable speech. " You see," he 
 said, " what has been the punishment of these ruffians. For 
 my own part, I am determined to do my duty. But I will 
 permit no man, though he be the bravest warrior of the 
 army, to carry into battle against the enemy hands which are 
 not pure and innocent of crime. Valour which is not ac- 
 companied by justice cannot possibly be victorious."* To 
 these principles, thus boldly proclaimed, he inflexibly ad- 
 hered, and to them he owed his very singular success. 
 
 On the 22nd of September, three months after their 
 quitting Constantinople, the armament first landed 
 upon the African continent. It was immediately 
 directed upon Carthage. A small place named Syllectum 
 was captured by the advanced guard ; and here Belisarins 
 had the opportunity of jDroclaiming to the people of the 
 province, that he came not as their enemy, but as their 
 liberator from the tyranny of the Vandals. The excellent 
 discipline observed by the invading force, and the presence 
 of the fleet upon their right flank, rendered it easy for 
 them to advance as far as Decimum, about ten miles from 
 Carthage. Here was some difficult ground ; a defile, salt 
 marshes, and hills of moderate elevation, running inward 
 from the coast. At this spot Gelimer had made his arrange- 
 ments to cut his enemies to pieces, or drive them into the 
 sea. Three corps d'armee, headed by himself and his 
 brothers, were intended to assail them at different points. 
 But the excellent dispositions of Belisarius, who had pro- 
 tected his front and flank with chosen troops, and the 
 accidental delays which almost always occur in movements so 
 concerted, frustrated the plans of Gelimer, and caused the dis- 
 comfiture of the two divisions commanded by his brothers. 
 The dead body of Ammatas was left upon the field, and 
 * Bell. Yand. i. 12. 
 
400 THE VANDALS. 
 
 John the Armenian, with the Greek vanguard, chased the 
 Vandal fugitives to the gates of Carthage. Gelimer, how- 
 ever, himself, with the maio body, obtained some success, — a 
 success so alarming to Procopius, that he does not hesitate 
 to say, that Belisarius and all his army were on the verge of 
 destruction, and that the subsequent defeat of Gelimer is 
 solely to be ascribed to the judicial blindness which pre- 
 vented him from availing himself of his advantage.* " Quern 
 Deus vult perdere prius dementat," he repeats, with more 
 piety than confidence in the genius of his commander. But 
 Belisarius, with his main body, had not yet been engaged ; 
 they were strongly posted in a fortified camp ; they were 
 animated with an excellent spirit ; and their comrades had 
 been already victorious. There is no reason, humanly 
 speaking, to believe that they would have been beaten ; 
 and it is surely more reasonable to ascribe the result to the 
 general government of the God of battles, than to claim 
 any special intervention on their behalf. The Vandals, at 
 any rate, were seized with panic, and fell back, not upon 
 their capital, but in the direction of Numidia. Carthage 
 lay exposed to the invader. It was night when Belisarius 
 reached the gates, and the inhabitants were prepared with 
 torches to welcome him into the streets ; but, dreading a 
 surprise, he bivouacked outside the walls. On the morrow, 
 the festival of St. Cyprian, the patron saint of Carthage, 
 Belisarius, the representative of Bome and the champion of 
 Catholic Christianity, amid the thundering acclamations of 
 the inhabitants, passed through the capital of Africa, and 
 the central seat of Arian power, ascended the Palatium, 
 and seated himself in Gelimer's royal throne. At the same 
 moment, the Eoman fleet was seen to double Cape Carthage, 
 whence it passed onward to cast anchor in the Tunisian lake, 
 •which formed the spacious harbour of the town.f 
 
 The capital was in the hands of the Greeks, who checked 
 * Bell. Vaad. i. 19. f Ibid. i. 21. 
 
DEFEAT OF GELIMER. 401 
 
 pillage, and behaved with studied moderation. But the 
 Vandal king was naturally determined to strike another blow 
 for his empire and his faith. He recalled Tsason, his brother, 
 who had been dispatched to reduce the rebel Godas, and col- 
 lected tlie whole force of his nation for a final effort, about 
 three months after the capture of Carthage, and in the middle 
 of December.* The battle which decided the fate of Africa 
 was fought at a spot called Tricameron. on the banks of a 
 small perennial rivulet, about eighteen miles from Carthage. 
 Procopius gives us all particulars, and, after the approved 
 manner of the ancients, reports verbatim the speeches of 
 Gelimer and his brother. They contain the stock argu- 
 ments and exhortations proper for such an occasion, and are 
 only remarkable for the statement of the king, that his 
 troops were ten times more numerous than those of his 
 enemy. As this would increase their number to something 
 considerably beyond one hundred thousand men, we must 
 suspect an exaggeration, either on the part of Gelimer, to 
 sustain the confidence of his soldiers, or on that of Procopius, 
 to magnify the exploits of his countrymen. The battle was 
 at first bravely disputed : Tsason repelled three several 
 times the cavalry, who charged again and again under John 
 the Armenian. A last effort, supported by the lancers who 
 formed the body-guard of Belisarius, was successful. The 
 heroic Tsason was left dead on the field ; the whole Yandal 
 front gave way, and the army took refuge in the imperfectly- 
 intrenched camp, where they had placed their women and 
 treasures. But by this time the Greek infantry had crossed 
 the rivulet, and advanced with steady and serried front be- 
 hind the victorious horsemen of the Armenian. At the sight, 
 Gelimer lost heart ; he mounted his horse, and, without any 
 communication with his officers, fled from the field and the 
 doomed fortunes of his people. When no orders came from 
 the royal tent, and the king could nowhere be found, the 
 * Procopius, Bell. Vand. ii. 3. 
 2 D 
 
402 THE VANDALS. 
 
 Vandal camp was thrown into confusion and dismay. Re- 
 sistance was at once abandoned ; the soldiers iied in all 
 directions ; and the army of Belisarius won, without further 
 conflict, the accumulated treasures which the Vandals had 
 carried with them from Carthage, but had lacked the courage 
 to defend. The historian speaks with astonishment of the 
 gold and the silver, the wealth and splendour of the spoils 
 which so many years of successful plunder had torn from 
 every province of the Empire to adorn the barbaric homes 
 of these northern pirates. The conquerors were intoxicated 
 with their good fortune, and became so utterly disorganized 
 in the pursuit of hidden riches, or beauty, that, had the 
 enemy returned, they might have been slaughtered to a 
 man. For five days and nights, John thie Armenian pur- 
 sued the fugitive king. Unhappily, this gallant cavalry officer 
 met the fate of the Red King in the New Forest, being 
 accidentally pierced by an arrow which had been discharged 
 at a bird. His death and the consequent delay saved Gelimer 
 for the time, and enabled him to take refiige in the inacces- 
 sible sierras which surround Hippona, the modern town of 
 Bona. Belisarius, who had followed him thus far, deter- 
 mined to return to Carthage, in order to reduce the outlying 
 islands and provinces of the Vandal empire. This sojourn at 
 Hippona, however, had not been unprofitable ; for he contrived 
 to capture there many Vandal nobles, and all the treasures 
 which Gelimer had intrusted to Boniface for transmission 
 into Spain, whither, as to the land of his fathers, he seems 
 to have meditated a return. Besieged by Pharas, an officer 
 of Belisarius, with several of his nobles, among the Mauri- 
 tanian mountains, he endured the bitterest privations. Pharas 
 offered to him terms, which are worth notice, because they 
 disclose the character of the Greek court and the policy of 
 the Greek empire. The emperor, it was suggested, would 
 confer upon him the dignity of Patrician, give him some 
 distingushed office about his own person, and a handsome pen- 
 
GELIMER AT CONSTANTINOPLE. 403 
 
 sion, guaranteed upon property in land. It was not, however, 
 without enduring still bitterer humiliation in his own person, 
 and witnessing the cruel sufferings of the women and young 
 children, that Gelimer at last surrendered. He was trans- 
 ported to Carthage, and received there by Belisarius, 
 March, 5 34. It isrelated that the captive prince burst 
 into laughter upon being introduced to the Roman general ; 
 but it is not easy to say whether the laugh proceeded from 
 the aberration of an overtaxed intellect, or from a sudden 
 sense of his own folly, the mockery of fortune, and the 
 instability of all human things. Belisarius was recalled, 
 as is well known, by the mean jealousy of Justinian ; but 
 he bore with him to Constantinople the once formidable 
 king and nobility of a conquered empire, crowds of captives, 
 and cartloads of treasure. The city of Constantine had 
 supplanted her great western rival, had far surpassed her in 
 the beauties of nature, in the advantages of situation, in the 
 elaborate creations of art ; — but one thing was wanting, — 
 the long glories of the Triumph, as it swept up the Sacred 
 Way, and scaled the steps of the Capitol, graced by the 
 treasures of vanquished nations and the forms of their 
 fettered kings, and accompanied by the pealing acclamations 
 of a great people, — these things had been the imperial 
 dower of Rome ; but, as yet, they had been denied to the 
 professed inheritress of her traditions and her power. It 
 was, therefore, with no common exultation that the Greek 
 beheld the mimic pageant of Belisarius pass on its way 
 through the streets of Constantinople, from the barriers of 
 the Hippodrome to the gorgeous throne erected for Justinian 
 and Theodora. Nor was the procession unsuited to recall 
 the ancient pomp of the old heroic days — the more sub- 
 stantial trophies which commemorated the victories of the 
 Republican generals or the Caesars of the Empire. There 
 were to be seen the riches which Genseric had rifled from 
 Carthage, from Rome herself, and from many a subject 
 2 D 2 
 
401 THE VANDALS. 
 
 l.irovince ; thrones of gold ; chariots once elaborately adorned 
 for the service of imperial ladies ; glittering heaps of jewels ; 
 golden vases, and all the massive plate which had passed 
 from Italian palaces to palaces of equal splendour beyond 
 the seas ; even the sacred vessels which Vespasian and Titus 
 had transported from Jerusalem to Eome. Kor was there 
 wanting the more august spectacle of a captive king, who, 
 clad in a robe of scarlet, and accompanied by his kinsmen, 
 repeated from time to time, yet without sigh or tear, the 
 words of bitter experience wrung from the lips of the 
 Hebrew sage — " Yanity of vanities : all is vanity." The 
 degradation reached its extremest depth, when the unfor- 
 tunate prince arrived at the elevated platform upon which 
 the emperor was seated, by the side of the royal harlot who 
 shared and disgraced his dignity. There he was stripped of 
 his scarlet robe, and compelled to prostrate himself before 
 a throne upon the steps of which his own heroic ancestor 
 had almost placed his foot.* 
 
 This may be regarded as the closing scene of Vandal 
 history. The king, unwilling to renounce his Arian pro- 
 fession, found no favour in the eyes of Justinian, and was 
 refused the dignities which had been promised at his capitu- 
 lation. The people, drafted into the Greek army, and em- 
 ployed in the perilous Persian campaigns, were gradually 
 consumed by the exigencies of war. The few who remained 
 behind in Africa joined in the formidable revolt of the 
 mercenaries, who, at the instigation, as is supposed, of the 
 Vandal women with whom they had formed a connection 
 proclaimed themselves independent of the Empire, and 
 asserted a right to the lands which they had conquered with 
 their swords. But upon the suppression of the revolt, even 
 this remnant was expelled, with all the Vandal women 
 found in the country. Never was a national extermination 
 more complete. Modern travellers have imagined that 
 * Procopius, Bell. Vand. ii. 9. 
 
EXTERMINATION OF THE VANDALS. 405 
 
 traces of tlie unfortunate Vandal race may be discovered 
 among the Berbers and otlier fair-skinned tribes which 
 inhabit part of the Moorish territory ; the eye occasionally 
 discerns among the swarthy African troops of France a face 
 which seems to indicate a remote Teutonic origin ; but the 
 test of language fails to support any such ethnological theory. 
 The white skin of Europe, and the light-coloured eye, are 
 found in the Ethiopian highlands, as well as upon the upper 
 ridges of the Mauritanian Atlas. The Yandal who left the 
 land of his adoption in the vessels of Belisarius, might have 
 truly sung the plaintive song of the Gael : — 
 
 " Cha till, cha till, cha till sin tuile." 
 We return, we return, we return no more. 
 
LECTURE Till. 
 
 THE ROMAN PROVINCE OF GAUL— THE BURGUNDIANS 
 —THE VISIGOTHS— THE FRANKS. 
 
 " Gallia, Italia verius quam provincia." 
 
 Pliny, Hist. Nat. ill. 4. 
 " Laudantem tetrico subinde vultu, 
 Quod Burgundio cantat esculentus, 
 Infundens acido comatn butyro." 
 
 Sid. Apoll., Carmen xii. 5—7. 
 " In Rhodanum proprios producere fines 
 Theudoridae fixum, nee erat pugnare necesse 
 Sed raigrare Getis." 
 
 Sid. Apoll., Pan. Aviti, v. 301—303. 
 " Mitis depone caput, Sicamber : adora quod incendisti, incende quod 
 ador&sti." — St. Remi, ap«(i Greg. Tur. ii. 34. 
 
 Synopsis. — Ethnology of France. — Celts, Greeks, Romans, Germans. 
 — Gaul completely Latinized by the Roman conquest : its unfortunate 
 condition ; alleviated by the Church. — Great inroad of Germans, 
 A.D. 406. The Burgukdians : their history and character. — The 
 Visigoths : foundation of their kingdom in Gaul ; its history ; a per- 
 sonal sketch of its king Theodoric, by Sidonius. — Desire of the Visigoths 
 to restore the Empire in their own name; finally succumb to the 
 Fkanks. — Origin of the Franks ; description of them by Sidonius ; 
 their early relations with the Roman empire. — Merovius and the 
 Merovingians ; their political character. — Clovis ; his baptism, wars, 
 and conquests ; subdues Burgundians and Visigoths ; is made Roman 
 patrician. — The matters principally to be remembered in Merovingian 
 history. — The great Austrasian and Neustrian schism. — The Australians 
 attempt to grasp the whole power in their own hands ; they succeed in 
 the persons of the Mayors of the Palace. — Origin and nature of the 
 office. — Pepin-le-Vieux. — Dagobert. — The JRois faineam. — Pepin of 
 Heristal consummates the triumph of Austrasia over the Neustrians. — 
 Charles Martel, the actual ruler of France ; his active life and renown 
 in war ; defeats the Saracens at the battle of Tours ; quarrels with the 
 Church; dies.— Pepin -le-Bref ; reconciled to the Church; aids the 
 Papacy against the Lombards ; obtains the Pope's sanction to dethrone 
 the Merovingian dynasty ; bestows the Exarchate on the Pope ; dies : 
 his character. 
 
 Fkance is resolvable into its ethnological elements more 
 easily, perhaps, than many other modem nations, if we are 
 
GAELS AND KYMRI. 407 
 
 content to pause at a certain stage in the investigation. 
 The basis is undoubtedly Celtic. Gaels, or Gauls, with their 
 kindred Kymri, formed, as we have seen in a former lecture, 
 the first wave of the great living tide which rolled onward 
 from the plateau of Central Asia to the Atlantic sea-board. 
 The first of these two families, in the opinion of their accom- 
 plished historian,* exhibit all the most salient features, the 
 special merits and defaults of the race — their most striking 
 personal characteristics. The Kymri, less active, less dis- 
 tinguished for intellectual power, nevertheless possess more 
 solid qualities and greater stability. To them is owing the 
 main support of social classification and order, — the ideas 
 upon which Theocracy and Monarchy rest. As the impact 
 of fresh emigi'ation drove these united tribes ever forwards, 
 it is natural to conjecture that they finally became con- 
 centrated in that " land of the West " which so long pro- 
 claimed their presence by its name. The same destiny which 
 had pursued them across Europe, awaited them even in their 
 final resting-place. The pressure of new tribes from beyond 
 the Ehine, in search of lands and settlements, and the steadily 
 advancing tread of the Roman legions from the South, drove 
 the Celt at last into the fastnesses of the Armorican penin- 
 sula, just as in our own island his kinsmen were driven into 
 the wilds. of Cornwall and of "Wales. In this isolated spot, 
 strengthened by an immigi'ation of their own race from the 
 Britannic isles, they have contrived to maintain their national 
 type to the present c^ay, despite the aggression of the neigh- 
 bouring Norman, and that amalgamation of races which 
 civilization is continuously working out in a great country 
 like France. We must not, however, be led into the error 
 of supposing that, with the withdrawal of the Celts into 
 Armorica, the Celtic element was also withdrawn from the 
 general population of Gaul. On the contrary, it continued 
 to underlie the whole, forming a substratum of national 
 * Thierry, Hist, des Gaulois, Introduction. 
 
408 THE KOMAN PKOVINCE. 
 
 character, which all ethnological students, and indeed all 
 careful observers, cannot fail to recognize even now in the 
 modern French. "A Frenchman," says Thierry, "it has 
 been my desire to know, and make others know, a race from 
 which nineteen-twentieths of us Frenchmen descend."* 
 About COO years before Christ, the advance of the Persian 
 monarchy to the shores of the ^gean Sea drove 
 many of the Asiatic Greeks into the bosom of 
 the Mediterranean, there to seek new fortunes and a new 
 home. Amongst them were the people of Massilia, who 
 founded Marseilles, in Gaul, and, therefore, introduced a 
 Greek colony into what was then an entirely barbarous 
 land. But the actual effect of such an element upon the 
 ethnological type of the whole people, must have been in- 
 finitesimally small : it probably resembled that produced by 
 the presence of European factories, in the seventeenth cen- 
 tury, upon the coast of Hindostan. Indeed, it would scarcely 
 have deserved mention here, had it not been that many 
 writers have been induced to exaggerate its influence, from 
 the fact that Caesar mentions the very general use of Greek 
 characters by traders from the interior of the country. But 
 the use of Greek characters does not even imply a knowledge 
 of the Greek language. "What Caesar found existing was pro- 
 bably something analogous to the arrangement made by our 
 missionaries and others, to express, in Roman letters, the rude 
 articulation of savage tribes. Nevertheless, Greek culture 
 and Greek learning must have exercised a certain amount of 
 influence among the people of the southern coast. It is 
 supposed that this connection with Greece imported several 
 Greek words into the French language. There are, I suspect, 
 very few which may not be regarded as having passed through 
 an intermediate channel, or as the ordinary appropriations 
 of modern science. 
 
 * Thierry, Hist, cles Ga^alois, Introduction. 
 
RESULTS OF CESAR'S INVASION. 409 
 
 About 51 B.C., Csesar invaded Gaul. From that invasion 
 we may date the era of its complete Latinization. 
 Long before that period, Koman relations were 
 widely extended over those portions of the country which 
 were coterminous with Italy, or which bordered upon the 
 Mediterranean. But it is to the terrible and exterminating 
 wars waged by the first of the Caesars, that we must ascribe 
 the triumph of Roman institutions, customs, literature, and 
 language, — a triumph so complete, that it rendered the 
 province, during the latter ages of the Empire, more Roman 
 than Rome itself, and supplied the basis of something more 
 than three-fourths of their language to its future inhabitants. 
 But of this hereafter. 
 
 This Latinizing process continued, with little interruption, 
 for five successive centuries. German tribes were perpetually 
 crossing the Rhine for raids and forays on the fertile fields 
 which stretched to the westward of the left bank of the 
 river. The practice, we hear, from Caesar himself, was older 
 than his time. But no permanent settlement was effected 
 before the fifth century of our era. Then the Germans, 
 and more especially the Frank confederation, established 
 themselves in Roman Gaul, and effected the largest and most 
 important alteration in its condition, institutions, manners, 
 and language, which the country has ever received. The 
 character of this revolution it will be the object of the pre- 
 sent lecture to describe. 
 
 One other large infusion of new blood modified the 
 social condition of France, at a later period in her 
 history. The Scandinavian sea-kings, who, under the 
 names of Danes or Northmen, had fixed their iron grasp 
 upon so many fertile regions, were not induced, by the 
 ties of consanguinity, to spare either the Saxons in Eng- 
 land or the Franks in Gaul. They ascended nearly all 
 the rivers of Europe, and often retained permanent posses- 
 sion of their banks : soon as their keels were seen ploughing 
 
410 THE KOMAN PROVINCE. 
 
 the current, and their horns were heard, " no man," says 
 Michelet, " ever looked behind him." During the reigns of 
 the feeble successors of Charlemagne, they succeeded in 
 establishing themselves in France, where tliey finally won 
 that beautiful province which still bears their name, and 
 from which they passed into our own island, there to establish 
 a dynasty which, directly or indirectly, was dominant for cen- 
 turies, and contributed almost as much as the earlier Saxon 
 element to determine the type of our national character. 
 
 In this ethnological sketch of the constituent parts of the 
 French nation, I have said nothing of the anomalous race 
 found upon the Pyrenean frontier. The Basque tribes offer 
 a problem of the most lively interest to the ethnologist and 
 historian ; but in respect of our present purpose, they are 
 not so important ; for I cannot regard them as having ex- 
 ercised any large or continuous influence upon the foundation 
 of that living conglomeration which constitutes the French 
 people. In date, they are probably contemporary with the 
 Celts, and may be recognized in the Iberian tribes, whom 
 the latter are said to have driven over the Garonne and the 
 Adour into the mountainous chain which forms the French 
 and Spanish frontier. 
 
 But it is time to describe more systematically the out- 
 growth of modem France from these its historical ante- 
 cedents. 
 
 It is a remark not unfrequently made, that Home has 
 stamped more palpably her external impress upon Gaul, 
 than even upon Italy itself. The traveller in the South of 
 France sees around him at Aries, at Avignon, and at 
 Nismes, more conspicuous and more interesting relics of 
 the old world of imperial Eome, than he will again behold 
 on the opposite side of the Alps, before the towers of the 
 Eternal City are visible upon the southern horizon. Some- 
 thing analogous occurs in the history of the two nations. 
 The social state of the world under the sceptre of the Caesars 
 
SIR J. STEPHEN AND M. GUIZOT. 411 
 
 may be more clearly and minutely traced in the Eomanized 
 Gaul of the few first Christian centuries, than in any other 
 country which obeyed their rule. The condition of Italy 
 we have already had occasion to describe ; and if that 
 description is correct, it is obviously not in Italy that we 
 ought to seek either the moral or material appliances which 
 constitute a great people and preserve a national life. But 
 Gaul, further removed from the corrupting influence of the 
 capital, continued much longer to exhibit indications of 
 actual physical well-being, political action, and intellectual 
 activity. It would have been a pleasant task to enlarge 
 upon these ; but that duty, in one particular conception 
 of it, has been discharged by an accomplished writer who 
 has just passed away from among us. It would per- 
 haps be impossible to find a student of modern history 
 who has not read the lectures of Sir James Stephen, 
 and still more impossible to find one who, having read 
 them, has not yielded to the fascination of their clear and 
 graceful eloquence j but among these lectures, I know of 
 none executed with more masterly skill than that which 
 contains his description of the Romano-Gallic province, 
 during the period to which we have referred. It would, 
 therefore, be useless to go laboriously over the same ground. 
 I shall only state, in brief and general terms, conclusions 
 which, though conscientiously formed from the study of 
 other authorities, for the most part may be verified and 
 illustrated by his remarks. It is scarcely necessary to add, 
 that they should also be compared with the writings of a 
 still greater man, who won his first, and perhaps his brightest 
 laurels, in this very field. I allude, of course, to the in- 
 valuable work of a distinguished living statesman, who has 
 played so prominent a part in the destinies of his country 
 and the politics of Europe — the "History of European 
 Civilization," by M. Guizot. 
 
 Gaul, as we have already seen, had for many centuries 
 
412 THE ROMAN PROVINCE. 
 
 contended against Italy under Brennus ; under Hannibal ; 
 in the terrible onslaught of the Teuton and Kymric tribes 
 repelled by Mariusj in the long and sanguinary struggle 
 for life and liberty against Caesar ; yet we have also seen 
 that she eventually became more Roman than Rome herself, 
 and exhibited a social aspect so brilliant, in literature, in 
 art, in commerce, in legal learning, in political affairs, that 
 she was not surpassed even by the centre and capital of 
 ancient civilization. The detail of these sjDlendid successes 
 seems to exhibit the portraiture of a happy and prosperous 
 people : but the picture has a darker side. Such things do 
 not prove the presence of that fixedness of purpose and cha- 
 2"acter which is the strength of nations, as well as of men ; 
 or of that undefinable sentiment of patriotic virtue which 
 can only consist with the consciousness of a national life, 
 and the functions and duties which a national life implies. 
 The products, material or intellectual, elicited under these, 
 or any other social conditions, however glorious or bene- 
 ficial they may appear, as they do not spring from this 
 source, are soon discovered " to have no root in them," and 
 wither away. Gaul became a provincial community : she 
 never again was a People j neither, therefore, did she ever 
 acquire that immutability of type and tenacity of life which 
 a People alone can possess. Whatever may have been the 
 external prosperity of the Gallic provincials, in a few years 
 all was changed : their nationality, their civic institutions, 
 their public finances, their social condition, their language, 
 their religion. From the description of Caesar, it might 
 almost seem that Gaul, in his time, possessed something 
 faintly resembling representative institutions. The diets, 
 or councils, to which he so often refers, were at least the 
 conservators of public spirit and patriotism, even though 
 they perpetuated the mutual animosity of the tribes 
 among whom they existed. Under Roman domination, 
 they passed away, and with them ail the feelings of indepen- 
 
GAUL COMPLETELY LATINIZED. 413 
 
 dence and self-respect which they might have nurtured and 
 kept alive. But at the beginning of the fifth century, the 
 days of Roman domination were numbered. The Imperial 
 system was breaking up ; the barbarians were at hand ; 
 Gaul was especially exposed to their assaults, and it was 
 impossible to defend Gaul with the corrupt executive and 
 diminished forces of the Empire. The emperors had recourse 
 to a desperate expedient. " They dared," says Michelet, " to 
 pronounce the word Liberty," at least they attempted to 
 revive the old tradition of the free diet, and to avail them- 
 selves of it for the purpose of inducing Gaul to defend 
 herself. The curious and important rescript addressed by 
 Honorius and Theodosius the Younger to the 
 prefect of the Gauls, with this object, may be 
 seen in the pages of Guizot.'"' But liberty and free institu- 
 tions were no longer words to conjure with. ^NTo spirit now 
 obeyed the spell j it fell powerless iipon the denationalized 
 descendants of the men who had fought for freedom against 
 Caesar for so many years. The provinces and towns re- 
 fused the benefit ; no one would nominate the deputies, 
 no one would go to Aries. Centralization and unity 
 were contrary to the primitive character of all ancient 
 society in the West ; the local and municipal spirit 
 reappeared everywhere, and the impossibility of recon- 
 stituting a general society or Country became evident. 
 The towns confined themselves each to its own walls and 
 its own affairs, and the Empire fell, because none wished to 
 be of the Empire ; because citizens desired to be only of 
 their own city. Of the causes which brought about this 
 social demoralization, we have, in part, spoken elsewhere. 
 In the first place, it fared with Gaul as it generally fares 
 with conquered nations, who throw themselves, with a sort 
 of spurious enthusiasm, into the habits of their victors. 
 They lose what is valuable in their own national type of 
 * Guizot, Lect. ii. 
 
4U THE KOMAN PEOVINCE. 
 
 character, and fail to catch what is really true, and strong, 
 and admirable in the character of their newly-adopted 
 models. The Gauls, in ceasing to be Gauls, became very 
 indifferent Romans. The Belgic, or -(Eduan chief who 
 affected the life of the metropolitan noble, exhibited, in an 
 exaggerated form, all the foibles and more serious errors of 
 the Roman patrician. In Gaul, as in Italy, there was the 
 same luxury and the same slavery; the same abandonment 
 of ancient simplicity, national habits, manners, and tradi- 
 tions; the same absorption of land into large unproductive 
 properties, cultivated for ornament rather than use ; the 
 same absenteeism, — one season in the local capital, and 
 another in the fashionable watering-place ; while to the 
 odious middle-man, or bailiff, was left the management of 
 those patrimonial estates which, in the days of Csesar, 
 fostered a numerous band of dependents, and gave strength 
 and grandeur to the great old Gallic houses. And inasmuch 
 as the social condition of Gaul was intimately bound up 
 with these hereditary clanships, or, more properly speaking, 
 entirely depended upon them, the breaking up of these 
 time-honoured ties by the introduction of slave-labour and 
 the destruction of the middle class, was more fatal to the 
 existence of the nation, in any sense of the word which 
 deserved the name, than the corresponding revolution 
 in the more artificially constructed society of Roman 
 Italy. '•' Latifundia perdidere Italiam," — the " large-estate 
 system," or, as we should say, the "evictions, have de- 
 stroyed Italy," says Pliny, in often-quoted words : they 
 quite as certainly destroyed her noblest province. But 
 there were other causes at work equally destructive in 
 their tendency, more particularly in reference to that 
 gradual obliteration of the middle class to which we 
 have just referred, and their provincial working may be 
 most clearly seen in Gaul. Coincidently with the develop- 
 ment of imperial government and legislation, there arose a 
 
MISEEY UNDEE IMPERIAL GOVERNMENT. 415 
 
 system of administrative despotism peculiarly grievous for 
 the more prosperous parts of the Empire. " It spread over 
 the Eoman world," writes Guizot, "a network of func- 
 tionaries hierarchically distributed, well linked together, 
 both among themselves and with the imperial court, and 
 solely applied to rendering effective in society the will of 
 power, and in transferring to power the tributes and energies 
 of society." * The evil, always oppressive, became immensely 
 aggravated when Diocletian introduced a sort of oriental 
 absolutism into the functions of civil government, and con- 
 stituted an almost Persian system of administration through- 
 out the Empire. Gaul, it is true, possessed a greatness of 
 her own, a municipal greatness, which reproduced, in many 
 miniature types, the polity of imperial E-ome ; but the evil 
 under which this greatness collapsed, was the difficulty, 
 'par eoccellaice, of all modern governments, — the financial 
 difficulty. Each municipality was made responsible in the 
 person of its curials, or chief officers, not only for its own 
 amount of taxation, but for that of the neighbouring district. 
 The rescripts of the emperor, therefore, placed these unfor- 
 tunate dignitaries in the unenviable position which the " pub- 
 lican" and the tax-gatherer have ever occupied in all ages 
 and among all nations of the world. Compelled to endure 
 the discontent and displeasure of the government whom it 
 was their duty to pay, and of the people whom it was their 
 duty to tax, they soon found the office too invidious for 
 endurance. It passed from the hands of honourable men 
 into that of unscrupulous adventurers, who did not allow 
 any sense of delicacy or honesty to tie their hands in the 
 hard battle which they had daily to maintain mth the 
 recalcitration of the proprietor and the extortion of the 
 treasury. Cajolery and evasion were employed to encounter 
 arbitrary exaction and violence. The land-tax alone amounted 
 to the unprecedented sum of thirty-five per cent, upon all the 
 * Guizot, Lect. ii. 
 
416 THE ROMAN PEOVINCE. 
 
 agricultural produce of the country. And besides the im- 
 mense revenue which, from this and other sources, flowed 
 into the " fiscus," or imperial exchequer, the emperor, by con- 
 fiscation and his right of succession to lapsed inheritances, 
 became by far the largest landed proprietor in the nation. 
 Property of this sort, like property in Woods and Forests 
 nearer home, is not always the best administered, or the most 
 profitable in the world. Abuses, easy to conjecture and unne- 
 cessary to specify, so depreciated its value in the market, that 
 two years' undisturbed tenure and cultivation were sufiicient 
 to confer upon any occupant a legal title to possession. Msluv 
 portions of such lands were held upon a military tenure, by 
 veterans discharged from regular service j and these tenures 
 were at once a reminiscence of the SuUan and Ctesarean 
 partitions of land among the discharged legionaries, and in 
 some sort a singular anticipation of the feudal system. 
 Sir J. Stephen has pointed out, that herein we may dis- 
 cover the origin of one among the most directly oppressive 
 of all the fiscal burdens which weighed upon the people. 
 For, " to promote the culture of these unprofitable imperial 
 domains, were invented Corvees, that is, the obligation of 
 personal services in conveying the produce of such lands to 
 the public magazines, and in repairing the roads along which 
 it was to be drawn."* When we add, that the rapacity of 
 the Roman treasury, in addition to these heavy exactions, 
 imposed a poll-tax upon every male from the age of four- 
 teen, and upon every female from the age of twelve, payable 
 up to their sixty-fifth year, we may form some idea of the 
 gigantic burden under which those who enjoyed the bless- 
 ings of Csesarean government were compelled to groan. 
 And like all other over-oppressive taxes, these had a natural 
 tendency to multiply and augment themselves. The pro- 
 prietors whom they ruined were gradually withdrawn from 
 the number of solvent contributors ; but as the amount 
 ** Sir J. Stephen's Lecture, Hist. France, i. 
 
THE LETTER OF LACTANTIUS. 417 
 
 demanded suffered no diminution, the burthen was im- 
 mensely aggravated upon the shoulders of those who 
 remained to pay. " A good year," the country people used 
 to say, declares Sidonius Apollinaris, "does not depend upon 
 the state of the harvests, but upon the disposition of the 
 magistrates sent to govern us."* A sketch by the same 
 hand, of a Roman officer, one Seronatus, is, unfortunately, 
 too long for transcription, but it sets forth with the graphic 
 force of actual experimental knowledge, the monstrous 
 avarice and capricious tyranny of these heartless officials.t 
 "When they had stripped the country of everything it con- 
 tained, it became, of course, necessary to grant exemption 
 in the future. The great natural law of ex niliilo nihil jity 
 * nothing is produced from nothing,' was invincible even by 
 the cruel ingenuity of an imperial tax-gatherer. These ex- 
 emptions, therefore, may give us some idea of the devasta- 
 tion which had been produced. In Italy, writes Gibbon, — and 
 what was true of Italy must have been true to a still greater 
 extent elsewhere, — " an exemption was granted in favour of 
 three hundred and thirty thousand English acres of desert 
 and uncultivated land, which amounted to one eighth of the 
 whole surface of the province."^ And this was before the foot- 
 step of a barbarian invader had been planted on her soil ! !N"o 
 wonder, then, that these exactions, wrung from the lips of the 
 sufferers the language of despair. One such bitter cry from 
 a contemporary may teach us more than volumes of modern 
 criticism. " So numerous were the receivers in comparison 
 with the payers, and so enormous the weight of taxation, 
 that the labourer broke down, the plains became deserts, 
 and woods grew where the plough had been. . . It were 
 impossible to number the officials who were rained upon 
 every province and town, — Magistri, Rationales, clerks to 
 the prefecture. Condemnations, proscriptions, and exactions 
 
 * Sidonius Apoll. Epist. iii. 6. f Ibid. Epist. ii. 1. 
 
 J Gibbon, Decline and Fall, ch. xvi> 
 2 E 
 
418 THE EOMAiN PROVINCE. 
 
 were all they knew ; exactions, not freqnent but perpetual, 
 and accompanied by intolerable outrages. . . But the 
 public distress, the universal mourning, was when the 
 scourge of the census came, and its takers, scattering them- 
 selves in every direction, produced a general confusion, that 
 I can only liken to the misery of a hostile invasion, or of a 
 town abandoned to the soldi€ry. The fields were measured 
 to the very clods ; the trees counted ; each vine-plant num- 
 bered. Cattle were registered as well as men. The crack 
 of the lash and the cry of the tortured filled the air. The 
 faithful slave was tortured for evidence against his master, 
 the wife to depose against her husband, the son against his 
 sire. For lack of evidence, the torture was applied to 
 extort one's own witness against oneself, and when nature 
 gave way, they wrote down what one had never uttered. 
 Keither old age nor sickness was exempted ; the sick and 
 the infirm were* alike summoned."* It was upon the un- 
 happy curials, as we have just said — and every man whose 
 estate exceeded twenty-five arpents belonged to the Curia — 
 and upon the owners of the scanty property which re- 
 mained, that the duty devolved of enforcing these devouring 
 imposts. But who, except one of those unprincipled specu- 
 lators in human misery, of whom we have already spoken, 
 would willingly be a curial? No man of honour would 
 accept the degradation of discharging such a duty ; no man 
 who yet retained his little patrimony, would willingly hazard 
 it all in an office which rendered him personally responsible 
 for the debts of every defaulter in his district. But the 
 imperial policy provided against this difficulty. The curials 
 were declared the serfs of the commonwealth, and, like serfs, 
 they were bound, body and soul, to their unwelcome position. 
 They might not quit the country. No excuse was accepted 
 for non-attendance. They were not permitted to become 
 soldiers under any circumstances, or to enter holy orders, 
 * The Letter of Lactantius ; Michelet, p. 24. 
 
LOSS OF NATIONAL SPIRIT. 419 
 
 except upon condition of making over all their property to 
 some other person who would become curial in their stead. 
 Death was not a deliverance, for the office was made here- 
 ditary. They were even compelled to marry, in order that 
 there might not be wanting heirs who should succeed to 
 their functions. Sometimes the Curia was barricaded to 
 prevent their escape. For a tyranny such as this, even 
 the magnificent title of " most noble and very illustrious 
 order of curials" was a poor compensation. The "very 
 illustrious order," despite of all precautions, died out, and 
 the unhappy victims of their compulsory exactions were 
 reduced to repudiate a citizenship which entailed upon them 
 more miseries than the invaders' sword. Barbarism was pre- 
 ferable to a civilization which plundered and ruined them, and 
 they accepted Barbarism as the more tolerable alternative. 
 The picture drawn by a contemporary reveals the whole 
 mystery of the situation, and explains a revolution which 
 might seem unintelligible to those who believe in the ne- 
 cessary and universal triumph of intellectual over material 
 force, and of the man of civilization over the man of savage 
 life. 
 
 One other cause of this degeneracy must not be for- 
 gotten, — the effect of Boman rule upon national sj^irit. 
 Everywhere it was the policy of Borne to create among her 
 subjects an abject dependence upon herself : if they required 
 protection from a foreign enemy, it was to the Boman 
 legionary that they were compelled to have recourse ; if 
 great works were undertaken, they were finished upon a 
 Boman model, and dedicated to uses learnt from Borne ; if 
 an ambitious desire for military, civil, or intellectual dis- 
 tinction ever arose among more intelligent minds, it was 
 necessarily directed into a Boman channel. Hence, when 
 the support of Bome was withdrawn, everything collapsed : 
 the people had been in leading-strings, and were unable to 
 stand alone. " The groans of the thrice- wretched Britons," 
 2 E 2 
 
420 THE EOMAN PROVINCE. 
 
 reported by the venerable Bede, when, in their abandon- 
 ment, they complained to the praetor Aetius, "the Picts 
 drive us into the ocean, and the ocean drives us back upon 
 the Picts," express the state of all nationalities which had 
 long reposed beneath the shadow of Roman supremacy ; most 
 especially does it describe the state of Gaul."' 
 
 If, then, these two societies had been simply brought face 
 to face together, — Barbarism, with all its rude, irrational 
 impulses and animal passions, on the one side, and Boman 
 Civilization, with its fiscal tyranny, its hopeless mass of 
 proletarian wretchedness, its slavery, and its utter want 
 of patriotic sentiment, on the other, can we doubt what 
 would have been the result ? The German invasion would 
 have resembled the devastating inroads of the great Asiatic 
 conquerors, Attila, Tamerlane, or Tchengis Khan : Europe 
 would have lost the accumulated experiences of a thousand 
 years of polished life, and relapsed into a social state, from 
 which the Pelasgic ancestors of Greece and Borne had 
 emerged before the era of authentic history. But in respect 
 of re-creative energy, there was a boundless difference be- 
 tween Asia and Europe — between a heathen and a Christian 
 form of social life. A power had been born into the world 
 more mighty for the restoration of society than the power 
 of conquerors, governments, or philosophies. It fell to the 
 lot of the Church to proclaim, in more than one sense, the 
 nev/ birth of Humanity. The regeneration of the indivi- 
 dual was a type and an earnest of the regeneration of the 
 race. Humanity might now renew her youth like the 
 eagle; for now, at last, new blood had been infused into 
 her corrupting and wasted veins. When, amid frightful 
 convulsions, " distress of nations and perplexity, blood and 
 fire, and vapour of smoke," the old-world institutions passed 
 away, the Church stood by the cradle, and watched over the 
 childhood of the new nationalities which were strujrijlinfx 
 ' Michelet, p. 27. 
 
THE CHURCH IN GAUL. 421 
 
 into existence, softening down their savage impulses, 
 moulding their character, and shaping their destiny into 
 the glorious form of a Federation, inspired by her own 
 Bpirit ; — the great, but, alas ! too imperfectly realized image 
 of a common Christendom. 
 
 Between the middle of the third and the fourth centuries, 
 the Church had firmly established herself in Gaul. She had 
 her centres of spiritual action, her edifices, her bishops, her 
 officers, her writers, her martyrs. In another fifty years she 
 possessed the land. The old national Druidism and the old 
 Celtic language were driven back into their last fastnesses 
 among the rocks and waves of the rugged Armorican penin- 
 sula ; their only monument is to be found in the cromlechs 
 of Morbihan, and in the wild traditions of the Breton 
 peasantry. 
 
 In a future lecture we shall point out how it was that 
 the Church stood when the Empire fell, and we shall also 
 endeavour to describe, in general terms, the position which 
 she occupied in that great and cardinal crisis when the old 
 institutions had collapsed, and those which were to supply 
 their place had not as yet been developed. Nowhere was 
 this revolution more critical than in Gaul ; nowhere is 
 its character more intelligible. In Gaul, the Barbarian 
 found a much more favourable field for his ambition than 
 elsewhere. She possessed no mountain-rampart, behind 
 which she might take refuge, as the Byzantine behind the 
 Balkan, or the Italian behind the Alps. The Ilhine, if we 
 credit Csesar, from the earliest times, had offered no serious 
 obstacle to the inroads of either Celt or Teuton, as either 
 Celt or Teuton felt himself in condition to overpower his 
 rival of the opposite bank. Neither was Gaul the seat of 
 the central power : she was an outlying province, the de- 
 fences of which were often abandoned when peril menaced 
 the capital. No such prestige attached to Lyons, Marseilles, 
 N-arbonne, or Toulouse, as disposed its shadowy terrors 
 
422 THE ROMAN PEOVINCE. 
 
 round the miglity name of Eome, and paralyzed the un- 
 taught instincts of the barbarian in the presence of the 
 Mistress of the World. But, on the other hand, the country- 
 westward of the Khine contained, in abundance, all things 
 likely to tempt his cupidity and ambition. Broad lands, 
 that bore com and wine j magnificent rivers, rolling onward 
 to the three seas — the Bhone, the Garonne, the Loire, and 
 the Seine ; cities adorned with the wealth of Eoman and 
 Greek civilization ; the costliest treasures of commerce and 
 of art ; splendid edifices, enriched with many- coloured 
 marbles ; fabrics of the finest texture and Eastern dyes ; 
 paintings, and jewels, and gold.* No wonder, then, that 
 the roving bands of the Burgundians and Franks, and the 
 more systematic invasion of the Visigoths, soon effected 
 permanent settlements in Gaul. They found the Church 
 alive, stin'ing and upright among the debris of the Empire. 
 The Empire itself, as a political power, like one of those 
 feeble organizations which form a link between animal and 
 vegetable life, had shrunk back beyond the Alps, at the rude 
 touch of the barbarian hand. The imperial authority was 
 gone with the legions and the eagles ; the municipal system 
 was a miserable wreck ; the old national ties of race and 
 clientship had long since melted away in the dissolute 
 atmosphere of Eomano-Celtic life ; the feudal system was as 
 
 * The description given by Sidonius Apollinaris of Narbonne, after 
 its occupation by the Visigoths, though drawn with his accustomed 
 exaggeration, may serve to show how much of Eome, — of Roman 
 institutions, customs, and habits, even down to the details of domestic 
 life, — was to be found among what were called the new barbarian king- 
 doms of the era : — 
 
 " Salve, Narbo potens salubritate, 
 Urbe et rure simul bonus videri, 
 Muris, civibus, arabitu, tabernis, 
 Portis, porticibus, foro, theatro, 
 Delubris, Capitoliis, monetis, 
 Therrais, arcubus, horreis, macellis, 
 Pratis, fontibus, insulis, salinis, 
 Stagnis, flumine, merce, ponte, ponto." 
 
 SiDON. Apoll., Carmin. xxiii. 36—43. 
 
THE INVASION OF 406 A.D. 423 
 
 yet undeveloped ; monarchy was no more than a rude chief- 
 tainship, incapable of assuming the place of a settled govern- 
 ment ; and the Church was the only existing power competent 
 to embody the ideas of law and order before the eyes of mul- 
 titudes of invaders, consisting of individuals of every race in 
 every stage of civilization. Her position and function, there^ 
 fore, are rightly described by Guizot, when he says : ^' The 
 Christian Church, in the fifth century, presents itself as an 
 independent and constituted society, interposed between the 
 masters of the world, the sovereign, the possessors of temporal 
 power, on the one hand, and the people on the other, serving 
 as a bond between them, and influencing all." But of this 
 hereafter. 
 
 It is time to explain briefly what were the elements of 
 this barbarian society with which the Church was thus 
 brought into contact, and the sources from which it was 
 derived. In the year 406, the formidable gathering, 
 mainly of Teutonic tribes, took place, occasioned by ' ' 
 the ambitious design of obtaining indemnity in the spoil of 
 the Empire, for the loss of those lands in Eastern Europe 
 from which the rolling waves of the great Asiatic inunda- 
 tion had swept them away. We have seen, in a former 
 lecture, that the left wing of this mighty host, under 
 Radagasius, if, as is little probable, it may be described as a 
 single army, were annihilated in Italy by the sword of 
 Stilicho and the pestilential vapours with which the pol- 
 luted waters of the Arno bathed their camp. The fortunes 
 of the right wing, consisting principally of Yandals, Suevi, 
 Alani, and Burgundians, who turned to the Bhine rather 
 than to the Alps, were more successful : they effected a 
 lodgment upon the left bank of the river, from which they 
 never again turned their faces to the East; and thus, as 
 Gibbon has seen, were the first to inaugurate 
 the new system of things which substituted itself 
 for the Empire, and established the predominance of the 
 
424 THE BUEGUNDIANS. 
 
 German over the Latin element in all the existing kingdoms 
 of Europe. " This memorable passage," he says, " of the 
 Suevi, the Vandals, the Alani, and the Burgundians, who 
 never afterwards retreated, may be considered as the fall of 
 the Roman empire in the countries beyond the Alps ; and 
 the barriers which had so long separated the savage and the 
 civilized nations of the earth were, from that fatal moment, 
 levelled with the ground."* The first of these tribes appear 
 to have possessed the most adventurous spirit : by this, or 
 some other cause, they were thrust onward through the 
 narrow passes of the Pyrenees into the Iberian peninsula, 
 to which their story belongs : it will be found in the lec- 
 ture devoted to its history. But the Burgundians remained 
 nearly in that district which ever since has borne their 
 name. We first hear of them as a tribe of Teutonic stock, 
 located between the Oder and the Vistula, on either bank of 
 the river Warta. "When the Gepidse descended southward with 
 the Goths, the Burgundians were compelled to recoil before 
 the advance of the former tribe : one portion of them took 
 refuge in Bornholm, an island of the Baltic ; the remainder 
 turned westward, and made an attempt to enter Gaul. The}^ 
 were repulsed by Probus, but permitted to settle near the 
 sources of the Main. Jovian showed them favour, and 
 gave them lands in the Germania Secunda. This was in 
 the latter part of the fourth century. Just at its close, they 
 adopted Christianity, but under an Arian form. Ammianus 
 tells us that they were a most warlike race ; that their 
 youth were so numerous as to cause alarm among all the 
 surrounding nations. t The most singular feature of their 
 political constitution was the separation of the supreme 
 civil and ecclesiastical authorities, something after the manner 
 of the Japanese. They had a king, or Heudinos, as he was 
 called, and a chief priest, or Sinistus. The office of the 
 
 * Gibbon, vol. v. p. 224. f Amm. Mar. xxviii. 5. 
 
SETTLEMENT IN GAUL. 425 
 
 former can scarcely have been an enviable one, if, as Gibbon 
 says, he was made responsible for failures in war and 
 irregularities in the seasons ; being deposed when, from 
 either cause, injury had been inflicted on the Burgundian 
 common-weal. Their barbarian wars with the Alemanni, 
 about some salt-pits, or salt-producing stream, have been 
 lecorded by Ammianus, but would scarcely deserve men- 
 tion, were it not for a curious story which connects 
 the Burgundians, beyond any of their brethren, with 
 Kome. They claimed, it seems, to be descended from 
 the soldiers of Drusus, who had garrisoned the German 
 fortresses."' This can, of course, only have been true in 
 the most limited degree ; probably it was not true at all. 
 It may, however, point to some ancient connection, not 
 without its fruits ; and may also explain the language and 
 feeling of the Italian party, when, as we have seen, they 
 summoned the Burgundians to their aid against the Ostro- 
 goths, and addressed them, though with very small effect, as 
 old allies and kinsmen.t Be this as it may, Yalentinian sum- 
 moned an immense number of them to the Rhine, — eighty 
 thousand, say some accounts ; and, subsequently repenting 
 of his bargain, or being unable to fulfil it, was only enabled 
 to get rid of his mercenaries after much hard fighting against 
 them. Indeed, he entirely owed his success to the extreme 
 strength of the Gallic fortresses, and the inexperience of the 
 barbarians in siege operations. In the year 413 a. d., 
 a large portion of the nation established them- 
 selves, by consent of the emperor, on the west bank of the 
 Rhine ; and we found them there at the advent of Attila. 
 They aided, it may be remembered, their brethren of the 
 east bank against his terrible onslaught, and subsequently 
 bestowed upon them the gift of orthodoxy, which they had 
 themselves some time previously acquired in the more 
 
 * Orosius, lib. vii. c. 32. f Lecture VI. p. 293. 
 
426 THE BUEGUNDIANS. 
 
 Catholic atmosphere of the Gaulish province. These events 
 increased their political greatness and military power ; for 
 we next find them united with the Visigoths, and other 
 semi-Romanized barbarians, under the banner of Attila, in 
 the great world-combat of Chalons. 
 
 In the mean time, the Visigoths had established, close 
 beside them, a second powerful kingdom of German origin, 
 and, with the Visigoths, they united in a determined and 
 successful attempt to drive their former comrades, the 
 Sueves, beyond the limits of Gaul. But Visigoths and 
 Burgundians were both, in common with all 
 the rising barbarian nationalities, overshadowed, 
 from Italy, by the power of the great Theodoric ; and, in 
 all probability, were for a time politically dependent upon 
 the Ostrogoth crown. The relations between them were, 
 certainly, if we may judge from the diplomatic language 
 already quoted,* not those of equal and rival potentates. 
 With the fall of Theodoric, this state of semi -submission 
 passed away : but a new power had appeared upon the 
 scene, destined to play the chief part in the drama of 
 Gaulish history, and to absorb both Burgundian 
 and Visigoth into itself. The Franks were becom- 
 ing masters of the North. It is perhaps not correct to speak 
 of them as a new power, because, as we shall presently show, 
 their presence, in all probability, preceded that of the Bur- 
 gundians on the western side of the Rhine j but it was not 
 until the great victory of Tolbiac, wherein Clovis, by repel- 
 ling a most formidable band of German invaders, consolidated 
 the strength of his nation, that we can consider 
 the Franks as constituting a power similar in 
 character, and rivalling in strength, the already settled domi- 
 nations of Visigoths and Burgundians south of the Loire. 
 With the Franks, the earliest relations of the Burgundians 
 were of a friendly character. Clovis had married Clotilda, 
 * Lecture VI. p. 300. 
 
CONTACT WITH FRANKS. 427 
 
 the daughter of the Burgimdian king ; but, for the interests 
 of the dynasty, he had better have married any other woman 
 in Europe ; for the Burgundians were, as we have said, 
 Arians, and Clotilda was a Catholic, — the only Catholic then 
 living in all the German nationalities; the only woman capa- 
 ble of influencing the Frankish king against the religion 
 and interests of her countrymen, and inducing him to direct 
 the formidable power at his disposal upon the German king- 
 doms established in Southern Gaul. The Catholic, or Latin 
 party, who, in Burgundy, as throughout Gaul, still continued 
 to form a powerful faction, and to cling to the old Boman 
 traditions, were naturally inspired, by the conversion of 
 Clovis, with the highest hopes, and are even said to have 
 directly invited him into the Burgundian territory. But 
 henceforward, until the year 534, when this territory was 
 seized and appropriated by the Franks, the main incidents 
 in its history are inextricably mingled with that of the latter 
 race, and will be more fitly recorded in connection with it. 
 Before, however, dismissing the Burgundian from special 
 consideration, it is right to say a word upon his character 
 and habits, for they evinced a somewhat unusual aptitude 
 for the arts of civilized and settled life. The very name 
 of Burgundian is, by some authors, said to be a sort of 
 nickname given to the tribe in scorn of their predilection 
 for dwelling in fixed habitations, — a practice which seemed 
 efieminate to the hardy warriors who boasted to Caesar that 
 a roof had not covered their head for years. The story 
 which we have just mentioned, of their descent from the 
 soldiers of Drusus, has, doubtless, some reference to this 
 fact, and is at least an indication of their divergence from 
 the wilder type of Teutonic life. It is at least certain 
 that, when subjected to the influence of Eoman ideas and 
 manners, they speedily underwent a process of assimilation, 
 and acquired, not commercial habits only, but considerable 
 skill in the mechanical arts, as workers in wood and metal. 
 
42S THE BUKGUNDIANS. 
 
 ^' Nearly all of them are carpenters," says a contemporary, 
 "and support themselves by the practice of this art."* Before 
 long, they acquired, by the peaceful and successful exercise 
 of their trade, a sort of obese prosperity, in which their 
 ungainly and somewhat oily persons offended the finer 
 E-omanized tastes of the Auvergnat Sidonius ; nor, even to 
 the present da}^, is the type of the race extinct in eastern 
 France. " Whom ask you for a song 1 " says the worthy 
 bishop, in words which we have prefixed as a motto to this 
 lecture, — " Whom ask you for a song to serve as an epitha- 
 lamium to your friend 1 Of me ! whose lot is cast among 
 the long-haired bands, and who have to endure the sound of 
 the German dialect, and to praise, every now and then, with 
 woful countenance, the strains which the gorged Burgundian 
 bellows forth while he besmears his locks with rancid 
 butter."t There is, however, more pleasing testimony in 
 their favour than this. " The good-nature, which is one of 
 the present characteristics of the Germanic race, was early 
 displayed by the Burgundians. Before their entrance into 
 the Empire, they very generally pursued some trade, and 
 were carpenters or cabinet-makers ; they supported them- 
 selves by their labour in the intervals of peace, and were 
 thus free from that twofold pride of the warrior and of the 
 idle proprietor, which nourished the insolence of the other 
 barbarian conquerors.":}: . . "Established as masters in 
 the domains of the Gallic landowners, and having received, 
 or taken, under the colour of hospitality, two-thirds of the 
 land, and a third of the slaves, or, probably, what amounted 
 to a half of the entire property, they scrupled about usurping 
 anything more, and did not treat the Roman as their farmer, 
 or, to use the German phrase, as their lide, but as their 
 •equal ; and even experienced, when in company with the 
 rich senators, their co-proprietors, something of the con- 
 
 * Socrates, lib. vii. c. 30, apud Scrip. Fr. i. 604. 
 
 t Sid. Apoll. loco citato. X Socrates, lib. vii. c. 30. 
 
CHARACTER OF BURGUNDIANS. . 42» 
 
 scious embarrassment of men of inferior birth who have 
 suddenly risen up in the world. When quartered as soldiers 
 in a handsome mansion, and, in point of fact, masters of it, 
 they did what they saw done by the Roman clients of their 
 noble host, and assembled in the morning at his levee.""" 
 
 The Yisigoth kingdom, which, so far as its Gallic dominions 
 were concerned, ultimately shared the same fate as that of Bur- 
 gundy, was, for the time of its existence, much more notable 
 for its power, wealth, civilization, and renown. Its origin will 
 also lead us back to another lecture. The general history of 
 the Goths in their two great subdivisions, until Alaric led his 
 countrymen to the very southernmost shore of Italy, has 
 
 been already detailed. t But when Alaric slept 
 
 . . . \ D 412 
 
 beneath the waters of the Busentinus, his dis- 
 heartened warriors turned their steps once more towards 
 the Alps. Their voluptuous life in Italian villas was fast 
 dissolving the moral and physical vigour of these fair-haired 
 giants of the North. Ataulphus, brother of Alaric, believing 
 that nothing save the " certaminis gaudia," " the rapturous 
 emotions of battle," could revive the energies of his race, 
 saw the necessity for new fields of strife and victory. 
 He adopted the expedient of seeking them in the service 
 of the emperor Honorius, whose sister, the Princess Pla- 
 cidia, he had espoused. Many writers ascribe the some- 
 what singular course which he adopted, to the influence 
 of his wife ; but the reason already alleged appears more 
 probable ; for in no other capacity could he anticipate such 
 opportunities for war, and such prizes for victory, as in that 
 of an imperial lieutenant. Indeed, it is probable that his 
 union with the emperor's sister did not take place until the 
 Goth had already appeared as a conqueror in Gaul. Be 
 this as it may, he declared himself the faithful servant of 
 Honorius, and vowed, in that capacity, to sweep all his 
 
 * Aug. Thierry, Lettres sur I'Hist. de France, vii. 
 t See Lecture lY. p. 179. 
 
430 . THE VISIGOTHS. 
 
 brother-in-law's enemies beyond the Alps into the sea. He 
 was as good as his word ; for he was speedily across the 
 Rhine, across the Garonne, and over the Pyrenees. He 
 took possession of Toulouse, Narbonne, and Bordeaux, in the 
 name of the Koman emperor. But he soon rendered him a 
 more valuable service. Jovinus and Sebastian had collected 
 the revolted legions of Germany, and were about to descend 
 the Alps upon Bavenna, for the purpose of wresting the 
 sceptre from the feeble grasp of Honorius. It is said that 
 Ataulphus had once looked with favourable eyes upon the 
 conspirators and their design. But they aroused his wrath 
 by the reception of his hereditary enemy Sarus within their 
 camp. He appeared before them with his unconquered 
 Gothic giants, and the heads of the two usurpers, which he 
 dispatched to Bavenna, afforded a satisfactory proof of the 
 prowess of his arms and the zeal of his fidelity. Betracing 
 his steps to Gaul, he followed the Suevi and 
 Vandals across the Pyrenees, and taught them 
 to respect the sword of Rome, at least when wielded 
 by the hand of a Visigoth lieutenant. He fixed on 
 Barcelona as the seat of a residence, royal, or perhaps 
 viceregal, as the case might hereafter require. But here 
 he perished by assassination, and the highborn Placidia, 
 daughter and sister of Roman emperors, was subjected to 
 the basest indignities by the murderers of her husband. 
 They were soon hurled from the throne which they had 
 stained with the blood of a brave warrior and great man. 
 
 We find Wallia in their place, an able and politic prince, 
 who, according to the accounts of those who had an interest 
 in exaggerating Gothic prowess, entirely overran Spain and 
 humbled the rival tribe of Vandals. But on these victories, 
 when treating of Vandal history, we have had occasion to 
 speak in terras of distrust.* It is possible that he had turned 
 his thoughts to the conquest of Africa, when he was recalled 
 * Lecture VII. 
 
IN GAUL AND SPAIN. 4S1 
 
 beyond the Pyrenees by most earnest solicitations from 
 Honoriiis, who was once more menaced by another claimant 
 for the throne. But it is possible also, that the want of the 
 means of transport, the failure of provisions, and the chances 
 of an attack upon his rear, may have had more effect in 
 withdrawing him from this new field of enterprise than the 
 piteous cry which proceeded from Ravenna. He however 
 concluded a treaty with Honorius, by the terms of which 
 the latter recovered his kinswoman Placidia, the heroine of 
 so many adventures, and secured the services of the Gothic 
 sword ; while the Goths, on their part, were to receive 
 600,000 measures of wheat, and a full supply for the future, 
 of pay, clothing, and the munitions of war. They are said 
 by the historians to have fully discharged their part of the 
 compact. The enemies of the emperor, the Alans, the Suevi, 
 and the Vandals, were driven to their distant mountain 
 fastnesses. Spain once more acknowledged, in terms at 
 least, allegiance to Italy,\^and Wallia, the Goth, re-entered 
 Rome, traversed the Sacred Way, and climbed the Capitol in 
 triumphal pomp, eight or nine years after the soldiers of 
 Alaric had passed along the same route in the pride and 
 cruelty of barbarian conquest. 
 
 Wallia, however, received a more tangible reward than 
 the barren mockery of a ceremonial which dishonoured 
 while it palely reflected the glories of Caesar 
 and Aurelian. He was permitted to select 
 lands for his veterans in Gaul, after the example of 
 Sylla and Augustus, and in conformity with a policy 
 which we have seen more than once adopted by the em- 
 perors of the East. His choice was soon made. The fer- 
 tile region which stretches beneath a genial sun from the 
 Garonne to the Loire, with the two seas for its boundaries, 
 seemed to these children of a severer clime a promised land, 
 flowing with milk and honey, an inheritance of fields and 
 vineyards, and all the delights of southern life. Nor were 
 
432 THE VISIGOTHS. 
 
 the sons of Anak and the fenced cities there, to defend the 
 lordship of the soil. The peaceful occupant, professedly- 
 holding under the imperial government, saw with dismay 
 the arrival of the formidable strangers. Describing them- 
 selves as the guests and very good friends of the Roman 
 emperor, they claimed, according to the terms of their grant, 
 two-thirds of the peasant's patrimony, seized his fields, 
 and pillaged his farm or house, until, by that summary pro- 
 cess of ejectment which the sword supplies, they had made 
 themselves sovereign masters of the whole territory. 
 
 This was the origin, or rather the establishment, of the 
 Visigoth kingdom of Gaul, a kingdom which possessed many 
 of the elements of greatness, and, had not circumstances 
 hindered its development, might have rivalled in power and 
 glory the kindred kingdom of the Ostrogoths beyond the 
 Alps. If it were ever in leading-strings to the imperial 
 authority of Theodoric at Ravenna, it soon cast them off^ 
 and evinced a scant measure of gratitude to its, perhaps 
 involuntary, benefactor. Theodoric, son of Alaric the 
 Terrible, now occupied the throne. With all his father's 
 ambition, he struggled vigorously to enlarge his domin- 
 ions at the expense of the Empire. But the renowned 
 Aetius kept him in check until the approach of Attila, 
 with the hordes of Asia at his back, convinced these 
 two far-seeino: statesmen that if Civilization was to be 
 saved, the two great powers that maintained its existence 
 in the West must be at peace. The scarcely extinguished 
 remembrance of the late quarrel, perhaps the bitterness 
 of disappointed ambition and a secret jealousy of his rival, 
 made Theodoric hesitate until the Huns had crossed 
 the Rhine. We have already recounted the causes which 
 removed this hesitation, and brought him to play his proper 
 part on the plains of Chalons. After his glorious fall in 
 that memorable field, the Visigoth king, another Tlieodoric, 
 superseded his brother, by an intrigue to which we have 
 
THEODORIC II. 433 
 
 already referred, — he is said by some writers to have pro- 
 cured his assassination, — and at once became arbiter of the 
 destiny of the Koman empire. By his powerful hand, Avitus 
 of Auvergne, who had induced his father to join the cause 
 of Rome against the Huns, was clothed with the imperial 
 purple, and supported on a throne which he feebly filled 
 until his overthrow by Bicimer. 
 
 There is a sketch of this monarch's personal appearance 
 and manner of life, — a monarch described by Sidonius as 
 
 " Martius ille rector atque 
 Magno patre prior, decus Getarutn, 
 Romano columen, salusque gentis,"* 
 
 in the letters of the same writer, which graphically 
 places before us the men who built up the new civiliza- 
 tion. I shall make no apology for quoting a contemporary 
 account, long as it may be, since it is assuredly far more 
 valuable to the real student of history than any modern 
 attempt of the same kind. " He is a prince well worthy of 
 being known even by those not admitted to his intimate 
 acquaintance, to such a degree have Nature and God, the 
 sovereign Arbiter of all things, accumulated in his person 
 gifts of varied excellence. His character is such, that even 
 envy itself, that universal accompaniment of royalty, could 
 not defraud him of his due praise. As for his personal 
 appearance, he is well made, and neither tall nor short : his 
 head is round in shape, and the thick hair, falling back a 
 little from the forehead, curls upwards towards the crown : 
 his neck shows no large development of muscle : his eye- 
 brows are thick, and regularly arched : his eyelashes, when 
 he closes his eyes, reach the middle of his cheeks : his ears, 
 in accordance with the national custom, are covered with 
 long depending locks of twisted hair : his nose is slightly 
 aquiline : his lips are thin, and compressed at the corners of 
 
 * Sidon. Apollinaris, Carmin. xxiii. 68 — 71. 
 2 F 
 
4Z4: THE VISIGOTHS. 
 
 his mouth : when he shows accidentally the regular row of 
 his teeth, they are seen to be as white as snow : the hair is 
 daily removed from his nostrils : his beard grows up to the 
 hollow of his temples, but it is daily plucked out by a 
 barber, at least so far as the lower part of the jaw : his 
 chin, throat, and neck, are not obese, but full in form : his 
 skin is white as milk, and, when gazed upon more closely, 
 becomes suffused with a youthful blush ; for his frequent 
 high colour is produced, not by anger, but by modesty : his 
 shoulders are well-shaped, his arms strong and sinewy, his 
 hands large : his spine, sunk somewhat deeply between the 
 ribs, is set straight in his back : his sides are large, from 
 their distended muscles, his waist small, his loins vigorous, 
 his thigh hard as horn, the joints of his knees most strongly 
 knit, his knees themselves unwrinkled and well-made . a 
 stout calf supports his leg, and, for such large limbs, his foot 
 is small. You ask me to describe his daily out-door life. 
 Accompanied by a very small suite, he attends, before day- 
 light, the services of the Church in his own household : he 
 is very sedulous in his devotions ; but although his tones are 
 suppressed, you may perceive that this is a matter of habit 
 with him, rather than of religious principle. The business 
 of administration occupies the rest of the morning. An 
 armed aide-de-camp stands beside his throne : his band of 
 fur-clad body-guards is admitted into the palace, in order 
 that they may be close to the royal presence ; while, in 
 order that they may not make too much noise, they are kept 
 out of the room ; and so they converse in murmurs, inside a 
 railing and outside of the hangings. Ambassadors from 
 foreign powers are then introduced. The king listens much, 
 and says little. If an affair require discussion, he puts it off; 
 if immediate action, he presses it forward. At eight o'clock, 
 he rises, and proceeds to examine either his treasures or his 
 stables. When he goes to hunt, he does not deem it suitable 
 to the royal dignity to carry his bow upon his own person : 
 
DESCRIBED BY SIDONIUS. 435 
 
 when, however, accident or any of his suite points out to 
 him a wild animal or a bird, he puts out his hand behind 
 him, and receives it, unstrung, from a page ; for, just as he 
 regards it an undignified thing to cany the weapon in its 
 case, so does he deem it unmanly that it should be prepared 
 by another for his use. Sometimes he strings it by pressing 
 the two extremities together in his hands ; sometimes he 
 places one end against his heel, and runs his hand, with the 
 knot in it, along the bow to its other end : he selects an 
 arrow, fits it to the string, and lets fly, first asking what 
 you wish him to strike. You make your choice, and he 
 invariably hits the mark ; indeed, if there is ever any 
 mistake, it is oftener in the sight of him who points out 
 the object, than in the aim of him who shoots at it. His 
 banquets do not differ from those of a private gentleman. 
 You never see the vulgarity of an immense mass of tar- 
 nished plate, heaped upon a groaning table by a puffing and 
 perspiring slave. The only thing there weighty is the 
 discourse ; for either serious subjects are discussed, or none 
 at all. Sometimes purple, and sometimes fine silk, are 
 employed in adorning the furniture of the dining-room. The 
 dinner is recommended by the skill of the cookery, not by 
 the price paid for the provisions ; the plate by its bright- 
 ness, not by its massive weight. The guests are much more 
 frequently called upon to complain of thirst, from finding 
 the goblet or glass too seldom proffered, than to shun ebriety 
 by refusing it. In a word, one sees there the elegance of 
 Greece, the dispatch of Italy, the splendour of a public, 
 with the attention of a private entertainment, the regular 
 order of a royal household. After dinner, Theodoric either 
 takes no siesta at all, or a very short one. When he feels 
 inclined for play, he picks up the dice quickly, looks at them 
 carefully, shakes them scientifically, throws at once, jocularly 
 addresses them, and awaits the result with patience. When 
 the cast is a good one, he says nothing; when bad, he 
 2 F 2 
 
436 THE VISIGOTHS. 
 
 laughs; good or bad, he is never angry, and takes both 
 philosophically. As for * the revenge,' he equally disdains 
 either to ask for or avoid it : even in play, you would fancy 
 him in the field of battle ; for he cares for nothing except 
 victory. While engaged in this way, he lays aside for a 
 little the strictness of royal etiquette ; he exhorts his friends 
 to play, to freedom of language and demeanour. I will tell 
 you what I really think — he is afraid that people should be 
 afraid of him. In a word, he is delighted when the adver- 
 sary whom he has beaten loses his temper ; for this loss of 
 temper convinces him that he has not been merely allowed 
 to win ; and, what you will be surprised to hear, this good- 
 humour, sometimes produced by the most trifling incidents, 
 is the cause of bringing to a successful issue affairs of the 
 gravest importance. Then, petitions, which have hitherto 
 suffered shipwreck under the most distinguished patronage, 
 suddenly attain the haven of success ; indeed, when I have 
 myself a favour to ask, I am delighted to be beaten ; for the 
 loss of my game brings the gain of my suit. About three 
 o'clock, again commence the fatigues of government : back 
 come the suitors, and back those whose duty it is to keep 
 them at a distance. On all sides is heard a wrangling and 
 intriguing crowd, which, prolonged to the royal dinner- 
 hour, then only begins to diminish : after that, it disperses, 
 as each individual seeks his own special patron. Occasionally, 
 though not often, jesters are admitted to the royal banquet, 
 without, however, being permitted to vent their malicious 
 raillery upon any person present. One never hears, however, 
 the water-organ there, nor a studied concert of vocal per- 
 formers, under the direction of a regular conductor : no one 
 plays the lyre or the flute : there is no choir-master, no 
 singing-girls, or girls who dance with a tambourine : the 
 king only takes pleasure in that sort of music which has 
 as good an effect upon the mind as its strains have upon 
 the ear. When he has risen from table, the guard of the 
 
DESIRE TO REVIVE THE EMPIRE. 437 
 
 treasury commences its nightly functions : armed men take 
 tlieir station at all approaches to the palace, whose duty it 
 will be to keep watch there during the first hours of the 
 night."'"' 
 
 The words with which Sidonius himself follows up this 
 extract, will perhaps be applied to it here : " Sed jam quid 
 istud meas ad partes ?" — What has all this to do with our 
 present purpose ? I can only reply, that if it be the histo- 
 rian's duty to aim at setting forth " the very age and body 
 of the time," that end may perhaps be better attained by 
 this minute contemporary portraiture of a fifth- century 
 court and king, than by more solemn and pretentious dis- 
 quisition. From this delineation of Yisigoth life, one thing, 
 at any rate, is clear : we cannot confound the nation with 
 the Franks, and other wilder specimens of the Teutonic 
 races, under the common and sweeping epithet of " Bar- 
 barians." They welcomed the arts and appliances of a 
 superior civilization, and showed, both in Italy and Gaul, 
 that they only required longer time, and larger opportu- 
 nities, to rival the refinement of the old Roman life, without 
 reproducing its corruptions. They came, in their long pas- 
 sage through the Empire, to respect the prodigious power, 
 and to admire the splendour and elegance which civilization 
 had bestowed on Rome ; and, therefore, they accepted her 
 arts and institutions in a docile spirit, which rendered them 
 more polished, gentle, and intelligent than others of their 
 barbarian brethren, whose contact with the old society had 
 been more violent and less continuous. They, in fact, be- 
 came so far Romanized in feeling, that they felt, or at least 
 the wiser and more thoughtful among their rulers felt, that 
 the true part which the Goth had to play in history, was 
 to revive the Empire under another name. This is very 
 clearly seen in a most remarkable passage, quoted both 
 by Michelet and Thierry, from a fifth-century writer. " I 
 * Sid. Apoll. lib. i. Ep. 2. 
 
4S8 ' THE VISIGOTHS. 
 
 remember," says he, " having heard the blessed Jerome 
 relate, at Bethlehem, his having heard from a citizen of 
 Narbonne, who had risen to high offices under the emperor 
 Theodosius, and was, moreover, a religious, wise, and grave 
 man, and who had enjoyed, in his native city, the friendship 
 of Ataulph, that the king of the Goths, who was a high- 
 hearted and large-minded man, was in the habit of saying, 
 that his warmest ambition at first had been to annihilate 
 the name of Rome, and to erect out of its ruins a new 
 empire, to be called the Gothic ; so that, to employ the 
 terms commonly used, all that had been Romania should 
 become Gothia, and he liimself play the same part that 
 Caesar Augustus formerly did : but that, becoming convinced 
 by experience that the Goths were incapable, from their stub- 
 born barbarism, of obedience to the laws, without which a 
 republic ceases to be a republic, he had resolved to seek 
 glory by devoting the might of the Goths to the integral 
 re-establishment, and even increase, of the power of the 
 Roman name, so that he might be regarded by posterity as 
 the restorer of that empire which he found himself unable 
 to transplant. In this view he abstained from war, and 
 devoted his best care to the cultivation of peace."* The 
 policy thus expressed was in no inconsiderable degree carried 
 out. Though the Visigoths seized upon two-thirds of the 
 land, yet the tyranny of the imperial tax-gatherer had 
 already put nearly that proportion out of cultivation. The 
 barbarian, in many cases, by his settlement in Gaul, only 
 reclaimed a barren wilderness. This was no great hardship 
 upon the original proprietors of the soil ; and, in some cases, 
 where hardship did exist, if we are to believe a story pre- 
 served by Paulinus, the sufferer received indemnification. t 
 
 * Michelet, Histoire de la France, book ii. oh. 1 ; Thierry, Lettres 
 sur I'Histoire de France, vi. 
 
 t Paulinus in Eucliarist. v. 561 — 581, ed. 1681; quoted by Michelet, 
 Hist, de France, ch. ii. 
 
ATTACKED BY THE FEANKS. 439 
 
 Paulinus himself, a Gaulish poet, had lost all his property 
 when Ataulphus invaded Gaul : he retired to Marseilles, 
 and one fine morning was marvellously pleased to receive 
 the value of his estate, which had been generously trans- 
 mitted by the new occupant. Men of cultivation and in- 
 telligence found a warm welcome and honourable home in 
 the Gothic courts of Pa via and Toulouse : the case was 
 far different in the Frankish capitals. Who can imagine a 
 Cassidorus, a Boethius, or an Avitus, in the train of Clovis 
 or Clotaire 1 
 
 Between the check imposed by the power of Kicimer 
 upon the kingdom of the Visigoths in Gaul, and their 
 temporary absorption in the Italian empire of their Ostro- 
 goth kinsman Theodoric the Great, the Visigoths, in con- 
 junction with their Spanish brethren, consolidated 
 their rule in the old Roman provinces north of 
 the Pyrenees, winning Narbonne, with many other cities, 
 and advancing their armies quite up to the banks of the 
 Loire. They had, however, by this time, come, like the 
 Burgundians, into contact with the rising power of the 
 Pranks, and two years after the battle of Tolbiac, had the 
 folly, in their capacity as Arians, to offend the new-fledged 
 zeal of Clovis by a persecution of the Catholics scattered 
 throughout* their dominions. The sufferers called for aid 
 upon the new champion of the faith, and the politic or 
 zealous king responded to a call which offered such brilliant 
 opportunities for the propagation of orthodoxy and the 
 extension of the Prankish power. The Arians of Burgundy, 
 it might have been supposed, v/ould have united with their 
 Visigoth co-religionists against the progress of a rival power 
 and adverse creed. But the resistance of Burgundy had 
 been already subdued. Burgundian soldiers swelled the 
 ranks of the Frank army that, in the bloody 
 battle of Vougle, near Poitiers, vanquished the 
 Visigoths, and left Alaric, their king, dead upon the field ; 
 
440 THE FF.AKKS. 
 
 a fitting pmiishment for the temerity with which he had 
 refused to await the succours ah'eady dispatched by the 
 Ostrogoths of Italy to his assistance. 
 
 The way was thus opened for an ambitious and unre- 
 lenting enemy to the very gates of their capital, 
 and the Visigoths lost Toulouse. They substi- 
 tuted for it Narbonne, but were only saved from destruction 
 by the growing power of Theodoric the Great. Theodoric 
 assumed sovereign rights over his Gallic kinsmen, 
 and with these rights the duty to protect them 
 against both Franks and Burgundians, whom he signally 
 defeated in a vigorously-contested battle at Aries. 
 
 But Aquitaine had been already lost, and the Visigoth 
 possessions in Gaul, restricted to the province of Septimania, 
 between the Rhone and the Pyrenees, were henceforward 
 little more than an appanage to the more firmly- 
 established monarchy in Spain. In 526, Theodoric 
 died, and the two kindred tribes of Ostrogoths and Visi- 
 goths again assumed independent positions,""* making the 
 Rhone the boundary between them ; but the transfer of the 
 Gothic capital beyond the Pyrenees, by Theudis, in 533, and 
 the consequent devastations of their Gallic territory by the 
 Franks, may be regarded as the closing scene of the Visigoth 
 annals in France. Henceforward their history' belongs to 
 that of Spain, in connection with which we shall hereafter 
 briefly recur to it. 
 
 The treatise of Tacitus is our great source of information 
 for all that relates to the primitive state of Germany ; and 
 we have largely availed ourselves of it in a former lecture, 
 when attempting to sketch briefly the main ethnological 
 features of the great Teutonic races. Among these, the 
 Franks may be considered to exhibit the most complete and 
 conspicuous type of the national character ; yet, in the 
 " Germany" of Tacitus the name of Frank does not occur. 
 * Greg. Tours, ii. § 31. 
 
THE FRANK CONFEDERATION. 441 
 
 This is easily explained by the hypothesis that the name 
 does not denote a people but a federation, and we know as 
 a fact that other similar federations — that of the Alemanni 
 for instance, and that of the Saxons — were of common occur- 
 rence to the east of the great Gallo-German river. 
 
 There are not wanting external confirmations of a theory 
 so probable in itself; and accordingly, all later historians 
 seem to agree in the belief that the name of Frank was first 
 given to a confederacy of Teutonic tribes who were located 
 somewhere on the lower Ehine. The title "Frak," "Freeh,' 
 and with a nasal intonation "Frank," a freeman, is one of 
 self-laudation, and in this respect it resembles that of 
 the Alemannic league, who styled themselves Alle Manni 
 (all-men) ; and perhaps, if the etymology of Thierry be 
 correct, that also of the Saxe-sons, or " Sons of the short- 
 sword." Certain French writers, ofiended at the admixture 
 of so large a Teutonic element in their nationality, have 
 devised the existence of a Celtic tribe of " Franks," who, at 
 some pre-historic period, passed beyond the Rhine, and 
 returned in later ages to claim their patrimonial lands in 
 Oallic soil. Caesar certainly does speak of several such 
 migrations, and of the passage of roving Celtic bands to the 
 East. The most remarkable of these we have noticed ; * but 
 there is nothing in the text of Csesar, or of any other writer, 
 which will warrant us in believing that a return in force 
 and a settlement in Graul took place. The Franks, says 
 Procopiils, "are the same as the Germans, and they used to 
 live near the mouths of the Rhine ;" and there is no reason 
 why a man of his travelled experience should not have had 
 a tolerably correct opinion on the matter. The hypothesis, 
 then, is altogether untenable, and is in direct contradiction 
 to the analogy of all other permanent migratory movements 
 of the same period. Gallic migrations, of which we have 
 spoken in another place, had a very different destiny, and 
 * Lecture III. 
 
442 THE FRANKS. 
 
 exhibit no indications of a return to the West, This theory, 
 therefore, is given up even by Frenchmen, and may be 
 dismissed from our consideration. 
 
 The learned ethnologist Dr. Latham has asserted his 
 belief that the name of Frank belonged to all the German 
 tribes that did not accept the supremacy of Rome. He 
 does not state, nor have I been able to discover, the 
 grounds of this opinion. But the Charta Peutingeria, an 
 old Roman map, dating probably from before the third 
 century, uses the term "Francia," or "land of the free 
 tribes," to denote all the region which extends from the 
 neighbourhood of Cologne to the German Ocean. In com- 
 mon Roman parlance, the national epithet may have been 
 adopted in some such general and loose signification, or 
 the Germans may have so employed it themselves; but 
 this does not invalidate the theory of its application by the 
 " desynonomizing process," to a special confederacy of the 
 tribes described by Tacitus as dwelling beside the Rhine. 
 Sir F. Palgrave expresses his opinion that they came from 
 what are now called the provinces of Franconia, Westphalia, 
 and Thuringia ; " though some," he adds, " place their origi- 
 nal seat only on the Rhine." It is, however, only in the 
 latter locality that history records their existence. 
 
 Among the most important of these federate " Franks," 
 were the Sigambri of Horace, Yirgil, and Tacitus, now very 
 generally admitted to have been identical with the Salian 
 Franks.* We may also include the Bructeri, Chamavi, 
 Marsi, and other members of the great Cheruscan league, 
 whom Arminius led against the legions of Yarns, when, in 
 
 * Vide the words of Gregory of Tours, prefixed as a motto to this 
 lecture. I have seen a theory founded upon the use of the epithet 
 "mitis" as applied to Sicamber, which infers the improved civilization 
 of the tribe since the days when they were the " feroces Sicambri" of 
 Horace ! This, of course, arises from ignorance of the Latin language ; 
 mitis being taken adverbially, ^' gently hov)" as ** Serus in coslum 
 redeas" in the same author. 
 
SKETCH OF THE FRANKS BY SIDONIUS. 443 
 
 the depths of the Teutobiirger Wald, lie humbled the pride, 
 and inflicted so rude a shock upon the power of Rome. It 
 must have been at a very early period that the Frank, 
 following the example of his fellow Teutons, first crossed 
 the Rhine for predatory excursions, though not for perma- 
 nent settlement. In the case of the Yisigoths, we have 
 attached some value to the description of the personal cha- 
 racteristics of their king by a contemporary observer. The 
 personal characteristics of the Franks have been described 
 by the same writer, and their wild bands must have often 
 passed before his eyes. " From the summit of their head de- 
 scends their auburn hair, drawn to each side of the forehead : 
 their neck and shoulders thus are bare and bright. A sea- 
 green light flashes from the watery paleness of their eyes. 
 Their faces are shorn, and instead of a beard, exhibit 
 scattered tufts of hair. Tight garments compress their 
 limbs of giant mould, and the short skirt displays the knee. 
 A broad baldric hangs round their waists, of narrow girth. 
 It is their sport to hurl swiftly through the air the double- 
 headed axe, knowing the spot where it will strike; to whirl 
 their bucklers round, and leap beyond their own javelin- 
 casts, and even before them, to strike the foe. Even in their 
 childish years the love of battle is ripened in their breast. 
 If hard pressed by numbers or disadvantageous position, they 
 yield to death, but never unto fear : undaunted they main- 
 tain the fight, and, ere their courage, life itself departs."* 
 Such a Frank hero was the gallant young Sigismer, whose 
 description, also by Sidonius, we venture to add as a pen- 
 dant to his portrait of Theodoric. " The young chief 
 Sigismer," says Sidonius Apollinaris, " walked, preceded or 
 followed by horses whose housings sparkled with jewels. On 
 foot, and clad in milk-white silk, resplendent with gold and 
 blazing with purple ; these three colours harmonized with 
 
 * Sidonius Apollinaris, Panegyricus Majoriani, 237 — 252. 
 
444 THE FRANKS. 
 
 his hair, his complexion, and his skin. . . . The chiefs 
 around him wore boots of fur ; their legs and knees were 
 bare ; their high narrow gowns, striped with various colours, 
 hardly reached their calves, and their sleeves did not fall 
 below the elbow ; their green mantles were edged with a 
 scarlet border ; their swords, suspended from the shoulder 
 by a long belt, girded their sides, around which they wore 
 skins : their arms were an additional ornament." * Such 
 were the adventurous warriors who, during the first cen- 
 tury, appeared within the limits of the Empire, sometimes as 
 plunderers, sometimes as holders of territory obtained for 
 services in the Eoman army. They were alike the best 
 soldiers in the emperor's pay, and his most formidable 
 opponents in the field. 
 
 Just before the great movement of the Goths, they appear 
 
 to have been unusually restless and aggressive; so much so, 
 
 indeed, as to have menaced the Roman frontier. Aurelian, 
 
 the conqueror of the East, won his earlier laurels in a 
 
 terrible conflict with these barbarians near Ma- 
 
 yence. But five-and-thirty years later, Probus, 
 
 after twice defeating their predatory bands, found it more 
 
 convenient — for many doubt whether it was more wise — to 
 
 grant them lands in Gaul. They, however, did 
 
 good service in the peasant insurrection of Ba- 
 
 gaudge, and these grants were repeated and enlarged by 
 
 Constantius and his successors. The adventures 
 
 A.D. 291. 
 
 * of one body of these daring Germans are of almost 
 romantic character. Planted by Probus upon the shores of 
 the Euxine, they soon wearied of their exile, and formed, 
 what was in that age, the marvellous resolution of returning 
 by sea. Setting sail in a few rude barks, they plundered, as 
 they advanced, the coasts of Asia, Greece, and Sicily; passed 
 the Pillars of Hercules ; and, after struggling successfully 
 with the vast Atlantic waves which lash the western coast 
 * Sidonius Apollinaris. 
 
JULIAN ON THE EHINE. U5- 
 
 of Europe, landed at last in safety at the moutli of their 
 beloved Rhine. 
 
 Half a century elapses, and we find that the German 
 Franks had become exceedingly troublesome to the Gallie 
 provinces of the Empire, actuated, we may imagine, by 
 accounts of the prosperity and comfort of their brethren on 
 the opposite bank of the Rhine. They may boast of 
 having matured the military education, and per- 
 haps also the ambitious designs, of the famous Julian, who 
 was sent direct from the schools of Athens to assume the 
 command as " Caesar," on the Rhenish military frontier. 
 Those who are fond of the recital of good hard fighting may 
 find their taste amply gratified in the pages of stout old 
 Ammianus Marcellinus, where he records the campaigns 
 of Julian, his comrade, and the idol of his military 
 admiration."' Julian has the credit of subjugating 
 the Salii, and driving the Chamavi beyond the Rhine ; yet 
 Julian, with his eyes ever fixed on the East, was not sorry 
 to allow some of his sturdy opponents to settle in Brabant^ 
 Before the century closes, we have seen the Frank Arbo- 
 gastes destroy Yalentinian II. and become actual 
 master of the imperial throne. t The Franks next 
 appear as oflfering an inefiectual resistance in the Roman in- 
 terest — and of course in their own as well — to the great tide 
 of German invasion, of which we have so frequently spoken as 
 destroying the Roman empire beyond the Alps, and esta- 
 blishing the Burguudians and Visigoths in Gaul. 
 Disturbed in their own settlements, they crossed 
 the Alps to indemnify themselves at the expense of their 
 Roman friends in the fertile plains of Italy ; but Stilicho 
 received them with so rude a shock, that this first experi- 
 ment of Frank trans- Alpine enterprise, the precursor of so- 
 many others, was not encouraging. 
 
 '' See Lect. III. p. 139. f Lect. V. p. 234. 
 
446 THE FEANKS. 
 
 Between this repulse and the arrival of Attila and his Huns 
 upon the Rhine, a name arises among the Frank confederacy — 
 and it is little more than a name, — which has been seized upon 
 to form the basis of a dynastic establishment and a national 
 history. About 448, Merowig, or Merwig — the word has been 
 latinized into Merovius, — was elevated, according 
 * to traditional custom, upon a buckler, and pro- 
 claimed chief of the Franks. The proper names of a bar- 
 barous people are universally significative; thus, mer, 
 " great," and wig, " warrior," are the two elements of the 
 name of the founder of the Merovingian race ; as lot, 
 nasally aspirated clot, " famous," and hild, '• youth," are 
 those of his more renowned grandson. To this Merovius 
 we must ascribe the origin of the first great dynasty of 
 French history. Of the mythic Pharamond mentioned by 
 some French writers, Gregory of Tours knew nothing, and 
 we may reasonably be contented to know no more. For 
 reasons already recounted, the Franks must bear the dis- 
 grace of having fought on both sides in the great battle of 
 civilization at Chalons. But while a portion of 
 the race remained under professed allegiance to 
 Syagrius, the representative of Roman authority in Gaul, 
 their boldest tribe, the Salii, recognizing Clovis as 
 their chief at the early age of sixteen, appear to 
 have adopted designs of extensive conquest, if not of inde- 
 pendent and powerful political organization. The two im- 
 pulses must not be regarded as identical ; for here we arrive 
 at a very considerable and important divergence of opinion 
 among historical authorities. French writers, from a natural 
 desire to give eclat to their national "origines," and to 
 elaborate French history, from the fifth century to the pre- 
 sent time, as one great and coherent whole, have assigned to 
 the kingdom of Clovis a settled character, and to Clovis 
 himself a knowledge of statecraft and a capacity for political 
 oonceptions, with a power of carrying them out, consistent 
 
MEROVIUS AND CLOVIS. 447 
 
 with their ideal of a monarch who was the legitimate pre- 
 cursor of Charlemagne, Louis XIV., and Napoleon I. 
 
 But others, with whom I must venture to express my 
 agreement, have been unable to recognize in the blood- 
 stained barbarian of Soissons and Tolbiac, suri'ounded by 
 his half-clad and disorderly warriors, one of those few men, 
 the really great names of history, who, as legislators or 
 organizers, have raised their rude countrymen to the dignity 
 of national life. "In most French writers," says Sir J. 
 Stephen, " in Gibbon's History, and even in the Lectures of 
 M. Guizot, Clovis and Clotaire sweep across the historic 
 stage in the garb and character of heroes. Their campaigns 
 are depicted in colours brilliant enough to reflect the glories 
 of Napoleon. The doctrines of Aristotle and of Montes- 
 quieu are invoked to interpret to us the enigmas of their 
 policy ; and the revolutions of their kingdom are announced 
 in terms such as might fitly celebrate the overthrow of the 
 empire of the Caesars." 
 
 Though, for reasons which may be stated in his own words, 
 we think Gibbon ought perhaps to be excepted from this 
 catalogue. Sir James is in the main undoubtedly right. 
 Clovis was an " untutored savage,^^ the dominant instinct of 
 whose mind was a thirst for blood, which he indulged 
 without scruple, or remorse, or limitation by the precepts of 
 the religion which he externally embraced : he loved con- 
 quest, as his warriors loved it, — for the sake of spoil, and gave 
 no indication of any real desire for the social organization of 
 the countries he subdued, or even of the people over whom 
 he ruled in right of military election. His desire for the 
 invasion and "annexation" of the Arian Visigoths was 
 simply inspired by the goodness of the lands which they 
 occupied ; and his strongest feelings in regard to the sacri- 
 fice of Him in whose name he had been baptized, was a pas- 
 sionate wish to do battle with the Jews on the hill of Calvary. 
 Nor is the judgment of Gibbon materially different. " The 
 
448 THE FRANKS. 
 
 monarchy," he says, " was left without any regular establish- 
 ment of justice, of arms, or of revenue. The successors of 
 Clovis wanted resolution to assume, or strength to exercise, 
 the legislative and executive powers which the people had 
 abdicated : the royal prerogative was distinguished only by 
 a more ample privilege of rapine and murder ; and the love 
 of freedom, so often invigorated and disgraced by private 
 ambition, was reduced, among the licentious Franks, to the 
 contempt of order and the desire of impunity."* 
 
 I do not assert that in Clovis such feelings and notions were 
 extraordinary, or even greatly culpable. It is unjust to blame 
 a man for not being beyond his age ; but let it be admitted 
 that Clovis and his people were not beyond it ; otherwise our 
 conceptions of it and of them can possess no historical value. 
 The age is not yet a civilized age ; a great social revolution 
 has yet to be wrought out ; we have still long to wait before 
 Law, Order, and settled Government emerge from the reign 
 of Force, or before we can discover the great image of France 
 in the chaotic annals of Gaul. The distinction is an important 
 one j yet it is not seldom forgotten, or j^urposely confused. 
 It has suited the dynastic ambition of French rulers to stand 
 before the imagination of Europe as the legitimate, if not the 
 lineal, successors and representatives of Charlemagne. This 
 has seemed to them to imply a grandeur for the France of 
 the past, to which the France of the present undoubtedly 
 succeeds j perhaps it has also not obscurely suggested for her 
 the frontier of the Alps, the Pyrenees, and the Rhine. But, 
 unfortunately for the argument; it implies a great deal more ; 
 it would justify a claim to half the territories in Europe. 
 Charlemagne, as successor to Pepin, " king of the Franks," 
 cannot be regarded as actual ruler of more than a third of 
 the modern kingdom of France. Aquitaine was still Eoman ; 
 the Germans maintained their possessions west of the Rhine ; 
 the Bretons stood fast in the Armorican peninsula, and 
 * Gibbon, ch. xxxviii. 
 
FRANCE NOT THE EMPIRE OF CHARLEMAGNE. 449 
 
 never paid a more than momentary and dubious allegiance 
 to the head of the Carlovingian house. But Charlemagne, 
 as emperor of the West, ruled all France, all Switzerland, all 
 Italy, nearly all Germany, and half of Spain. The Franks 
 of Gaul, who obeyed the Merovingian kings, were only a small 
 portion of their people. The federation had, at least, one of 
 their original seats in Franconia, on the other side of the 
 Bhine, and there still dwelt the most legitimate possessors of 
 the Frankish name. They were Germans, essentially distinct, 
 in all national attributes, from the mixed population who 
 occupied what was still called Gaul. Similarly, after the 
 Norman Conquest, the most numerous, and the most genuine, 
 because the least mixed in blood of the Norman race, were 
 dwelling in the province of Normandy, beyond the sea. It 
 is not probable that the Franks effected a more permanent 
 change in the national character of those whom they invaded, 
 than the Normans did in the parallel case. Both constituted 
 a very small element of the new nation, which gradually grew 
 up from the fusion of the conquering and the conquered race. 
 But there is this important difference, — Roman Gaul became 
 France ; Saxon England never became Normandy. The Nor- 
 mans were never able to eliminate the old Teutonic appella- 
 tive, and affix their name to the " land of the Angles." They 
 were, themselves, absorbed into the nationality of the great 
 people whom they had beaten in one decisive battle. The 
 denationalized Bomano-Gallic inhabitants of the Province 
 were as little able to resist the name, as they were able to 
 resist the battleaxe of their new master. They supplied 
 him with a language, yet they were compelled to accept 
 their appellation at his hands, and Gaul has gradually 
 adopted a title which originally and correctly only belonged 
 to a third of the whole country. It follows from all this, 
 that there is no national unity and coherence in the histo- 
 ries of ancient Gaul and modern France ; that the house of 
 Valois, or of Bourbon, had no more grounds for identifying 
 
 2 a 
 
450 THE FRANKS. 
 
 themselves with the rights and traditions of the great Car- 
 lovingian empire, than William Rufus, or Robert the Devil, 
 could have had for claiming to share in the rights and 
 traditions of Alfred and the Heptarchy ; and finally, that if 
 the empire ruled by the German Charlemagne, from Aachen 
 and Ingelheim, confer upon the ruler of Paris a right to the 
 frontier of the E-hine, it also confers upon him a right to 
 Switzerland, Italy, the Spanish Marches, and Germany, as 
 far as the banks of the Vistula. Or, to put the matter in 
 another way, if imperial traditions and the doctrine of 
 natural frontiers, give Mayence to France, Germany, upon 
 the same grounds, has an equal riglit to claim Bordeaux. 
 At the age of one-and-twenty, Clovis found himself at 
 the head of the Salian Franks, whose central po- 
 sition was at Tournesis, or Toumay. Home yet 
 retained within her feeble hold a district independent of 
 the barbaiians, of which the governor was Syagrius, and 
 the chief city Soissons. Two such neighbours could not 
 long retain their relative position. On the one side was a 
 community in the last stage of decadence, without patriotic 
 spirit, moral strength, or martial skill ; on the other, a 
 young society, trained to war and rapine as the main object 
 of its being, and uniting to the energy of youth contempt 
 for its foe and the confidence inspired by victories already 
 won. The result may be imagined. Clovis set forth with 
 the intent to conquer Syagrius, perhaps with the hope of 
 mastering the whole of Gaul. The first object he instantly 
 
 achieved at the battle of Soissons, in 486. The 
 A.D. 486. i X . T.. 1 • • ..1 
 
 next step m nis progress was his union with 
 
 Clotilda, the Catholic niece of the Arian king of the Bur- 
 gundians,* Dr. Arnold might well have specified this 
 among the marriages which have in a great measure deter- 
 mined the course of modern history ; for this union of 
 Clovis with Clotilda did what a union with no other woman 
 * Vide suprk ; and Arnold's Lectures, ii. p. 114. 
 
BATTLE OF TOLBIAC. 451 
 
 in Europe could have done, — brouglit him within the 
 great and growing influence of the orthodox Latin church. 
 What the position of the Church -was, between the Barba- 
 rians on the one side, and the Empire on the other, we have 
 already seen in part, and we shall hereafter more particularly 
 explain ; but the situation had been complicated by the 
 establishment of the Visigoth and Burgundian kingdoms, 
 whose rulers professed the Arian heresy. The Catholics, 
 then, as the stay of imperial support was gradually with- 
 drawn beyond the Alps, felt the necessity of some other 
 equally powerful support against the secular auxiliaries 
 whom their Arian rivals had acquired, and who, they 
 well knew, would be used against the interests of the 
 orthodox church. At this very crisis, the Frank ap- 
 peared in the northern horizon, and, by a masterpiece of 
 policy, they secured his aid. Nor, if the invader brought 
 assistance to the Church, was the Church less useful to the 
 invader : she could smooth the way for his advance among 
 the old semi-Roman population, where her authority was 
 respected, by conciliating their affections towards a co-reli- 
 gionist, and by representing the redoubtable leader of those 
 terrible legions as the child and champion of the faith. To 
 those who look with reverential eyes for the working out of 
 God's purposes through the ages, though dimmed, perchance, 
 and rendered doubtful by the imperfection of the agency 
 employed in their development, this marriage of the wild 
 Frank king with the Christian princess of Burgundy is one 
 of those events which stand out like a star in the night of 
 human history. The conversion of Clovis was, doubtless, long 
 determined upon ; but the narrative of its occurrence has 
 a touch of the old Homeric strain. An immense band of 
 barbarians, fresher from their forests, and, therefore, more 
 fierce and dreadful than the Franks themselves, 
 were advancing rapidly upon Gaul. Clovis rushed 
 to the rescue, and met them at Tolbiac. There, in the " cur- 
 2 G 2 
 
452 THE FRANKS. 
 
 rent of a lieady fight," when he saw his battalions waver 
 beneath the furious charges of the enemy, he cried to the 
 God of Clotilda for help, and vowed to adore Him if he 
 might yet restore the day. He conquered ; and he kept 
 his vow. At Rheims, he received the rite of Christian 
 baptism from its bishop, St. Remi, amid more than the 
 usual pageantry and splendour of the Catholic ceremonial. 
 A thousand lamps blazed before an altar decked with jewels 
 and gold ; clouds of incense rolled to the roof, perfuming the 
 air with the spices of the East ; the officiating priests were 
 gorgeous in purple, scarlet, and white ; a crowd of catechu- 
 mens marched in procession, laden with flowers. " Father,'* 
 said the astonished barbarian, " is this the heaven thou hast 
 promised us ?" " It is the path to it," replied the politic priest. 
 He then proceeded to the ceremony.* '•' Sicamber, meekly 
 bow thy head : burn that which thou hast worshipped, and 
 worship that which thou hast burned," was the address, 
 already quoted, which welcomed this renowned proselyte into 
 the bosom of Christianity. Three thousand of his warriors 
 followed their chief's example. Thus, says Michelet, did 
 the Church take solemn possession of the barbarians. The 
 subsequent career of Clovis was a succession of triumphs. 
 Gondebauld, the Burgundian king, had murdered Clotilda's 
 father. Clovis determined upon revenge, or rather upon in- 
 dulging his passion for new territory and rich spoil, under the 
 plea of retribution. It was in vain that Gondebauld made 
 most important concessions to the Catholic bishops, and 
 strove to conciliate the old Roman population by a revision 
 of the national laws in their favour. The iron 
 hand was upon him ; he was defeated, after a 
 bloody battle, at Dijon, on the Ousche ; his kingdom was 
 subdued, and all the cities on the Saone and the Rhone 
 obeyed the orthodox prelates and the Frank king. 
 
 * These details are given in Hincmar's Life of St. Ilemi. 
 
BATTLE OF VOUGLIE. 453t 
 
 The Visigoths were the next victims. " It offends me," 
 said the royal propagandist, " that these Arians should possess 
 the fairest portion of the land. Let ns, with God's help, 
 seize upon it. We shall do well; for it is very good."* 
 Euric, the Visigoth king, was a great monarch, and, in many 
 respects, a wise one ; but he bitterly persecuted the Catholics, 
 and blocked up the way to their churches with thorns. t 
 Clovis eagerly assumed the character of champion of his 
 injured brethren and defender of the rights of the Church. 
 The favour of Heaven was palpably manifested in his behalf. 
 Portents went before him, and supernatural guides directed 
 his steps. A hart, of gigantic size, led his army to a ford 
 at a place in Viennes, which still recalls, by its name, the 
 memory of the incident. A watch-tower or Pharos of fire, 
 like the pillar which burnt before the steps of wandering 
 Israel, blazed for his guidance on the cathedral of Poitiers. 
 St. Martin's property was carefully protected ; for when a 
 soldier had stolen some hay from a peasant on his land, 
 Clovis "had his head off in an instant,";]: and exclaimed, 
 " What hope can we have of victory, if the blessed Martin 
 is offended V St. Martin showed his gratitude by the 
 result of divinations, taken from the words of the service 
 in the church of Tours. In return, the invader protected 
 St. Martin's property, to the smallest tittle, from rapine and 
 destruction. Such is the tale told, in his anxiety to honour 
 the champion of the Catholic cause, by the credulous or 
 imaginative Gregory of Tours. It is as mythical as the 
 labours of Hercules, or the expedition of Jason ; but the 
 battle of Vougle is a great fact. At Vougle, behind Poitiers, 
 Alaric 11. and his Visigoths succumbed to the irresistible 
 wielder of the Prankish battleaxe, and Alaric was slaughtered 
 
 * Gregory of Tours, ii. 37. 
 
 t Ibid. ii. 25, — " Scilicet ut raritas ingrediendi oblivionem faceret 
 fidei." 
 + Ibid. ii. 37, — " Dicto citius gladio perempto." 
 
454 THE FEANKS. 
 
 in the rout. The victor passed the -v^inter at Bordeaux, and 
 then advanced as far as Languedoc. He captured both 
 Angouleme and Toulouse, while his son overran Auvergne ; 
 but, at last, he was arrested by an adversary, greater even 
 than himself, both as a warrior and a king. Theodoric, with 
 the Italian Ostrogoths, covered Provence and Spain ; it is most 
 probable that he severely defeated* the Franks, and saved 
 for the infant son of Alaric — who was also his own grand- 
 son — a remnant of his hereditary kingdoms, — the first pro- 
 vince of Narbonne, or, as it was sometimes called, Septimania. 
 Meantime, Auvergne, with its volcanic hills and intricate 
 passes, the stronghold of Roman influence in Gaul, had 
 been subdued by Thierry, the king's eldest son. An attack 
 upon Armorica, the Wales of Gaul, was less successful. 
 The remnants of the brave old Celtic race defended them- 
 selves with the national pertinacity and courage, and the 
 Franks were compelled to fall back. But elsewhere, they 
 continued their devastating course. " Clovis," says a French 
 historian,+ " whose ambition was not diminished, or his 
 ferocity softened by religion, undertook to subdue these 
 people ; and, in order to succeed, he employed both perfidy 
 and violence against their kings, most of whom were his 
 relations : he caused some to be assassinated, and others he 
 slew with his own hand. At length, by means of victories 
 and murders, he united the whole country comprised within 
 the Khine, the Rhone, the Ocean, and the Pyrenees, under 
 his authority." 
 
 Such was the founder of the Merovingian dynasty, — such 
 the character of its conquests. Its fame crossed the Alps, 
 and traversed the Mediterranean. There seems little reason 
 to doubt that Clovis received the consular insignia and title 
 
 * See Jornandes, "de Rebus Geticis," c. 58, who says that there was 
 a battle, and that the Franks lost thirty thousand men, " Nunquam," 
 he adds, with characteristic pride and patriotism, " Gothus Francis 
 cessit dum viveret Theodoricus." 
 
 t Bonnechose, Hist. France, p. 14. 
 
DEATH AND CHARACTER OF CLOVIS. 455 
 
 of Patrician from Anastasius, emperor of the East. By the 
 Koman ecclesiastics, upon whom his favours were showered, 
 he was treated with especial honour. First of French kings, 
 he received the title of Eldest son of the Church. " God," 
 says the worthy bishop of Tours, " frustrated his enemies 
 daily before him, and increased his realm, because he walked 
 with upright heart before Him, and did what was pleasing 
 in His eyes."* Strange must have been the age which 
 deemed the things done by Clovis pleasing in the eyes of 
 Heaven ! But Clovis was innocent and merciful compared 
 with the sanguinary Clotaire. Even Clotaire, however, as a 
 champion of the Catholics, is an immense favourite with 
 Gregory, notwithstanding his frightful crimes, which the 
 worthy bishop represents him as calling " actions which 
 perhaps he had carelessly done " [actiones quas fortasse negli- 
 genter egerit f] He is delighted with the king's prayers to St. 
 Martin of Tours, whose powerful intercession with God the 
 royal penitent requested for the deeds he had done "without 
 due consideration" [irrationabiliter] ; meaning thereby per- 
 juries, murders, adulteries, and cruelties of the most barbarous 
 kind. So difficult is it to gather from contemporaries the 
 true character of men and their actions.t 
 
 When Clovis died, in 511, his dominions were divided among 
 his four sons. Each was styled " king;" a fact which 
 proves that we should be wrong, if we attached to ' * 
 the Teutonic title of " Konig" any more specific or exalted 
 notion than that implied by the less pretentious appellation 
 of Chief The Frank king was indeed a chieftain, a great 
 chieftain, but nothing more. Raised upon the buckler, he 
 was hailed by the acclamation of his countrymen as their 
 leader in war ; and they conceded to him, as was conceded to 
 the Homeric king, the first place in counsel and in fight, 
 and the choicest of the spoil. J But he never occupied a 
 
 * Gregory of Tours, ii. 40. f IMd. iv. 21. 
 
 X We have already mentioned the practice, and ought to have referred 
 
456 THE FEANKS. 
 
 position at all resembling that of the absolute or the con- 
 stitutional monarch of modern times. The oft-repeated 
 story of the " vase of Soissons" is generally quoted as suffi- 
 cient evidence of the fact. Guizot, in his " Essays on the 
 History of France," has collected other and still more 
 conclusive testimony, to which it is unnecessary to refer ; 
 but the conclusion to be drawn from the whole matter is 
 that which we have already asserted. The kingdom of 
 Clovis had not emerged from the chaos of barbarism into 
 the region of order, law, settled institutions, and regular 
 government. It may have suggested the idea, and exhibited 
 the possibility, of a great Frank empire ; it cannot be said 
 to have realized it in practice. 
 
 For one hundred and seventy years from the death of 
 Clovis, the long-haired Salians shared among themselves the 
 lands of Gaul, sometimes wielding a single sceptre, but more 
 frequently as the three or four rival possessors of precarious 
 thrones. But wherever we cast our eyes through this pro- 
 tracted period, they fall upon bloodshed, treachery, and 
 strife. The Merovingian annals are one of the most painful 
 portions of the story of the human race ; from first to last 
 they present the dismal picture of " treasons, stratagems, and 
 spoils," where bloodstained tyrants, cruel and licentious 
 queens, ambitious nobles, and intriguing churchmen, pass and 
 repass in inextricable confusion, ever shifting their relative 
 i^laces before the eyes in a sort of Walpurgis revel, like the 
 figures of a horrible i:)hantasmagoria. " The facts of these 
 times," says our great medieval historian, " are of little other 
 importance than as they impress on the mind a thorough 
 notion of the extreme wickedness of almost every person 
 concerned in them, and, consequently, of the state to which 
 
 to the passage of Tacitus which establishes its antiquity : — " Impositus 
 sou to, more gentis, et sustinentiwin hiimeris vibratus, dux deligitur." — 
 (Tag. Ilist. iv. 15.) Is not this the origin of "chairing" newly-elected 
 members of parliament ? 
 
THE MEROVINGIAN ERA. 457 
 
 society was reduced. But there is no advantage in crowding 
 the memory with barbarian wars and assassinations."* 
 
 This may well excuse us from dwelling upon the unpro- 
 fitable subject within our very limited space. Nevertheless, 
 if we review the history of France under the Merovingian 
 house, several points of importance for its right compre- 
 hension will, I think, at once suggest themselves to our 
 minds. On these we must for a moment dwell. 
 
 (1.) The partition of the country among the sons of 
 Clovis does not appear to have been founded so much upon 
 local as upon military considerations ; it was, in fact, a divi- 
 sion of the army, not of the soil. This, the position of the 
 capitals, Metz, Soissons, Paris, and Orleans, sufficiently 
 proves. They certainly could not have been territorial 
 centres ; for their mutual distance, regarded in reference to 
 the superficial area of France, is inconsiderable. Under 
 these circumstances, the opinion of Sismondi carries with it 
 an air of great probability, — that the object was to secure 
 to each chief an equal number of native-born Franks as 
 subjects. The selected capitals would, in this case, be 
 " centres of force," as Hallam calls them, from which the 
 brothers might render assistance to each other in case of 
 national revolt. But this must also have had another 
 result. The unemployed warriors would naturally flock 
 from one banner to the other, as the character of the chief, 
 or the nature of his position, promised the chance of winning 
 spoil or glory in the field. Among the hundred thousand 
 men who followed the grandson of Clovis across the Alps, 
 there were doubtless recruits from all the four kingdoms of 
 the Franks. 
 
 (2.) The whole Frank nation soon assumed a twofold 
 division, very clearly and positively defined. In political 
 interests, in national habits, in the character of their laws, 
 
 * Hallam, Middle Ages, vol. i. p. 5. 
 
468 THE FKANKS. 
 
 their institutions, and their whole social organization, the 
 Eastern, or Austrasian, were strongly distinguished from the 
 Western, or Neustrian Franks. The latter, in succeeding to 
 the occupation of the Eomano-Gallic provinces, like so many 
 other barbaric races of kindred blood, had very largely 
 assimilated the civilization into the centre of which they 
 had so suddenly plunged. But the German element still 
 predominated in the east. Proximity to the original seats 
 of their race, and absence from contact with civilizing in- 
 fluences, kept alive among them the spirit of their Teutonic 
 ancestors, with many of the habits, practices, and ideas of the 
 old free life in the wild forests of their Fatherland. The 
 Austrasian, therefore, exhibited a greater rigidity of character, 
 with a ruder and perhaps fresher sentiment of nationality ; 
 while the more pliant Neustrian readily suffered himself to 
 be absorbed into the sun-ounding mass of Komanic habits 
 and institutions. It has been conjectured with great proba- 
 bility, that the distinction between Austrasia and Neustria 
 very nearly corresponds with the much older distinction 
 between Kipuarian and Salian Franks. It is difficult to fix 
 the exact limits of the two territories. Indeed Austra- 
 sia, in its widest limits, is sometimes taken to include all 
 the outlying German tribes and dependencies, — Alemanni, 
 Bavarians, Thuringians, or Frisians, — who at any moment 
 claimed to form part of theJFrank confederacy. It was 
 itself, in its more limited signification, subdivided into Upper 
 Austrasia, which abutted upon the Moselle, and Lower Aus- 
 trasia, between the Khine and the Meuse. Neustria had for 
 its northern boundary the Ocean, and for its southern the 
 Lou-e. On the south-west it was separated from Burgundy 
 by an artificial line from Gien, on the Loire, to Arras, on the 
 Aube. On the Aube, again, began its line of demarcation 
 from Austrasia, — a line which, crossing the Marne, the Aisne, 
 and the Oise, coincided with the Scheldt to the west of Cam- 
 brai. Upon a clear conception of the physical, moral, and 
 
THE MEROVINGIAN ERA. 459 
 
 political distinction between these two great districts, 
 depends the right understanding of the whole early history 
 of France. 
 
 (3.) The Merovingian Franks had been converted by the 
 Latin clergy, and became members of the Latin church. 
 All their brother barbarians were of heretical belief. Hence 
 the Roman ecclesiastics, who were the only annalists of the 
 period, viewed all the incidents of theii' age from a Catholic 
 stand-point in religion and a Frankish stand-point in politics. 
 We hear nothing from them of the religious conversion of 
 the Goths, Vandals, and other tribes who adopted Arianism; 
 for to the orthodox, such a conversion seemed unworthy of 
 the name ; nor, again, had these men the national sympathies 
 which might have enabled them to understand, or ourselves 
 to infer from their writings, the policy, the objects, or the 
 real character of the. great Arian monarchs. Nor is this all. 
 The Franks did not, like their Burgundian and Visigoth neigh- 
 bours, throw themselves into the form of social organization 
 which they found in the lands they conquered, nor adopt 
 civil, military, and ecclesiastical institutions, in which they, 
 and the people of the country, might equally, or nearly 
 equally, participate. Like the Heracleids and other conquer- 
 ing races, they remained an army of occupation with imperial 
 functions, among a subject population. But for a long time 
 they did not assume the sacerdotal office. The religious 
 element of the national authority they abandoned with 
 contempt, perhaps with superstitious revei'ence, to the more 
 instructed class from whom they had derived their religion 
 itself. While the Arian clergy of the Gothic and Burgun- 
 dian nations were probably Goths and Burgundians, the 
 Frankish clergy were never Franks, except when the ton- 
 sure was inflicted as a safeguard or a punishment upon some 
 rival prince or rebellious warrior. It is plain that this 
 circumstance must have exercised a very notable influence 
 upon the relations of the Church with the monarchy and 
 
460 THE FEANKS. 
 
 people in Merovingian times, — and ' facts, otherwise most 
 difficult of explanation, abundantly confirm the dpoiori con- 
 clusion. 
 
 (4.) The relations of the Merovingians with Italy, when 
 contrasted with those of their Carlo vingian successors, are 
 very instructive, as tending to show how entirely the former 
 were destitute of what we might call a definite foreign 
 policy ; how little, in short, their military expeditions 
 dijQfered in character from the freebooting forays of their 
 Teutonic fathei-s. When the house of the great Theodoric 
 was about to fall, and the authority of the Greek emperor 
 was restored in Italy for a short season by the arms of Beli- 
 sarius and Narses, the Franks were i:»laced in a position 
 which might have enabled them to incline the balance of 
 power to either side, and, in modern parlance, to become 
 masters of the situation. Both Justinian, the Greek em- 
 peror, and Theodatus, the Ostrogoth king, courted their 
 alliance ; both were ready to buy their swords. Justinian 
 invoked their orthodox sympathies against a heretic dynasty 
 and people ; his letter, recorded by Procopius, is a singular 
 and valuable record, which casts no little light upon the 
 times. " The Goths," he complains, " though they have 
 deprived us of Italy by main force, not only have not 
 shown the slightest indication of restoring it, but have, 
 unprovoked, heaped fresh insults upon our heads, neither 
 trivial nor endurable. We are, therefore, compelled 
 to make war upon them ; and it is reasonable that you 
 should aid us in it, for you hold, as ourselves, the orthodox 
 doctrine which rejects the errors of Arius, and you also 
 bear a common animosity against the Goths."" After 
 all, however, the cunning Greek relied with greater con- 
 fidence upon handsome payments in current coin, and 
 promises still more lavish. This, unfortunately, was a trial of 
 
 * Procopius, Bell. Goth. i. 5. 
 
THE FRANKS IN ITALY. 461 
 
 strength, in which the Goths were quite a match for him. 
 They proffered, on their part, the magnificent bribe of two 
 thousand pounds of solid gold, and the Gothic possessions in 
 Gaul. The Franks had accepted the first offer ; they made 
 no difficulty about accepting the second. All the Gothic 
 possessions in Gaul, lying between the Rhone, the Alps, and 
 the sea, were transferred to the Merovingian kings. In 
 return, though they had some scruple about appearing 
 themselves in arms against their ally, the Greek emperor, 
 they sent the Burgundians to assist the Ostrogoths in the 
 sack of Milan. The ricli booty which the victors brought 
 back over the Alps, removed the scruples, or irresistibly 
 excited the cupidity, of the Franks, and Theudebert, at the 
 head of 100,000 men, entered Italy. Both parties had 
 reason to believe that he came as an ally : both were de- 
 ceived. With admirable impartiality, he attacked, defeated, 
 slaughtered, and plundered both alike. With such an army 
 in the plains of Lombardy, had Theudebert been capable of 
 a policy, or his people of a conquest, he might have antici- 
 pated the role of Pepin or Charlemagne. But the 
 army melted away as it had come, and the im- 
 perial generals, at the head of a few thousand men, were 
 permitted, as we have seen, to extinguish the Ostrogoths, 
 and to make themselves undisputed masters of the pen- 
 insula. 
 
 They did not remain so, as we know. The Lombards soon 
 became more formidable enemies to the emperor than ever 
 the Ostrogoths had been. Again the Byzantines bethought 
 them of the Franks. Maurice, the emperor, made the same 
 appeal to their orthodoxy, backed by the same more cogent 
 arguments. For 50,000 solidi they agreed to 
 come to the aid of the imperial cause and the 
 Catholic faith. The young king, Childebert, crossed the 
 Alps at the head of an army strong enough to eject both 
 Greek and Lombard from the contested territory. But 
 
462 THE FRANKS. 
 
 upon his arrival at the scene of action, the barbarian broke 
 forth in his nature, or rather, was evoked by the politic 
 conduct of the Lombards. They captivated the fancy of the 
 semi-savage by magnificent presents, and he returned home 
 without inflicting any injury upon the donors. Maurice 
 was furious, and demanded repayment of his 50,000 solidi, 
 a request which the Frank received with the most sublime 
 contempt. But by way of equalizing his favours, he sent 
 word next year to the emperor, that he was ready to fulfil 
 his promise, and proceeded to attack his late friends the 
 Lombards. This time the Lombards were prepared for him, 
 and inflicted upon his over-confident host a severe and well- 
 deserved defeat. But the whole series of transactions 
 exhibits the Merovingian king as little better than a 
 brigand chief, or as the captain of a company of free lances 
 ready to sell his mercenary aid to the highest bidder. 
 It is not until the rise of the stronger Carlovingians that 
 we recognize the civil and military organization among the 
 ruled, and that unity of policy and purpose in the ruler, 
 which constitute a great kingdom, capable of performing a 
 conspicuous and influential part in the destinies of the 
 world. 
 
 (5.) However dynastic ambition, quarrels between rival 
 houses, and the intrigues of contending aspirants for an 
 unsettled throne, fostered by the very anomalous condition 
 of society in this chaotic era, may seem sufiicient to account 
 for its turbulent and miserable character, upon a careful 
 study of the whole, we must, I think, feel convinced that 
 the real cause of all the existing anarchy is to be found in 
 the fixed purpose of the great territorial lords to shake 
 themselves free from the trammels of anything resembling a 
 sovereign authority, and to assert a practical equality with 
 the nominal ruler of the race. The whole period exhibits 
 one great struggle on the part of the Austrasian aristocracy 
 to establish their political independence ; and as the mem- 
 
THE REACTION UNDER GUNDOBALD. 463 
 
 bers of this aristocracy were barbarians, the movement was 
 marked with the irregular impulses and savage actions 
 which belong to the personal character of its principal 
 instigators. Still it was nothing less than an organized 
 revolution, which for the time being prevented society from 
 coalescing into the form of a settled polity, and it sufficiently 
 accounts for the inability of the Salian kings to establish a 
 regular government, with its complex machinery of finance, 
 police, and legislation. The tendency of property to 
 accumulate in the hands of a privileged few, was fatal at 
 one and the same time to the stability of the throne and the 
 independence of the people. The lower orders hated the 
 great seigneurs and rebelled against them ; the great seig- 
 neurs could not tolerate the king, and conspired against his 
 authority. It was this influence that operated, after the 
 death of Sigebert, against the attempt at centralization, and 
 the E-omanizing, so to speak, of Frank institutions essayed 
 with considerable prospect of success by the powerful and 
 politic Brunhilda. Her resistance to the growing power of 
 the seigneurs, long vigorously maintained, but finally un- 
 successful, caused the strange vicissitudes of her eventful life, 
 and terminated in her ghastly death. During the protracted 
 contest in which she was engaged with her terrible rival 
 Fredegonde, she had been compelled to guarantee, at the 
 treaty of Andelot, a.d. 587, the hereditary and perpetual 
 possession of their heneficia to the nobles. By this act she 
 sealed the fate of the Merovingian dynasty ; for, without 
 entering into the prolix controversy concerning the exact 
 nature of these heneficia, and the tenure by which they were 
 held, we may assume as certain, that they differed from the 
 allodial lands in being more within the disposition of the 
 sovereign, and if not universally, at least frequently and 
 under certain conditions, revocable at his pleasure. "When 
 these passed absolutely into the hands of the seigneurs, they 
 were emancipated from all further restraint, and their power 
 
464 THE FKANKS. 
 
 gradually increased and expanded, until it overshadowed the 
 throne, and eventually, in the persons of the Maires du Palais, 
 extinguished it altogether. 
 
 But perhaps the most remarkable indication of the dis- 
 position of the seigneurs towards the throne is afforded by 
 the support which they gave for a time to Gundobald, the 
 leader of a Gallo-Roman reaction, the last effort of the old 
 population against the reigning Merovingian dynasty. 
 The adventures of this pretender, like those of our own 
 Perkin Warbeck, might furnish matter for a vivid and 
 touching romance. The reputed son of Clotaire I., he had 
 been alternately caressed and humiliated by the monarchs of 
 his family. He ultimately escaped into Italy, where he was 
 kindly received by ISTarses, the imperial general. We hear of 
 him next at the court of the Greek emperor, who received 
 him as Perkin was received in Scotland, and, probably from 
 designs of his own in connection with the West, furnished him 
 with the means of maintaining some degree of state. Such 
 was the man invited into Gaul as a candidate for empire, 
 by a temporary coalition between the ambitious nobles of 
 Austrasia and a discontented remnant of the old Gallo- 
 Roman inhabitants of Southern Gaul. Inspired with Greek 
 ideas, and carrying with him somewhat of the prestige of the 
 Roman name, he naturally recommended himself to those 
 aspiring spirits among the conquered population who still 
 remembered the traditions of the Empire and were eager to 
 revive them. But why should his coming have been wel- 
 comed by those very German nobles who were the leaders of 
 the conquering race, and whose interests were bound up 
 with the stability of its position and the permanence of its 
 power ? Their object is sufficiently plain. They meant to 
 rule, but it was difficult to do so in their own persons, 
 because the attachment of the Frank nation to the persons 
 of the reigning family was based upon a traditional reve- 
 rence, which approached to superstition. It was necessary, 
 
THE MAYOKS OF THE PALACE. 465 
 
 therefore, to rule in the person of another, who might exhibit 
 to the world the outward show and ceremonial of royalty, 
 while he left to themselves the realities of power. Such a 
 puppet king they hoped to find in Gundobald, a member of 
 the Merovingian race, yet the mere nominee of the feeble 
 ruler of Constantinople ; nor, perhaps, was it easy to dis- 
 cover another man who could equally fulfil all the necessary 
 conditions. Yet they slew him under circumstances of the 
 basest treachery, and for a brief season his death retarded 
 their designs. They finally succeeded, but in another way. 
 
 They succeeded in the persons of the " Mayors of 
 the Palace," — an institution not unlike those parasitical 
 plants which destroy the growth of the tree that they 
 apparently support and adorn. All the common histories 
 of France contain an account of this " Mayoralty," and of 
 the means whereby its holders eventually became masters 
 of the monarchy. The fact was too patent to escape the 
 dullest observation. Nevertheless, as these accounts are in 
 some instances not very accurate or perspicuous, it will be 
 desirable to refer very briefly to the origin of the oflace, and 
 the causes Avhich contributed to bestow upon it the pre- 
 dominant importance which it so soon acquired. The Franks 
 entered Gaul as conquerors — ^barbarian conquerors, to whom 
 territorial confiscation was the natural consequence of suc- 
 cessful invasion. They soon, therefore, found themselves in 
 possession of houses and lands, flocks and herds, men-servants 
 and women-servants, all secured to them by the full and 
 sufficient tenure of the sword. In the division of the spoil, 
 the "Konig" of course received the lion's share. Each 
 victorious battle conferred upon him a magnificent estate 
 upon the banks of the Meuse, the Seine, the Loire, or the 
 Rhone. When not actually engaged in war, his time was 
 spent in making royal progresses from one of these estates 
 to another, in the rude chariot of the age, drawn by a yoke 
 of oxen. Accompanied by his barbaric court, he passed from 
 
 2 H 
 
466 THE FRANKS. 
 
 castle to castle, consuming the produce of each district 
 in turn, amid the wild and drunken festivities which have 
 perhaps not unjustly been considered as the great reproach 
 of the German i-ace. It is also probable that the elaborate 
 entourage of the Byzantine court had captivated the barbaric 
 fancy, and that the rude Konig of the Frank tribes delighted 
 to reproduce around himself somewhat of the splendid cere- 
 monial which was now all that remained of their former 
 glory to the successors of the Caesars. At Metz, Soissons, 
 or Paris, we hear of the Cvhicularius and Camerarius, cham- 
 berlain and treasurer ; Referendarius, chancellor ; Comes- 
 stabuli, master of the horse, as we hear of the similar 
 officers at Constantinople. But superior to all in rank, as in 
 the reality of power, was the Major-domus, or master of the 
 household, who acted as steward of all the king's estates 
 and the superintendent of his personal attendants. It is 
 easy to see how such a personage, when possessed of the re- 
 quisite ability, must have taken a leading part, and exerted 
 a powerful influence in all the more important affairs of the 
 court, so as eventually to expand from something like a 
 house bailiff" into a prime minister or chancellor of the 
 exchequer. As commander of the royal retinue, the mayor 
 was compelled to assume a prominent part in the manage- 
 ment of the army, and the Merovingian kings, as they 
 gradually became more and more deficient in warlike virtues 
 and military skill, were induced to resign their most impor- 
 tant functions to their representative in the campaign or 
 upon the field of battle. But it was as president of the 
 great council, more than in any other capacity, that the 
 Major-domus appeared in an important character, and as- 
 sumed a predominating influence. To the great council 
 were admitted the courtiers or officers of the royal household, 
 tne " Antrustriones" or " Principes" of Tacitus, who, if they 
 were not an hereditary nobility, occupied at least an analogous 
 position ; — the hereditary dukes of what we may be permitted, 
 
THE AUSTRASIAN MAYORS. 467 
 
 by a pardonable anachronism, to call the great fiefs, or semi- 
 independent nationalities of Alemannia and Bavaria ; — the 
 patricii of Burgundy and Ripuaria j — the dukes and counts 
 who governed the provinces; — and, though last, by no means 
 least in splendour and importance, the dignitaries of the 
 Catholic church. 
 
 As practically directing the deliberations of such a 
 body, the Mayors of the palace naturally acquired a 
 position and authority which easily explains their subse- 
 quent assumption of the realities of power. They became 
 the leaders and mouthpieces of that great anti-monarchical 
 movement among the seigneurs, which may be regarded 
 as having eventually triumphed in the degradation and 
 atrocious murder of Brunhilda. It is true that the 
 nobles, like the horse in the fable, invoked the assistance 
 of the man to expel the stag from their domains, 
 and were deservedly bitted and bridled, and taught their 
 paces, by that stout Carlovingian arm ; but it cannot be 
 disputed, that it was as a leader of the aristocratic faction 
 that Pepin -le-Vieux, the founder of the race, acquired 
 that dominant influence which he transmitted to Pepin 
 of Heristal and his sons. Sismondi, anxious, perhaps, 
 to assign a more dignified origin to so great an oflfice, 
 has derived Major-domus from Moord-clom, "judge of 
 murderers ;" but this etymology is little accepted ; and few 
 writers follow him in questioning the more domestic cha- 
 racter of the primitive functions discharged by the powerful 
 bearer of this humble name. By Gregory of Tours, 
 our great authority for the early history of the Franks, 
 the mayors are seldom mentioned. We may, therefore, 
 venture to assume, that in his time they had not acquired 
 any preponderating influence. It is, as we have said, to the 
 fall of Brunhilda that we must assign the solid establish- 
 ment of their political position. The very first result of 
 that aristocratical victory was, to make the oflice elective, 
 2 H 2 
 
468 THE FRANKS. 
 
 and independent of the crown. The change applied to 
 Neustria as well as to Austrasia ; but the soil of the latter 
 country was, for many reasons, more propitious to the growth 
 of the parasite power, which formed so treacherous a prop 
 to the falling monarchy. There the German element con- 
 tinued to maintain its jn-eponderance ; and, unhappily or 
 happily, it was permanently arrayed against the court ; for 
 the court, the natural home of litxury and pleasure, sub- 
 mitted, as courts always do, to the influence of a superior 
 civilization, and bestowed its special favour upon those who 
 brought the grace of art and the refinements of sensualism 
 within the compass of its enjoyments. 
 
 The old provincial semi-Eoman society, therefore, was 
 paramount at court ; because, whatever may have been its 
 moral inaptitude for the duty of shaping out the destinies 
 of a rising nation, its political decadence did not rob it 
 of that external polish which it had received from its 
 connection with the ancient Mistress of the World. 
 "With the influence paramount at court, the interest of 
 the seigneurs w^as necessarily at variance ; and where the 
 seigneurs were strongest, there was the most favourable 
 field for the growth of the new power. Accordingly, after 
 the atrocious murder of Brunhilda, though Clotaire II. 
 nominally succeeded to the . whole kingdom of the 
 Franks, the real government of the nation rested on 
 the Bishop Arnulph, or Arnoulf, and the Mayor of the 
 palace, Pepin of Landen, or Pepin-le-Yieux, as he is some- 
 times called, to distinguish him from successors of the same 
 name. By their advice, the king made over to his son 
 Dagobert the greater portion of Austrasia during his own 
 lifetime, with the understanding that the colleagues should 
 administer it for him. While Dagobert w-as a minor, 
 Austrasia flourished beneath their wise direction ; and the 
 chronicles enlarge upon its prosperity and military renown. 
 To their influence also must be ascribed the large accession 
 
DAGOBERT. 469 
 
 to his dominions, which the undutiful Dagobert wrung from 
 his father after a quarrel, decided by the arbitration of 
 twelve Austrasian seigneurs, of which number Arnulph 
 was one. Perhaps the crisis of the revolution by which 
 the ancestors of the Carlovingians supplanted the ruling 
 prince, is most clearly indicated by the edicts of Clotaire, 
 which have been compared to our own Magna Charta. They 
 resemble it, indeed, so far as they secure protection for the 
 nobles and ecclesiastics against the arbitrary exactions of 
 the king, and confirm them in their own usurpations j but 
 these exhibit little reference to those popular 
 rights which our own great Charta recognizes in ' * 
 their germ. Clotaire died in 628 ; and, as his other son, 
 Charibert, soon followed him to the grave, Dagobert alone 
 remained, and commenced his reign under the auspices of his 
 two great ministers. These powerful and patriotic states- 
 men gave splendour, by the wisdom of their administration, 
 to the government of a monarch not otherwise remarkable 
 for distinguished qualities. For ten years, Austrasia was 
 greatly prosperous and respected ; and she owed her great- 
 ness, prosperity, and power, to the ancestors of Charlemagne. 
 It was they, it has been well said, who prevented the 
 permanent establishment of absolute power upon the Roman 
 model, and secured to the German population of Austrasia 
 an abiding victory over that amalgam of degraded Romans 
 and corrupted Gauls, which threatened to leaven the Euro- 
 pean world. To them, under Providence, we owe it that 
 the centre of Euroi:)e is at this day German, and not Gallo- 
 Latin.* Dagobert, during the latter part of his life, suc- 
 cumbed to the ordinary temptations of barbarian royalty. 
 Pixing his residence in Paris, he suffered the seductions of 
 what even then was one of the gayest and most luxurious 
 cities in Europe, to corrupt the slender remains of German 
 
 * The Franks, by Perry, ch. v. 
 
470 THE FEANKS. 
 
 virtue which still clung to the ancient Merovingian stock. 
 The old monk Fredegar compares him to Solomon, inasmuch 
 as he indulged in the " immoderate luxury " of having three 
 wives at one time, and a very great number of concubines. 
 He died in 638, and his voluptuous example was 
 sedulously imitated by his successors, who, inherit- 
 ing all his vices, without anything of his vigour, sunk, 
 ultimately, to the lowest pitch of imbecility and degrada- 
 tion. They bear, in history, the ignominious title of Rois 
 faineans, or sluggard kings ; a term which exactly describes 
 their almost Oriental indolence, and their consequent poli- 
 tical nonentity. Eginhard, the famous secretary and biogra- 
 pher of Charlemagne, has left us a graphic picture of these 
 wretched representatives of royalty, which, though so often 
 quoted, must be repeated once more. 
 
 " The authority and government were in the hands of the 
 highest officers of the palace, who were called Majo es-domus, 
 and had the entire administration of affairs. Nothing was 
 left to the king, except that, contenting himself with the 
 royal name, he was allowed to sit upon the throne, with 
 long hair and unshorn beard, to play the part of a ruler, to 
 hear the ambassadors, from whatever part they might come, 
 and at their departure communicate to them the answers he 
 had been taught, or even commanded to make, as if by his 
 own authority. The king possessed only one farm, and that 
 by no means a lucrative one, on which he had a dwelling- 
 house and a few servants, just sufficient to supply his most 
 urgent necessities. Wherever he had to go, he travelled in 
 a carriage, drawn by a yoke of oxen, and driven by a cow- 
 herd in rustic fashion. It was thus that he went to the 
 palace, and to the public assembly of the people, which met 
 every year for the good of the kingdom ; after which he 
 returned home."* 
 
 A pitiable spectacle, truly, and a significant lesson on 
 * Vita Car, Mag. ch. i. 
 
PEPIN OF HERISTAL. 471 
 
 the effects of self-indulgent sensuality. " The Rois faiiuans,' 
 says Sii' J. Stephen, " were faineans, because they had rien 
 (if aire;'" but we must never forget, that the cause of this 
 enforced idleness is to be found in the intellectual impotence 
 engendered by the contact between barbaric passions and 
 civilized debauchery. Pepin died about a year after Dago- 
 bert. He was succeeded by Grinovald, his son, who exhibits 
 an instructive example of the failure which attends the most 
 plausible and necessary political changes, when attempted 
 before the time is ripe for their execution. He essayed to 
 accomplish what his immediate successors accomplished with 
 ease — the transference of the royal name to the actual pos- 
 sessor of royal authority ; but he perished in the effort. He 
 shaved the hair of Dagobert II. j a symbolic action, imply- 
 ing his degradation from the rank of a freeman, a warrior, 
 and a king \ but the ruling monarch of Burgundia and 
 Neustria adopted the cause of his kinsman, and was still 
 strong enough to compass the death of the usurping mayor. 
 We cannot follow the rapid alternations of on^ faineant 
 monarch after another upon the rival thrones of Neustria 
 and Austrasia, nor the occasional amalgamation of both 
 sovereignties in oiie insignificant person. Ebroin, a turbulent 
 and unscrupulous but able man, appears upon the scene as 
 mayor of ISTeustria, in 674. But in the mean time, 
 the house of Pepin-le-Vieux had found a better • • ^ • 
 representative than the ambitious and unfortunate Grinovald. 
 His accomplished daughter Begga, whose praises are elo- 
 quently recounted by the chroniclers, had married the lord 
 of Heristal, near Liege ; and from this union sprang another 
 Pepin, surnamed of Heristal, from his patrimonial castle. 
 Associated with Martin in the mayoralty of Austrasia, he 
 suffered from the animosity of Ebroin, the rival mayor of 
 Nenstria, who fell suddenly upon his two allied rivals, and 
 defeated them in the battle of Lucofaus, near Laon. The 
 luckless Martin was tempted to quit his sanctuary, by an 
 
472 THE FEANKS. 
 
 ecclesiastical subterfuge, which resembled the artifice em- 
 ployed by William of Normandy to delude his competitor 
 for the English throne ; and was forthwith executed by his 
 perfidious enemies. Pepin was not to be daunted, and 
 made head against his adversary, from whom he was speedily 
 relieved by the dagger of an assassin. The office of Neustrian. 
 mayor was filled, soon after, by Berchar, a violent and un- 
 wise man, who not only precipitated the war with Austrasia, 
 but, by disgusting the national nobility, drove a number of 
 distinguished Neustrian refugees into the opposite camp. 
 The antagonism between the two great divisions of the Frank 
 empire had now reached its crisis. With a man of genius 
 like Pepin, the crisis had not long to wait for its decision. 
 At the head of his Austrasians, he encountered the Neu- 
 strian king, Theodoric, and his mayor of the palace, Berchar, 
 at Testry, on the banks of the Somme. Even on the very 
 eve of battle, Pepin, anxious to avoid bloodshed, proffered 
 reasonable terms. They were refused with contempt : for 
 they were believed to have been dictated by apprehension. 
 The struggle was severe but short. The rude energy of the 
 German swept their half-Koman brethren from the field. 
 The king was taken ; Berchar fled, incapable of offering 
 further resistance. From the battle of Testry dates the real 
 foundation of the Oarlovingian dynasty. It is true that 
 Pepin, warned, perhaps, by the fate of Grinovald, did not 
 assume the name of king. He kept Theodoric on the throne, 
 and contented himself with the title of Dux et Princeps 
 Francorum ; but, by a significant innovation, the years of 
 his office were henceforth reckoned in all public documents, 
 with those of the Merovingian monarch. 
 
 Ko sooner had he obtained the direction of affairs, than he 
 inaugurated the policy which his Corlovingian successors so 
 vigorously carried out. Making Austrasia the seat of his 
 own government, he appointed his two sons to rule in the 
 two other divisions of the empire. He then revived the 
 
CHARLES MARTEL. 478 
 
 German assemblies of the Campus MartiiLS, which had 
 gradually decayed under the more Romanizing monarchs of 
 the Merovingian race, and by this means strengthened him- 
 self for the shock of war which he felt to be impending. 
 By this time, domestic dissension had produced its natural 
 results. The Frank empire was breaking up. All the 
 distant dependencies — Bavarians, Bretons, Alemanni, and 
 Gascons — were attempting to assert their freedom, and had 
 partially succeeded. Pepin reduced them to obedience, or at 
 least, to a pretence of it. But twenty years of warfare were 
 occupied in the task ; and it still remained to be completed 
 by Charles Martel. We must not, however, regard Pepin 
 as a mere man of blood. He favoured the propagation of 
 Christianity throughout his dominions ; and everywhere held 
 the heathen responsible for the lives of his missionaries. It 
 has been well remarked, " The extraordinary power which 
 Pepin exercised, at a period when law was weak, and 
 authority extended no further than the sword could reach, 
 when the struggles of the rising feudal aristocracy for inde- 
 pendence had convulsed the empire, and brought it to the 
 verge of anarchy, sufficiently attests the ability and courage, 
 the wisdom and moderation, with which he ruled." '"' The 
 assertion is correct, and might be verified at length ; but 
 our narrow limits compel us to pass on to another member 
 of the Carlovingian family, akin to Pepin in blood, who was 
 destined to achieve, as his successor, a name still greater 
 than his own ; one, indeed, of the very greatest in European 
 history; and yet, perhaps, not so great as that which a dis- 
 criminating historical criticism may yet assign to it. 
 
 Pepin, according to the custom of the age, had married 
 a second wife during the lifetime of his first — " Alpais, 
 the noble and elegant," as the old chronicler calls 
 her. From her sprang Charles Martel, or Charles the 
 
 * Perry, Franks, cb. v. 
 
474 THE FRANKS. 
 
 Hammer, — a name which he derived either from the 
 tremendous iron mace before which so many heroes went 
 down in the day of battle, or from his exterminating prowess 
 exercised upon the heathen. The young Charles, like the 
 other Carlo viDgians, had to wage a dire struggle with his 
 own kindred and countrymen, before he could fix himself 
 firmly in his seat. In this case, the difficulty was aggravated 
 by the unscrupulous ambition of Pepin's first wife, Plec- 
 trudis. "Incensed," writes the chronicler, "with incom- 
 parable wrath against Charles," she seized his person, and 
 put him into close confinement. But Charles suddenly broke 
 loose from his dungeon, gathered together his partisans, and, 
 after a brief struggle, retaliated upon the queen by seizing 
 her at Cologne. In his prosecution of the war, he was 
 brought to the gates of Paris. Here, in imitation of his 
 predecessor's moderate policy, he ofiered to be reconciled to 
 the Neustrian king, if the latter would recognize his right 
 to the mayoralty of Austrasia. He besought him to listen 
 to reason, " that the blood of so many noble Franks might 
 not be shed." But Chilperic II., the Neustrian monarch, who 
 had once been a priest, was mad with pride, animosity, and 
 that delusion which God sends into the hearts of kings about 
 to perish. Carl, though at the head of far inferior 
 forces, inflicted upon him a decisive defeat beneath 
 the very walls of the capital, and, leading his army back to 
 Cologne, assumed what was now the practical sovereignty of 
 the Austrasian realm. Chilperic, aware of his perilous 
 situation, looked about him for aid. He found it for a 
 moment in the south. The old Roman Aquitania, in the 
 first division of the spoils of the Empire, had fallen to the 
 Visigoths, who conquered it without much trouble. In the 
 struggle between them and the Merovingians, it of course 
 passed to the victorious party. But the quarrels, so fiercely con- 
 tested between the difiierent members of the Frank monarchy, 
 prevented them from retaining a distant possession within 
 
INVASION OF THE SARACENS. 475 
 
 their grasp ; and at this period, Eudo, the duke of Aqui- 
 taine, was really an independent prince. The population 
 had never lost its Roman character ; it was, in fact, by far the 
 most Romanized in the whole of Gaul. But it had also 
 received a new element in the Yascones, or Gascons, a tribe 
 of Pyrenean mountaineers, who, descending from their 
 mountains, advanced towards the north, until their progress 
 was checked by the broad waters of the Garonne. At this 
 time, however, they obeyed Eudo ; and when Eudo accepted 
 the overtures of Chilperic, they formed the main body of the 
 army, with which he appeared before the walls of Paris, — a 
 novel champion in the cause of a Neustrian king ! But 
 Neustrians and Vascones together were no match for the 
 redoubtable wielder of the Austrasian hammer. Their 
 armies were defeated, and Carl, following hard 
 upon their rear, drove them over the Loire, upon 
 the spears of the Saracens, who were advancing against 
 Aquitania from Spain. No choice was left to Chilperic but 
 submission ; and as Clotaire, the faineant king of Austrasia, 
 had lately died, Carl offered life and even royalty to his 
 rival, upon condition of being declared mayor of the three 
 kingdoms of Neustria, Burgundy, and Austrasia. The terms 
 were, of course, accepted, for there was no alternative, and 
 henceforward Charles Martel stands forth before Christen- 
 dom as the undisputed lord of the Frank empire, and the 
 leader of its armies. It was high time that Christendom 
 should have a chief and a champion of acknowledged renown 
 to fight her battles. An enemy was at hand still more for- 
 midable than the Scourge of God, though he had blackened 
 her fields, destroyed her cities, and menaced the existence of 
 her faith. The Arab horsemen were pouring into the rich and 
 almost defenceless districts of southern Gaul. The striped 
 burnous and glittering spear-heads of these tawny warriors 
 were seen by the terrified peasant winding in an endless coil 
 through the picturesque gorges of the Pyrenees, by Fon- 
 
476 THE FRANKS. 
 
 tarabia and Roncesval. In the green meadows that skirt 
 the boundary stream of the Bidassoa, a river so often 
 reddened by the best blood of France and Spain, the fear- 
 less riders of the desert were now picketing the inde- 
 fatigable horses of Arab blood, which had borne them to the 
 headland of St. Sebastian from the banks of the Nile. 
 They had trodden down kingdoms in their path. The in- 
 habitants of South Africa had been consumed in their pas- 
 sage, like the grass of the prairie by the forest fire. The 
 once powerful Visigoths of Spain had succumbed at a single 
 blow, and the craven Roderic had shed those bitter tears, so 
 famed in legend and romance, over the fall of his throne and 
 the slaughter of his people, in the fatal field of Xeres de la 
 Frontera. The cities of Spain yielded to this strange in- 
 vader almost as soon as he appeared before their gates : 
 he made them entirely his own. In the green Vega of 
 Granada, in the stately streets oi Cordova and Seville, arose 
 the glittering marvels of Moorish architecture. Everywhere 
 the Crescent supplanted the Cross, and the terrified remnant 
 of the Christian population were hiding in the Asturian 
 mountains, or among the solitudes of those stern sierras 
 which frown upon the Atlantic waves. Nor were the pro- 
 spects of resistance to this overwhelming torrent of fanati- 
 cism and steel much brighter beyond the Pyrenees, The 
 nominal and natural head of the Christian world upon the 
 banks of the Bosphorus, was almost inclosed within his own 
 capital by the swarming legions of the same victorious 
 enemy ; nor could the shadowy terrors of the imperial name 
 affect the descendants of a race which had never known fear 
 or reverence for the Caesars of a mightier line. Italy itself, 
 which once gave laws to the world, had become, as she 
 has remained, the prize of the strongest stranger that could 
 cross the Alps. The great Ostrogoth, who alone, since the 
 ilays of Constantine, had grasped the idea of empire, and 
 attempted its realization, had long since vanished from the 
 
CHARLES ATTACKS THE SARACENS. 477 
 
 scene, and the heritage he left his sons was rent into frag- 
 ments by the wrangling strife of Lombard kings, Roman 
 pontiffs, and Beneventan dukes. Gaul no longer existed, 
 and France did not as yet exist. The children of the Celts, 
 who had so stoutly fought for freedom against Some and 
 Caesar during a quarter of a century, were mourning among 
 the solitary cromlechs of their sea-girt peninsula, over the 
 loss of their nationality, their glory, and their faith. The 
 Boman colonists, whom Caesar planted over the face of the 
 land which he won with so much toil and blood, had col- 
 lapsed in the corruption of the Empire, and now, scattered 
 among its barbarian conquerors, possesssed neither a cause, 
 a standard, nor a name. Visigoth and Burgundian had alike 
 failed in effecting a stable settlement, or consolidating a real 
 power. In the Franks alone was the hope of the world ; 
 but the Franks were tearing each other to pieces, like the 
 wolves of their native forests, in bloody and internecine war. 
 From the Calabrian headlands to the shores of the German 
 Ocean, no Christian congregation met to worship without 
 terror and consternation j no Christian Litany arose without 
 the prayer for deliverance from the victorious and ever- 
 advancing armies of the infidel. But, as ever in the counsels 
 of Providence, the Time produced the Man. The commanding 
 genius of the warlike Carlovingian, despite of the dangers 
 and difficulties which beset him on all sides, rose to the 
 height of his great office as champion of Christendom, and 
 for a moment concentrated its forces to combat for its exist- 
 ence. We do him scant justice, if we judge him by the 
 spirit or by the events of a later age. We remember 
 the brilliant gathering of churchmen and warriors on the 
 plateau of Clermont, which inaugurated the first crusade ; 
 we recall the shouts of the vast multitude wildly agitated by 
 warlike and religious excitement, swelling into a sound of 
 thunder, like that which proclaims the convulsions of nature, 
 as they cried aloud, " It is the will of God ! It is the will of 
 
478 THE FRANKS. 
 
 God ! " and we picture to ourselves similar scenes in the 
 camp of the Carlovingian king, as the warriors of Europe 
 crowded to the rescue of the Cross. But the era of this 
 romantic religious enthusiasm had not as yet arisen, perhaps 
 never would have arisen, but for the unforgotten emotions of 
 terror and hatred awakened by the sight of the Crescent upon 
 the walls of Karbonne, Bordeaux, Poitiers, and the sacred 
 city of Tours. Even then, as says M. Henri Martin, the 
 latest, and assuredly among the best, of the historians of 
 France, " the Franks had no idea of the destinies confided to 
 their swords." It was ten years since the white tents of the 
 Saracen had been first descried on the southern slopes of the 
 Pyrenees, before Charles could gather together the host 
 which rolled back the tide of invasion. During all this 
 time he was engaged in war with his German neighbours, 
 and was anxiously strengthening his base of operations. 
 The very year before the final conflict, he was compelled to 
 march into Aquitaine against the rebellious 
 Eudo, who had insanely availed himself of the 
 opportunity to attempt his independence — an attempt which 
 was signally and deservedly defeated. 
 
 But at last he was ready. The iron men trained in the 
 unceasing wars which he himself, his father and grandfather, 
 had waged, not only on Neustrian and Austrasian soil, but 
 beyond the Danube and the Rhine, slowly closed their serried 
 ranks, and descended into that wide plain through which the 
 modern traveller so swiftly passes in his railway-carriage, be- 
 tween Chatelleraut and Poitiers. If he alights at the little 
 station of Les Barres, about eight kilometres from the former, 
 and twenty-five kilometres from the latter town, he will 
 find himself near the junction of two inconsiderable rivers, 
 the Clain and the Vienne. If this point be taken as the 
 apex of a triangle, I think it extremely probable that a line 
 representing its base, at about a mile's distance, may be con- 
 sidered to have formed the front of the Frank army ; which 
 
THE BATTLE OF TOURS. 479 
 
 would thus secure its rear and flanks against the " whirlwinds 
 of cavalry" which the Mussulmans were wont to pour upon 
 their foe. The right wing of the Saracens probably rested 
 upon Moussais-la-Bataille, and the left upon the banks of 
 the Clain. A Roman road, of which no vestige can now be 
 traced, is said to have run along their front. Local tradition 
 derives the name of Moussais from Musa, an Arab chief, who 
 fell upon the spot. It also points out, at a place still called 
 " La Fosse au Roi," the grave of the unfortunate Arab com- 
 mander, Abderaman. For seven days the two Worlds, the 
 two Faiths, stood face to face ; the horsemen of Asia, with 
 their tawny skins and white turbans, armed with the light 
 steel-tipped jerreed, or the curved scimitar of Damascus, and 
 only defended by a small circular buckler, wheeling amid 
 clouds of dust around the Frankish hosts, scanned with 
 surprise the fair-haired shaggy giants, who, in their steel 
 casques, and cuirasses composed of leather interwoven with 
 iron plates, wielding the long heavy sword, or the still more 
 terrible mace of iron, and battleaxe, which had done such 
 bloody service in the German wars, had come down from 
 their Scandinavian forests to do battle for Europe, against her 
 hitherto irresistible enemy. On a Sunday morning, October, 
 7S2 — how many great actions have been fought on 
 the day of peace! — the decisive conflict began. It * ' 
 was terrible, though scarcely contested upon equal terms. The 
 wild riders of the desert dashed hour after hour in ceaseless 
 charges against the solidly compacted infantry of the North; 
 they came on like the leaping waves of the ocean, to be scat- 
 tered backward like its spray. The folds of the eastern turban 
 afforded slight protection against the huge mass of iron 
 which the stalwart arms of the Austrasian veterans plied 
 with terrible effect against their heads ; and while the 
 scimitars of Damascus glanced harmlessly from the stout 
 helmets of steel and the thick leather corsets of the Franks, 
 the long heavy blade of the North cleft through bones and 
 
480 THE FBANKS. 
 
 muscle, almost severing in two the wiiy frames of the 
 Arab and the Moor. 
 
 As the day went on, the bodies of men and horses lay so 
 thickly upon the plain, that the Saracens could no longer 
 dash onward with the reckless speed of their nation, against 
 the ranks which had repulsed them since the morning. On 
 a sudden, shouts were heard in the rear, and the light of 
 steel began to glitter through the dense clouds of dust which 
 veiled the south ; it was the spears of Aquitaine, led by 
 Eudo, to the great strife. A large portion of the Mussulman 
 host faced about to meet the new enemy. But this only 
 rendered the confusion hopeless. Assailed on both sides, the 
 very courage of the sons of the desert at last began to quail, 
 and their squadrons finally recoiled. The slain outnumbered 
 the survivors. Abderaman himself disdained to belong to the 
 last, and as the scattered host retired to their camp, a con- 
 viction impressed itself upon their minds that their last great 
 battle on European soil had been fought, — their last triumph 
 over Christendom achieved. By sunrise they were in open 
 flight towards the Pyrenees. The victors drew up in battle- 
 array ; but they soon discovered that the vast camp of the 
 enemy had been abandoned, and precipitated themselves 
 with eagerness upon the curious and splendid spoils of Pa- 
 lestine, Egypt, Africa, and Spain. Henceforward Charles 
 receives in history the well-won surname of Martel, or the 
 Hammer. Beneath his redoubtable blows an incredible 
 number of the Saracens had fallen ; indeed, the excited 
 imagination of the monkish chronicler raises the roll of the 
 fallen to 375,000.* This is, of course, an immense exaggera- 
 tion, yet probably as true as the account of Michelet, who 
 treats the whole matter as a mere ordinary skirmish. Hal- 
 lam, with a juster appreciation of its importance, classifies 
 it with Chalons and Leipsic, as one of the four decisive 
 battles upon which the fate of the modern world has hung. 
 * Paulus Diaconus, vi. 46. 
 
THE EXPLOITS OF CHAELES. 481 
 
 Kegarded as a conflict in behalf of Christianity, the battle 
 of Tours, as it is called, must be considered as purely negative 
 in its results. Michelet is, I believe, nearly singular in his 
 notion that Charles was a pagan, — a notion which rests 
 upon some very vague connection between his surname and 
 the hammer of Thor. We may fairly consider that the aid 
 afforded to Boniface, in his efforts to Christianize the Ger- 
 man pagans, and acknowledged in distinct terms by that 
 illustrious founder of missionary enterprise, is of far greater 
 weight than any such fanciful inference. But the national 
 jealousy, or the animosity of Neustria and Burgundy, soon 
 gave him sufficient employment in his rear, to account, 
 without any such hypothesis, for his apparent inactivity. 
 Had anything like political amity subsisted among the dif- 
 ferent portions of the Gallo-Frankish empire, the Frank 
 battleaxe might have burst through the gates of Cordova 
 and Granada as easily as through those of Pavia and Milan. 
 The infliction of a righteous retribution upon his 
 domestic enemies in the two rebellious kingdoms 
 of Neustria and Burgundy ; the conquest and conversion 
 of the Frisian pagans, who gradually yielded to the preach- 
 ing of the famous Boniface and the sword of the 
 Carlovingian king ; the restoration of order in 
 Aquitaine, where Hunold and Hatto, sons of Eudo, forgot 
 their allegiance in a contest for the succession ; a 
 second repulse of the Saracens, who had been in- 
 vited by Christian treachery into Provence, with the siege 
 and sack of Avignon, where they had taken refuge ; a 
 Saxon war and a terrible slaughter of the hea- 
 then on the banks of the Lippe ; a second appear- 
 ance in Burgundy, where faction had once more raised its 
 head ; — these were the labours which occupied the later years 
 of the hero's life. Meanwhile those important events had 
 occurred beyond the Alps, which, as we have elsewhere 
 related, introduced the Carlovingians into the turmoil of 
 
482 THE FKANKS. 
 
 Italian politics. It was in 739, just after the settlement 
 of the Burgundian troubles, that Gregory III. ap- 
 A.D. 739. pj-gj-j £qj. ^^(J against the Lombards, to " his most 
 excellent son the sub-king (Sub-regulo) Carl."* The com- 
 plaints of the pontiff were very bitter. His enemies, he 
 said, had robbed the very church of St. Peter of its candle- 
 sticks, and carried off the pious offerings of Frank kings. 
 Carl, as we have seen, had ample reason to hesitate. The 
 reproaches of his spiritual father became more piteous and 
 energetic. History never exactly reproduces itself, yet it 
 requires no great stretch of imagination to transfer the 
 ancient correspondence to our own times. Something very 
 like it has surely passed between the Vatican and the Tui- 
 leries. " Oh, how incurable is the grief of our heart at 
 these insults, Avhen the sons of the Church, such, and so 
 great as they are, make no effort to defend their spiritual 
 mother." t Carl would not venture further than mediation. 
 He succeeded in effecting a temporary agreement between 
 the opposing parties, which, like most agreements on Italian 
 matters, seems to have been observed by nobody. Next 
 year, the Lombards were again at the gates of Rome, and 
 the mler of Eome adopted the ultima ratio of 
 the Catholic Church, — the desperate expedient of 
 sending the keys of St. Peter's sepulchre, and proffering 
 the office of Patrician, to the " barbarian " mayor of the 
 Pranks. This meant nothing less than entire submission, 
 political and ecclesiastical j for the symbolic action was an ac- 
 knowledgment of Carl's authority as protector of the Church, 
 and the transference of the title was a renunciation of alle- 
 giance for the future to the Byzantine emperors. The great 
 Carlovingian accepted the symbolic offerings at the hands 
 of the ambassadors, and returned the compliment by pre- 
 sents of commensurate magnificence. He did more j for he 
 
 * Fred. Chron. ex Annal. E. 741. 
 
 t See original, quoted by Perry, Franks, ch. v. 
 
CHAEACTER OF CHARLES MARTEL. 483 
 
 exerted his influence with Luitprand in favour of the 
 
 Roman see. Had he lived, he might have anticipated the 
 
 policy and actions of Pepin and Charlemagne ; but 
 
 the web of his eventful life was spun : he died, 
 
 worn out by bodily and mental toil, at the early age of fifty, 
 
 October 15th, a.d. 741. 
 
 The Catholic Church, irritated by his confiscations of 
 ecclesiastical property in districts which had risen in 
 rebellion against his autho^ty, has shown its gratitude for 
 his great services, by consigning him to the lowest pit of 
 Tophet. The same worthy bishop who beheld him there, 
 and the abbot of St. Denis, allowed their curiosity, or their 
 hatred, to violate the hero's tomb. They were rewarded 
 for their pains. The body had disappeared ; but the coffin 
 was blackened by the action of fire inside, and, to their 
 infinite dismay, a terrible dragon issued forth, and made his 
 escape into the air ! But the selfish animosity of churchmen 
 who had a prospective interest in blackening the character 
 of one whom they accused of sacrilege, ought not to detract 
 from the glory of a great name. When we consider liis 
 perils from domestic traitor and foreign foe ; the bitter 
 opposition he encountered from turbulent seigneurs and 
 intriguing churchmen j the difficulties of acquiring, in that 
 rude age, the appliances of empire or the means of bringing 
 to a successful issue either policy or war ; the plans he 
 elaborated, the distances he traversed, the enemies he 
 encountered, the friends he conciliated, aided, or controlled ; 
 the terrible antagonism of Saxon in the North, and Saracen 
 in the South, which he bore down by the force of his genius 
 and his arms ; above all, when we remember the deliverance 
 which he wrought for Christendom in the hour of her utmost 
 need, — Charles Martel stands forth as one of the greatest 
 men of history; and we must admit the justice of the 
 remark, that " had a Caesar or a Livy unfolded his charac- 
 ter and described his exploits, instead of a poor pedantic 
 2 I 2 
 
484 THE FRANKS. 
 
 monk like Fredegard, a rival might have been found for the 
 Caesars, the Scipios, and the Hannibals of old Eome."'"' 
 Charles had already, before his death, divided his dominions 
 among his sons. He has been blamed for the impolicy of 
 the act. Most probably it was unavoidable. Neither his 
 ancestors nor his successors were able to avoid the same 
 necessity ; and we have already seen the disasters entailed 
 upon the family of Genseric by an attempt to supersede the 
 ordinary principles of Teutonic succession. t Carloman, the 
 elder son, had the German provinces — Austrasia, Alemannia, 
 or Suabia^ as it now began to be called, and Thuringia. To 
 Pepin were allotted Neustria, Burgundy, and Provence. A 
 third son, Gripho, the child of a beautiful and favourite wife, 
 was, at the last moment, enriched with a kingdom subtracted 
 from the inheritance of his brothers. As might have been 
 expected, he immediately disappeared from the scene. The 
 two others, for a brief period, maintained a community of 
 interest and action. They found the time was not even yet 
 ripe for clearing away the mummery of a Merovingian 
 dynasty, and its accompanying pageant, which we have seen 
 graphically described by Eginhard, so tenacious is the bar- 
 baric, or, perhaps, we may say universally, the vulgar mind, 
 of any practice which tradition has invested with the cha- 
 racter of a right. 
 
 Accordingly, they placed upon the throne which their 
 father had been strong enough to leave unoccupied, one 
 more long-haired Faineant, Childeric III., and under the 
 shadow of his name, betook themselves to the chastisement 
 of their enemies, who, now that the heavy hand of the 
 Hammer was withdrawn, swarmed around them, as fierce;, 
 as unmanageable as ever. It is not within the compass of a 
 work which only treats of the cardinal events of history, and 
 their general influence upon the condition of the modern 
 world, to recount their sanguinary wars with Saxons, Bava- 
 * Perry, Franks, ch. v. f Lecture VII. 
 
PEPIX-LE-BREF SOLE MAYOR. 485 
 
 rians, Suabians, Burgundians, and the inhabitants of Aqui- 
 taine, assisted by their Yascon or Gascon allies. But the 
 last- mentioned struggle, a prolonged and destructive one, 
 deserves our especial attention, inasmuch as it resulted in 
 the final trampling out of the ashes of that fire which 
 smouldered in the once mighty power of Borne in Gaul. 
 In Aquitaine, the Koman language, Boman habits, Boman 
 institutions, still lingered after the North had been almost 
 altogether Teutonized. But in the long and sanguinary 
 conflict which Harold and Guaifer, dukes of Aquitaine, 
 maintained with the sons of Charles Martel, these were 
 utterly extinguished as elements of national or political 
 power, though, of course, their civilizing influence 
 passed largely into the constitution of mediaeval and 
 modern France. The war, which lasted for nine years, 
 was signalized by frightful ravages and destruction of 
 life upon both sides, until, at last, the Franks became 
 masters of Berri, Auvergne, and the Limousin, with 
 their principal cities. The able and gallant Guaifer was 
 assassinated by his own subjects, and Pepin had the 
 satisfaction of finally uniting the grand-duchy of Aquitaine 
 to the monarchy of the Franks. Bat in the mean time, an 
 event had occurred, which contributed, in no small degree, 
 to the consolidation and aggrandisement of his power. Carlo- 
 man, his elder brother, exasperated by the perpetual turbu- 
 lence and opposition of the Suabians — the ancient Alemanni, 
 — determined to annihilate the strength of these formidable 
 vassals. He summoned the Suabian contingent, under 
 Theobald their duke, to join him, in obedience to the 
 military ban. Upon their arrival, he caused his Franks to 
 seize and bind the unsuspecting soldiery, and when he had 
 them in his power, he " mercifully corrected " {miseri- 
 ■corditer correxit) his leading opponents, with, probably, a 
 large number of their followers, — which, being interpreted into 
 modern language, means that he put them all to the sword. 
 
486 THE FRANKS. 
 
 Eemorse at the act, brought about, we may well believe and 
 hope, by the remonstrances of his spiritual adviser, the 
 virtuous Boniface, induced him, it is said, to abdicate his 
 throne, and shut himself up in a Benedictine monastery, on 
 the classic summit of Mount Soracte. Perhaps a conscious 
 inferiority to his aspiring and energetic brother, coupled 
 with a suspicion that the towering genius of Pepin would 
 not long remain satisfied with a divided dominion, and a 
 recollection of the fate of those among his predecessors who 
 had unsuccesfuUy defended cheir thrones, exercised some 
 considerable influence upon his decision. Be this as it may, 
 Pepin, by this act of his brother, became sole mayor, that 
 is to say, sole sovereign of the Franks, just at the very crisis 
 of afiairs, which necessarily forced him into a prominent 
 position in the politics of the world. 
 
 Wo, have, in the previous lecture, recounted the situation 
 of Italy. The Lombard pressure weighed intolerably upon 
 the Eoman pontiffs. They had hoped to shake it off by the 
 aid of Charles Martel ; but in this hope they had been dis- 
 appointed. With his son, for many reasons, they anticipated 
 more success. He was, from policy, perhaps from natural 
 inclination, more favourably disposed towards the Church. 
 He was strongly and laudably influenced by the commanding 
 mind, the stainless life, and the immense missionary success 
 of St. Boniface, the great apostle of the mediseval gentiles. 
 His father's unfortunate quarrel with the Church had been 
 arranged by the synod of Lestines, near Cambrai, wherein 
 the bishops consented to make a voluntary surrender of a 
 portion of their funds, on condition that the civil rulers 
 would, for the future, abstain from interference with eccle- 
 siastical property and discipline. And moreover, Pepin's 
 admission to the mayoralty had been undisputed : it was 
 accompanied with the prestige which hereditary transmis- 
 sion conveys : he was no longer a simple servant or officer 
 of the crown, but the regular successor to an established 
 
PEPIN AND THE GALLIC CHURCH. 4S7 
 
 dignity, and an independent power in the state ; the army 
 was entirely under his control, and this arm)'' was not now 
 a mere band of freebooters or mercenaries, loosely held 
 together by the ties of interest ; but a constitutional force, 
 well organized and well trained. The great Merovingian 
 counterfeit was nearly at end, and the Carlovingian 
 mayor, despite of the still remaining popular superstition, 
 might venture to act more boldly than his predecessors. 
 The relations between the Frank and Lombard had become 
 less friendly, and more antagonistic than heretofore j former 
 alliances between the parties had been forgotten ; the Sar- 
 acens were in no condition to render a new one necessary : 
 it became evident to all thoughtful men, that victory and 
 empire would follow the banners which should attach to 
 themselves, by fair means or foul, the blessing of the head 
 of the Christian Church, and the prestige of the imperial 
 name of Rome. Such being the causes for more cordial 
 relations between Carlovingians and the Church, it is not 
 surprising that they speedily developed into important 
 results. Pepin, on his part, agreed to the famous Act of 
 Secularization, in which, under the influence and dictation of 
 Boniface, a compromise was effected between the claims of the 
 civil and the religious societies, and their relations established 
 upon a more satisfactory footing. It was agreed 
 at the synod of Saltz and Lestines, that the 
 ecclesiastics should renounce many of the practices which 
 gave a secular aspect to their lives ; that they 
 should abandon war, the pursuits of the chase, 
 concubinage, and the wearing of arms ; that the rule of St. 
 Benedict should be revived, and that the synods of the clergy 
 should be annually held. On the other hand, property 
 taken from churches and religious houses was to be restored; 
 and the strength of the secular arm was to be at the com- 
 mand of the bishop, for putting down all heathen supersti- 
 tion and practices, many of which still lingered in remote 
 
488 THE FEANKS. 
 
 districts. The financial question was, as always, more difficult 
 of settlement. It was, however, enacted that Carloman and 
 Pepin, in consideration of imj^ending wars and persecution 
 from neighbouring nations, should be allowed, bj'- the indul- 
 gence of God, to retain for some time (sub precario et censu) a 
 portion of the Church's property, for the support of an army, 
 on these conditions : — that a solidus (a gold piece, worth 
 twelve denarii) shall be paid annually to the church, or mo- 
 nastery, for every estate, and that the Church be reinvested 
 with its property at the death of the then existing holder. 
 " Should, however, necessity compel, or the prince ordain 
 it, the precarium, or life-interest (i. e., grant to a layman for 
 life), must be renewed, and a new document drawn up ; and, 
 in every case, care must be taken that the churches and 
 monasteries, the property of which is in precario, suffer no 
 want or poverty. If honesty render it necessary, the whole 
 property must be restored to the Church, or house of God."* 
 The document is a very remarkable one. It is often quoted 
 as proving the inviolability of all church property. So, 
 indeed, to a certain extent, it does. Yet the provision, 
 '^ shoidd necessity/ compel, or the pjvince ordain^' probably 
 reduced its practical value as much in the hands of a Car- 
 lovingian as it would in those of a Tudor king. Pepin, 
 however, fortified by what he felt to be his more favourable 
 and secure position in reference to the Church, ventured, at 
 last, upon the step which must have been long present to 
 his mind, — perhaps to the mind of his predecessors, — the 
 actual dethronement of the last member of the Merovingian 
 dynasty, and the substitution of himself and his family in their 
 place. But the origin of the Merovingian claims was hid in 
 an obscure antiquity ; no man might say when the first 
 long-haired warrior of their race was raised upon the 
 buckler, and made leader of the armies of the Pranks. The 
 
 * Sismondi, Concil. Gall. torn. i. p. 540, Paris, 1629 ; quoted by 
 Perry, cb. vi. 
 
THE MEROVINGIANS DETHRONED. 4S9 
 
 reverence of a rude age had gathered strength through the 
 prescription of two hundred years, and it was not easy to 
 obliterate the notion of " a divine right," which, in human 
 memory, had never been questioned, or set aside. The 
 Carlovingians, on the contrary, were but adventurers, — suc- 
 cessful and able adventurers, it is true, but elevated above 
 the members of their own class, by no more mysterious 
 attributes than the clear brain and the strong hand which 
 made them leaders alike in council and in war. It became 
 necessary, therefore, to devise, and to obtain, a sanction 
 which, by its awful character, might supply the place of 
 the almost religious awe with which the multitude still re- 
 garded the race of Clovis. 
 
 There was but one power from which such a sanction 
 could be derived, — the power which claimed, by divine com- 
 mission, the right to bind and loose on earth, and to hold 
 the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven. The dreadful award of 
 him whom men believed to be the successor of Peter and 
 the representative of the Son of God, had already acquired 
 a mightier influence in the arbitrament of thrones, than the 
 voice of popular tradition, or the remembrance of rights 
 whose origin was lost in the mythic shadows which enve- 
 loped the cradle of the national life. To Rome, therefore, 
 Pepin turned for a sanction which might counterbalance 
 the superstitious loyalty so long displayed towards the Me- 
 rovingian kings. In the year 750, an embassy, 
 composed of Pepin's own chaplain, the bishop of " ' 
 Wurzburg, and the abbot of St. Denis, crossed the Alp^, 
 and appearing at the papal court, laid the all-significant 
 question before the new disposer of the kingdoms of the 
 world, — " Should he who exercises no real authority in the 
 land, retain the name of king ? Or ought the name to be 
 transferred to him who possesses the substance of royal 
 power 1 " Pope Zachary, of course, had been previously 
 informed of the application, and was prepared with his 
 
490 ^ THE FRANKS. 
 
 answer. Zachary, says the annalist, in virtue of his apostolic 
 authority {secundum auctoritatem apostolicain), answered, 
 *' that he considered it better, and more expedient, that he 
 should be styled king, and be king, who possessed power 
 in the realm, than he who was falsely called king."* Such 
 seem to have been the exact terms of this celebrated deci- 
 sion, the morality of which was surely as equivocal as its 
 expediency for both parties was patent. 
 
 Little time was lost, upon the receipt of this response, or, 
 as the Carlovingian partisans called it, this apostolic com- 
 mand. By a grand council assembled at Soissons, Pepin was 
 proclaimed king of the Franks, and received the holy oil of 
 consecration, with his wife Bertrada, from the hands of the 
 illustrious Boniface. This famous coronation has furnished 
 the precedent and model adopted in after-ages by the so- 
 vereigns of Europe; and it is something more than singular, 
 that a ceremony, the symbolism of which has been supposed 
 to intimate the divine right of kings, should have been 
 invented and inaugurated by the Church, to sanction the 
 claims of a manifest usurper. Not a voice was raised, not 
 a sword was drawn, for the last remaining scion of the race 
 of Clovis J all went smoothly on for a time. Pepin, " king 
 of the Franks by the grace of God," for such was the title 
 he bore, ascended the throne without opposition from the 
 Church or the nation. The first had begun to learn 
 obedience to the Vicar of Christ ; the second participated in 
 that obedience, and attached itself to the strong arm, in 
 which alone they trusted to drive the Saxon across the 
 Rhine and the Saracen beyond the Pyrenees. But it was 
 not for nothing, it was not without the hope of a valuable 
 consideration, that the Church had compromised the rigour of 
 her principles, and adopted the stout Carlovingian as her 
 eldest son. The relations between the Lombards and the 
 
 * Annal. Laurissensis et Einhardi, an. 750 ; quoted by Perry, 
 ch. vi. 
 
COKONATION OF PEPIN. 491 
 
 Homan pontiffs have been elsewhere described. We shall 
 
 not dilate upon them again, but their brief recapitulation is 
 
 necessary for a correct understanding of French as of Italian 
 
 history. Zachary died in 752, without reaping 
 
 the fruits of his politic recognition of Pepin. He 
 
 must have closed his eyes in despair, for the Lombard was 
 
 thundering at the gates of Rome. His successor, Stephen II., 
 
 appeased the enemy for a time ; but it was only 
 
 for a time. Again Astolphus appeared before the 
 
 walls, " this time," says the chronicler, " like a raging and 
 
 roaring lion," threatening to slay them all. 
 
 Stephen was in despair for " the fold which had been 
 intrusted to him," i. e. Rome ; " and the lost sheep," i. e. the 
 towns in the exarchate of Ravenna.* How uniform are the 
 traditions of the Vatican and the complaints of its master ! 
 He accordingly started upon his famous journey across the 
 Great St. Bernard, in company with many civil and eccle- 
 siastical dignitaries of Rome. We may remember his 
 remonstrance with the Lombard king at Pavia, and his 
 piteous applications to Pepin for assistance.t During the 
 delay which elapsed before the Frank monarch could or 
 would stir in his behalf, Stephen resided at the monastery of 
 St. Denis, and was induced to repeat, with his own hands, 
 the ceremony of coronation. The spectacle of the head of the 
 Church dwelling in familiar intercourse with the king of the 
 nation, and the prestige derived from the imposition of his 
 sacred hands in the capital of the realm, upon the occupant 
 and the heirs to the throne, produced so powerful an in- 
 fluence on the public mind, that it has, perhaps perpetuated 
 its effect to modern times, and rendered the presence of a 
 pope in Paris, and the reception of the holy oil at the altar 
 of Notre Dame, a cherished object of ambition with the 
 
 * Vita S. Stephani II. ; quoted by Perry, Franks, ch. vi. 
 t See Lecture VI. p. 330. 
 
492 THE FRANKS. 
 
 rulers of the French people. It was upon the occasion 
 of this second coronation, and not as has some- 
 '^'^' ^ * times been erroneously supposed, at the first, that 
 Stephen solemnly required of the Franks a pledge that, 
 throughout all future ages, neither they, nor their posterity, 
 should ever presume to appoint a king over themselves, 
 except from the family of Pepin. The title of Patrician 
 was once more solemnly conferred upon the king by the 
 pontiff, who most probably was acting simply upon his own 
 authority in the matter, and consequently implying a trans- 
 ference of allegiance on behalf of himself and of the 
 Romans, from the court of Constantinople, to the Sun of 
 Empire newly rising beyond the Phine. "We are already 
 acquainted with the subsequent course of events ; how Pef)in, 
 at the earnest solicitation of the pontiff and Peter, twice 
 invaded Italy in the interests of the Church, and bestowed 
 upon "the blessed Peter, and the Commonwealth of the 
 Romans," the territory which was occupied by the Lombards, 
 and owned by the emperors of the East. This is a subject 
 interesting at all times, eminently interesting at the present, 
 for it is the pivot upon which turns the future of Italy — the 
 future, perhaps, of the Christian world. The real rights of 
 the Roman see to temporal dominion rest upon its judicious 
 bargain with Pepin-le-Bref ; for the dotation of Constantine 
 is a fable not now asserted by the Catholic historians them- 
 selves. Among all the confusion in which the subject is, it 
 may be feared, intentionally involved, it is well to remember 
 that even the patrimony of Peter never belonged to his 
 self-determined successors, until Peter had been sleeping for 
 nearly seven centuries in the tomb. 
 
 The latter part of Pepin's life was occupied in that 
 struggle with Aquitaine, to which we have already had 
 occasion to refer. It commenced, or rather re- 
 commenced, in 760, and lasted for eight years. 
 The chroniclers of the time record the wide -spread and 
 
DEATH AND CHAEACTER OF PEPIN. 493 
 
 merjciless rapine which devastated the centre and south 
 of France, the burning of Tours, the plunder of churches 
 and monasteries, the destruction of all agricultural pro- 
 duce, green vines and growing corn. It is a curious fea- 
 ture of the times, that the expeditions in. which these fright- 
 ful evils were consummated, are described as having taken 
 place " under the guidance of Christ, and by the aid of God." 
 Their professed object, however, was to enforce upon Guaifer 
 the restoration of lands alienated from the Church, and of 
 immunities originally enjoyed by the estates of clerical 
 persons. Guaifer made a stout defence ; he was even aided 
 by treachery and defalcation in the Carlovingian camp. 
 But all was in vain. 
 
 Pepin, exasperated, but not exhausted by this obstinate 
 resistance, turned his whole mind, says the chro- 
 nicler, to the destruction of Guaifer, and deter- 
 mined never to rest till he had taken prisoner or killed 
 the rebel.* Even his fierce spirit must have been satisfied. 
 He hung his enemy's uncle, captured and imprisoned his 
 mother, sister, and niece, and chased Guaifer himself like a 
 wild wolf of the Pyrenees, from one lurking-place to another, 
 till he was finally murdered by his own followers in the 
 forest of Perigord. With the fall of its last leader, . fell 
 Aquitaine itself, and with it was extinguished for ever the 
 possible predominance of the Romanic spirit and character 
 in modern France : it remained as an influence j as a power 
 it had passed away. 
 
 It was not long before Pepin succumbed to the only con- 
 queror of his race : he died on the 24th Septem- 
 ber, 768, and was buried in that mighty sepulchre 
 of kings, the abbey church of St. Denis. To his character and 
 careerwe cannot refuse the tribute of our admiration. Between 
 the towering proportions of his father and his son, the 
 
 * Anna]. Einhard. anno 768. 
 
494 THE FEANKS. 
 
 victor of Tours and the first emperor of the West, .the 
 historic stature of Pepin himself is dwarfed beneath its due 
 proportions In war he was brave, resolute, skilful, and 
 almost universally triumphant against the barbarians of 
 Germany, the rival dynasties of Gaul, the far-famed Lombard 
 conquerors of Italy, and the formidable warriors of another 
 world and creed. His personal courage was extraordinary. 
 Once, when a terrific struggle between a lion and a bull was 
 taking place in his presence, " Who will dare separate them?" 
 he asked. The bystanders quailed, as well they might. 
 Pepin sprang into the arena, and striking off the heads ot 
 both animals with his massive sword, presented them to the 
 astonished courtiers, exclaiming, " Am I not worthy to be 
 your king?" In peace — such peace as those troublous 
 times afforded — he pursued a far-seeing and widely-reaching 
 policy, distinguished by a patient waiting upon opportunity, 
 very rare in a period of passionate impulses and precipitate 
 action. In his relations with the ecclesiastical power he was 
 eminently successful. Eldest son of the Church, he retained 
 the affection of his parent, though occasionally compelled to 
 inflict some rude blows upon her authority and temporal 
 interests. But the gift of the Exarchate, so transcendant in 
 its importance and its consequences, entirely obliterated all 
 minor causes of quarrel or complaint, and Pepin, in the 
 admiring language of the contemporary ecclesiastics, is 
 always, even in his most equivocal exploits, "the pious, 
 valorous, and triumphant " son and champion of the Church. 
 Whether such language be wilful misrepresentation, or the 
 result of a strange unconscious obliquity of the moral 
 judgment, it is equally characteristic of the age. The Church 
 of the Merovingian era was endowed with many high 
 qualities : it had sprung, at no distant period, from the blood 
 of martyrs j it was active and eminently useful ; it con- 
 tained many men of holy lives ; but, like all societies com- 
 posed of human agents, it was not proof against the peculiar 
 
CHARLEMAGNE. 4&5 
 
 temptations of the times. They are not the temptations of 
 our times : we can easily resist them, and are prone to 
 think hardly of those who succumbed to what we can easily 
 resist. But the converse may also be true. It is possible 
 that Merovingian churchmen were strong where we should 
 be found weak, and that the balance is more even between 
 us than we suspect. The inference is not obscure. It is 
 idle to dream of any past period of Utopian perfection in 
 the Christian Church : it is equally idle to judge harshly 
 any period, past, present, or to come, for not realizing an 
 almost immaculate ideal. In respect to the great question 
 of human progress, the only right method to form a judg- 
 ment is to compare the special evils of the separate eras, 
 and to determine, so far as we may, which are most contrary 
 to the spirit of the Gospel, and are apparently least acces- 
 sible to its healing and purifying influences. On these prin- 
 ciples, need the nineteenth century fear comparison with the 
 ninth? 
 
 But it is time to turn our thoughts to the illustrious suc- 
 cessor of Pepin. His reign forms the first great era in the 
 post- Christian world : it is a solemn pause in the order of 
 human history ; the gathering up for a moment into a 
 visible unity, of all the moral, social, and intellectual pheno- 
 mena elaborated for our struggling and suifering race by 
 " the process of the suns." Such a theme demands a chapter 
 to itsel£ 
 
LECTUEE IX. 
 
 CHAELEMAGNE. 
 
 "Les dl^ments de la civilisation confondus, mel^s au sein de la 
 barbarie, trouverent sous cette forte main un t^quilibre momentanc^. II 
 est le point d'union de temps modernes et de I'antiquit^ ; il finit le 
 monde barbare, et du d^membrement de son empire va naltre le monde 
 fdodale." — Babchou DE Penhojbn, PMlosophie de VHistoire. 
 
 '* L'empire se maintint par la grandeur du cbef : le prince etait 
 grand, I'homme I'^tait davantage." — Montesquieu, Esprit des Lois. 
 
 " Tale era Carlo, e nel personale suo carattere, forse piii cbe in altro, 
 consiste il segreto della tanta efficacia che esercitb sui contemporanei." 
 — CANTtr, Stm-ia Universale. 
 
 Synopsis.— Charlemagne. I. His conquests and foreign relations ; 
 with the Germans ; with the Avars ; with the Lombards and Greeks in 
 Italy ; with the Saracens : miscellaneous : their territorial results ; 
 communications with the, East. — II. His domestic policy and arrange- 
 ments ; fields of May ; the Capitularies ; Missi Dominici ; Beneficia ; 
 his patronage of the Church and Letters. — III. His legendary history 
 and personal attributes ; reasons why legend predominates over his- 
 tory ; his character and the office of his Empire in respect of the new 
 civilization. 
 
 Pepin, before his death, in obedience to the usual Frank 
 custom, had partitioned his empire between his two sons, 
 Charles and Carloman. Modern writers loudly blame the 
 policy of adhering to such a precedent. Most probably 
 departure from it would have been impossible. But in this 
 case, the division of force was practically of little importance. 
 The superior vigour and ability of Charles rapidly asserted 
 itself His brother was compelled to cede a portion of terri- 
 tory, concerning which a dispute had arisen, and was saved, 
 by a premature death, from what might have been a long, 
 
SUCCESSION OF CHARLEMAGNE. 497 
 
 but would certainly, also, have been a hopeless struggle, 
 against the greatest genius for war and policy which the 
 world had known, or was to know, until a thousand years 
 had elapsed. 
 
 The immense amount of matter, the many subjects for 
 speculation and argument, the various estimates of actions, 
 motives, and character, which the reign of Charlemagne 
 discloses to the historic student, render the satisfactory 
 treatment of such a subject, even within the limits of an 
 entire lecture, a most hopeless task. It may well be believed 
 that, in the few pages which follow, I have no sucb ambitious 
 design. Hapj)ily, the period of history connected with this 
 great man is more generally studied, and less imperfectly 
 understood, than those which precede and follow it. Where 
 knowledge is more common, or, rather, we should say, where 
 ignorance is less universal, our object, which is to awaken 
 interest, to suggest inquiry, or recall information which has 
 passed away from the memory, may be prosecuted with 
 greater brevity. Perhaps, therefore, if we briefly regard the 
 great reviver of imperialism in respect of his conquests and 
 foreign relations, in his domestic policy and legislation, and 
 his personal character and attributes, we may be regarded 
 as having sufficiently discharged the duty which we have 
 undertaken. 
 
 (I.) Like all the Carlovingians, Charles succeeded to a 
 turbulent realm and disputed authority. But 
 the sword of Charles Martel and of Pepin had 
 fallen so heavily upon both domestic and foreign foe, 
 that their descendant grasped the sceptre under far more 
 fortunate auspices than his sires. He inherited the prestige 
 of their victories, the actual material strength of their 
 armies, and the happy results of their politic relations with 
 the Church. Still, through all his long reign, he was con- 
 tinually engaged in battle. From the year of his accession, 
 769 A.D., to that which immediately preceded his decease, 
 
 2 K 
 
498 CHAELEMAGNE. 
 
 813 A.D,, the curious have computed at lea^st fifty-three 
 separate expeditions in which he was personally engaged. 
 These I cannot, of course, recount ; but they admit of an 
 easy classification, which will explain their character to the 
 student, and enable him to retain them in his memory. 
 
 (1.) First, in respect of duration, importance, and severity, 
 come his wars with the barbarians of Germany, among whom 
 the Saxons and Bavarians occupy the chief place. To humble 
 those fierce and pagan foes, was his first care upon coming 
 to the throne ; it formed the last employment of his life. 
 Throughout the whole intervening period, their animosity 
 prevented the prosecution of more inviting conquests, and 
 disturbed the rare intervals of peace. Much has been said 
 and written in condemnation of these wars, their exter- 
 minating fury, the oceans of blood which they caused to 
 flow, the waste of treasure which they occasioned, the loss 
 of splendid opportunities for more useful, and, probably, 
 more permanent acquisitions in Spain and Italy, the 
 sanguinary proselytism which is said to have accompanied 
 them, and the injury inflicted by it upon the cause and 
 character of Christianity. These, and other objections, have 
 been strongly urged against the wisdom of that policy which 
 fixed the seat of empire mainly at Aachen or Ingelheim, and 
 directed the power and resources of the empire to the Elbe 
 and the Oder, rather than to those two great Mediterranean 
 peninsulas which offered so much more splendid a prize to 
 'the ambition of this new successor of the CsBsars. 
 
 Charlemagne, we may be confident, was wanting neither 
 in the desire to re-habilitate the imperial idea in the south 
 of Europe, nor in the capacity to discern the best means of 
 carrying out his object. But he had not forgotten the past. 
 There was an example of marvellous significance before his 
 eyes, and he was not the man to neglect or misunderstand 
 it. Hd felt that if he did not succeed in destroying the 
 barbarians, they would destroy him. It was not with him 
 
THE SAXON WARS. 499 
 
 as it is with us, — as it was with the European rulers a few 
 centuries afterwards, whose thrones were, perhaps, rendered 
 possibilities only by the sweep of his unpausing, unrelenting 
 sword. In the eighth century, the islands and forests of the 
 North still teemed with those warlike and prolific races 
 which had devoured the Roman empire. Charlemagne 
 believed that they would be fatal to his own, if, after the 
 example of his Italian predecessors, he permitted them to 
 grow and gather volume, strength, and weight, until they 
 descended a living avalanche upon the country west of the 
 Ehine, as their fatliers descended of old upon the plains of 
 Cisalpine Gauh For this purpose, he devoted his best energies 
 to the task of breaking up their federations at the very time 
 of their birth, and as near as possible to the place of their 
 formation. It is his glory that he succeeded. The great 
 Carlo vingian empire of the ninth century broke the power of 
 Barbarism. It has never reappeared in its ancient aspect ; 
 it has never burst upon Europe with the same tremen- 
 dous capacity for destruction, as in the days when Alaric, 
 Attila, and Genseric wielded its resources, and civilization 
 seemed about to sink before the Goth, the Vandal, or the 
 Hun. One exception may be taken to this statement. 
 When Charlemagne had disappeared from the scene, and 
 his sword no longer guarded the wide circuit of dominion 
 which had once owned his supremacy, the Norman Vikings 
 swept the seas. They made themselves masters of some of 
 the fairest and most fertile parts of Europe. But the fact 
 recalls the well-known anecdote of the aged emperor, who 
 once, near the close of his life, was moved, even to tears, at 
 the sight of these piratical banners approaching the port of 
 Narbonne. His prescient mind foresaw the misery which 
 they would one day cause to his people ; perhaps, also, other 
 apprehensions of anarchy and evil mingled with the melan- 
 choly foreboding. But the circumstance indicates, not 
 obscurely, the dominant idea of his mind, and the secret of 
 2 K 2 
 
500 CHAELEMAGNE. 
 
 his policy. It justifies the belief that in his German wars 
 he considered himself as the champion of the new civiliza- 
 tion against the same enemy as had overthrown the old. 
 With ret^ard to the moral and religioiis character of these 
 wars, no one would willingly extenuate a method of propa- 
 gandisni which places Christianity upon the same level as 
 the faith of Mohammed, and offers to the vanquished no 
 other alternative than " Belief, or Death/' Yet there can be 
 no doubt that, in proclaiming internecine war against the 
 Heathenism of his foes, Charlemagne touched the very point 
 wherein lay their hopeless antagonism to himself and to his 
 empire ; and as Sir J. Stephen has remarked, he did not 
 propose to them the terrible choice, " Submit, or die," until 
 they had stubbornly and ferociously rejected the milder 
 terms, — " Be quiet, and live." 
 
 (2.) These ceaseless contests with the Teutons of Germany 
 brought Charlemagne into contact with an outer circle of 
 Barbarism, with tribes of Slavic and Turanian blood, who 
 now appear for the first time on the horizon of modern 
 European politics. His campaigns against wild Slavonians 
 and still wilder Avars, have mainly that interest which they 
 borrow from the incidents of after-ages ; such as those to 
 which our attention has been already directed by M. Thierry.'"" 
 But on his relations with the Avars we must briefly dwell, as 
 they form the necessary complememt of a subject to which 
 we have promised to recur. Tassilon, duke of Bavaria, an 
 ambitious and unprincipled man, organized a conspiracy 
 against the authority of Charlemagne. Tor this purpose 
 he sought the aid of the Avars, who were, at that time, the 
 strongest power lying between Italy, ever convulsed by 
 Greek intrigue, and the great Saxon confederation, ever 
 bitterly hostile to the new empire. The Avars were in- 
 duced to join the league, influenced, most probably, by the 
 hope of plunder. But Tassilon was not the leader to con- 
 * See Lecture IV. p. 228. 
 
THE AVAR WARS. • 501 
 
 tend successfully against such a master as Charlemagne. 
 The web of his treasons was speedily unravelled, and having 
 been summoned to Ingelheim, he was there tried by his 
 peers, and condemned to death. Charles, moved by his ab- 
 ject entreaties, granted him life, but, after the custom of the 
 times, consigned him to a convent. His Avar allies knew 
 that the hour of retribution would soon arrive, and, crossing 
 the Alps, attempted to form a junction with the Greek ene- 
 mies of the Frank empire in Italy. But the Greeks never 
 forced their way north of the Beneventan duchy, and the 
 Avars were signally beaten by the Frank generals 
 in the Venetian province and in Bavaria. Charles 
 was now thoroughly incensed, and determined upon extir- 
 pating the Avars, " for their intolerable malice," says the 
 chronicler, " against the people of Gaul and the churches of 
 God." * The determination was received with considerable 
 excitement throughout the Gallic province ; for men called 
 to mind the sorceries and supernatural terrors which had 
 dismayed the army of Sigebert, and the Avars, or Huns, as 
 they were supposed to be, had left behind a terrible recol- 
 lection of the time when they traversed Gaul in the train 
 of Attila the Destroyer. Metz, Paris, Orleans, Troyes, 
 Eheims, and Cologne, with a hundred other cities, recalled 
 the sufferings of those calamitous days, and vaguely feared 
 their repetition. But no dismay reached the mind of Char- 
 lemagne. After military preparations greater, say the 
 chroniclers, than any which had preceded them, the emperor, 
 accompanied by his wife and favourite son, the young Louis 
 of Aquitaine, arrived, with a formidable array, at Ratisbon, 
 on the Danube. His plan for the ensuing campaign pre- 
 sents a remarkable similarity, says M. Thierry, to Napo- 
 leon's plan for the fimous campaign of Austerlitz. Master 
 of both Italy and Bavaria, he assumed two distinct bases of 
 operation, one on the upper Danube, the other on the Po. 
 * Chron. S. Arnulpb, ann. 791, apud Thierry. 
 
502 . CHARLEMAGNE. 
 
 His own army, following the valley of the Danube, was to 
 assail the Avars in the front, while the second army, under 
 Pepin, " king of Italy," was to debouch from the passes of 
 the Alps, and take the enemy in the flank by the valleys of 
 the Save and Drave. In the mean time, the Avars had re- 
 tired behind their very singular defences, — the Hrings, or 
 Kings, of which we have already spoken. M. Thierry has 
 given us an interesting account of them, drawn from the 
 obscure description of the monk of St. Gall, who wrote a 
 life of Charlemagne.'- They seem to have been a series of 
 eight or nine gigantic ramparts, constructed in concentric 
 circles, the inner one of all being called the royal circle or 
 camp, where was deposited all the valuable plunder which 
 the warriors had collected in their expeditions. The method 
 of constructing these ramparts was somewhat singular. 
 Two parallel rows of gigantic piles were driven into the 
 ground, some twenty feet apart. The intervening space was 
 filled with stones, or a species of chalk, so compacted as to 
 become a solid mass. The sides and summit were covered 
 with soil, upon which were planted trees and shrubs, whose 
 interlacing branches formed an impenetrable hedge. Upon 
 the whole, the Hring must have presented very much the 
 appearance of an old railway embankment, overgrown with 
 
 * M. Thierry describes the Avar method of fortification as "un systeme 
 strange, qui ne ressemble k aucun autre." It at any rate resembles the 
 account given by Herodotus of the fortification of Ecbatana, and 
 strongly recalls to our mind the Oriental origin of the Avar and 
 Hunnic tribes : — 
 
 " The Medes were again obedient, and l;^uilt the city now called 
 Agbatana, the walls of which are of great size and strength, rising in 
 circles one within the other. The plan of the place is, that each of 
 the walls should outtop the one beyond it by the battleijaents. The 
 nature of the ground, which is a gentle hill, favours this arrangement 
 in some degree ; but it was mainly effected by art. The number of 
 the circles is seven, the royal palace and the treasuries standing within 
 the last. The circuit of the outer wall is very nearly the same with 
 that of Athens. Of this wall the battlements are white, of the next 
 black, of the third scarlet, of the fourth blue, of the fifth orange : all 
 these are coloured with paint, Tlie two last have their battlements 
 coated respectively v/ith silver and gold." — Rawlinson's Herodotus. 
 
THE HRINGS OF THE AVARS. 503 
 
 wood. Communication between the several circles was of 
 course maintained by gateways; so that when an outer Hring 
 had been captured, all the occupants, with their herds and 
 waggons, might retire into the next. A series of signals by 
 sound of trumpet conveyed intelligence, with the utmost 
 rapidity, from one circle to another, — an expedient which 
 cannot but raise our estimate of the military organization 
 and general intelligence of the people among whom it was 
 brought to perfection. The extent of territory comprised 
 within these circles, and their distance from each other, it is 
 not easy to ascertain with accuracy. The monk of St. Gall 
 describes the interval between one rampart and another, in 
 a loose way, as equivalent to the distance between Constance 
 and Zurich, which M. Thierry must certainly be wrong in 
 estimating as " trente ou quarante milles Ger- 
 maniques.^' The same number of English miles 
 would probably more correctly represent the distance. As, 
 however, there is no certainty that the same space existed 
 between all the Hrings, there is no possibility of calculating 
 the whole superficies. The outer circle covered the town of 
 Vienna, even then a place of some importance. It was on 
 the height of the Kahlenberg, so celebrated in after-time 
 for the appearance of Sobieski the Deliverer, when Vienna 
 was beleaguered by the Turks, that Charlemagne won his first 
 great victory over their kindred. A second battle brought 
 him as far as Kaab, and his fleet, in the mean time, had cap- 
 tured a strongly-defended island in the Danube, where was 
 found an immense quantity of cattle, corn, and the other 
 agricultural stores which constituted the primitive wealth 
 of the Huns. Pepin had descended from the Alps in the 
 mean time, and was equally successful in the Sirmian penin- 
 sula, as it was called, lying between the Drave and the Save. 
 There he captured an inner Hring, and an amount of booty 
 which, to the Franks, seemed boundless. But the season 
 was now far advanced ; Charlemagne was too good a general 
 
504 CHAELEMAGNE. 
 
 to expose his troops to the perils of a winter campaign, in a 
 land of inundations and morasses ; an epidemic, moreover, 
 of great violence, had attacked the horses and cattle ; and 
 consequently the Frank armies were, with great prudence, 
 withdrawn before Christmas. 
 
 This expedition had almost assumed the character of a 
 crusade, for the emperor and his leading warriors deemed it 
 a sacred duty to extirpate the remains of paganism in Europe, 
 and in this particular case they imagined themselves chosen 
 instruments in the hand of Providence to avenge the wrongs 
 which Christendom had endured from the " Scourge of God." 
 But other ideas suggested themselves to the politic brain of 
 the niler of the West, when he found himself upon the 
 frontiers of the Greek empire, and perceived the beauty 
 and value of its possessions, their undefended state, and the 
 decrepitude of the Byzantine court. There can be little 
 doubt but that speculations of this sort induced him to per- 
 sist in the effort thus successfully commenced, and under 
 plea of this Avar war, to push onward his victorious 
 standards nearer to the banks of the Bosphorus. The design 
 which he is known to have entertained, indeed, to have 
 attempted, of connecting the Bhine and the Danube by a 
 canal, most probably formed part of a large and politic 
 scheme for furthering the same object. The Greeks were 
 thoroughly alarmed, and endeavoured, too successfully, to 
 excite, by their usual arts, the Saxons and the Avars against 
 the man whose name was by this time whispered, in tones 
 of apprehension, in every city of the East. The Saxons and 
 the Avars were thus induced to unite in one great effort, 
 which they themselves hoped would free Germany from the 
 presence of the Franks, and which the Greeks were assured 
 would at any rate check their advance upon Constantinoj^le. 
 But Charlemagne had learnt the method of dealing with his 
 enemy. The i)lan of the previous campaign was repeated ; 
 the duke of Friuli, at the head of a Frank army, captured 
 
CAPTURE OF THE ROYAL HRING. 505 
 
 one of the inner circles ; but for the young king Pepin was 
 reserved the glory of carrying by storm the royal Hring 
 itself, which was situated on the banks of the Theiss, near 
 the very spot where once stood the palace of Attila. Pepin, 
 says M. Thierry, never arrested his steps until he had placed 
 his foot within the sanctuary of the Avar nationality, and 
 until the standard of the Protector of the Church floated above 
 the ancient dwelling of the " Scourge of God." " The entry 
 of Pepin," he adds, " into Aix-la-Chapelle presented an 
 image of the triumphs of that ancient Poman empire, of the 
 resuscitation of which Charlemagne was dreaming with such 
 ardour. Before the triumphing monarch defiled the cap- 
 tured standards, the spoils of the vanquished chiefs arranged 
 as trophies, and a long line of open chariots containing the 
 treasures of the Avar kings ; heaps of gold and silver coin, 
 precious stones of all kinds, golden tissues, and silk, purple, 
 and precious vases torn from palaces or churches, the costly 
 value and workmanship of which proved them to have 
 formed part of the plunder of Greece, Italy, and Gaul. 
 Tudun and the Avar nobles, in humble and dejected atti- 
 tudes, formed part of the cortege. It was not clear whether 
 they appeared in the capacity of allies or captives. Tudun 
 kneeling before Charlemagne, swore fidelity according to 
 the Prankish ceremonial, and expressed a desire to receive 
 the sacred rite of baptism."* This may well close our account 
 of the relations between Charlemagne and the Avars, tlioueh 
 their final extermination was the work of a future campaign. 
 A somewhat curious use was made of the treasures dis- 
 covered in the Avar camp. Charlemagne, with true royal 
 magnificence, bestowed them upon the great churches of the 
 realm, — especially the cathedral of Mayence, — upon the Pope, 
 and contemporary Christian princes. Among these was 
 Offa, the Saxon king of Mercia. William of JMalmsbury 
 records the language of the imperial message which accom- 
 * Histoire d'Attila et ses Successeurs, vol. ii. p. 182. 
 
506 CHARLEMAGNE. 
 
 panied the gift. " Of tlie secular treasure which the Lord 
 Jesus, in his unmerited goodness, has placed in our hands, 
 we have distributed a portion among our metropolitan cities- 
 To yon we send, in token of our love, a baldric, a Hunnish 
 sword, and two mantles of silk."* 
 
 (3.) The wars beyond the Alps possess still greater interest, 
 but they exhibit a very different character : they were 
 waged against an antagonist who once might have been a 
 rival, and even a successful rival, to the Frank monarchy. 
 The Lombard has been styled the noblest of all the barba- 
 rians, and we have seen that he had no mean claim to the 
 title. He had the advantage over the Frank of an earlier 
 appearance upon the stage of the confused struggle for the 
 spoils of the Roman empire ; his armies were better 
 trained, better armed, more skilfully led ; the Alps protected 
 his strategic position from external assault, more effectually 
 than the Rhine protected his rival; above all, he was 
 nearer to the great central seat, the home and the heart of 
 the imperial power. Rome lay almost within his grasp. Had 
 he rendered himself master of Rome, by the judicious 
 employment of force or policy, he would have succeeded, as 
 the Frank afterwards did, to the prestige of her name and the 
 weight of her authority. But we have already described the 
 causes which neutralized these favourable conditions. These 
 were, the small numbers of the conquering race; the existence 
 of a large native population ever ready to conspire against 
 their rule ; the insuperable jealousy, turbulence, and strife 
 of the great feudal chiefs (the anachronism is pardonable, for 
 reasons already given) ;t the consequent impossibility of a 
 strong centralized government ; the implacable hatred, and 
 vehement opposition of the Roman pontiffs, who were 
 offended by the Arianism and alarmed by the rapacity of 
 the invaders. Yet, after all, the Lombard kingdom was 
 
 * Guliel. Malms. Hist. Reg. Angl. i., apud Thierry, 
 t Lecture VI. p. 316. 
 
WARS WITH THE LOMBAEDS. 507 
 
 strong enough in warlike renown, and in the material 
 appliances of military power, to command the respect, 
 perhaps to awaken the apprehensions, of Charlemagne. 
 Hence his politic marriage with the daughter of Desiderius, 
 which may have served as a temporary blind, while he was 
 yet unsettled upon the throne, or a pretext for quarrel when 
 he had consolidated his resources. I shall not again recount 
 the events which followed, when this transparent mask of 
 mutual amity had been cast aside, and the ever-memorable 
 compact concluded between the Roman priest and the Car- 
 lovingian king. It will be sufficient to repeat that the 
 Lombard war terminated in a success which was very 
 moderately employed. All the dominions of his adversary, 
 save the indomitable or inaccessible duchy of Benevento, fell 
 into the hands of the victor. Annexation, however, rather 
 than conquest, as it was then understood, appears to have 
 been the object of Charlemagne. The Lombard dukes, who 
 had by this time made their office hereditary, were not 
 disturbed ; the national laws were allowed to retain their 
 validity ; the general habits and customs of the people 
 suffered little change ; the municipal institutions, which had 
 survived the Empire, survived also this second and ruder 
 shock ; and the conqueror appears to have been content with 
 a titular sovereignty of Italy, vested in his eldest son. Thus 
 did it come to pass, that, notwithstanding their submission 
 to a foreign rule, the Lombards permanently impressed 
 their name, and perhaps their national type, upon northern 
 Italy. 
 
 One element in the condition of Italy with which 
 Charlemagne had to deal, should by no means be forgotten 
 — Greek intrigue in the peninsula ; and this intrigue was 
 now directed by a woman of bold and subtle genius — the 
 empress Irene. More or less she involved the Saxons, the 
 Avars, the Lombard kings themselves, and the Beneventan 
 dukes, in the webs of her policy, and employed them against 
 
503 CHARLEMAGNE. 
 
 the Franks, whom she perceived to hold the destiny of Italy 
 in their hands. The inhabitants of the exarchate of Ravenna 
 and of the Pentapolis, in their endeavours to assert indepen- 
 dence, had only passed from the feeble grasp of the Greek 
 into the strong hand of the Lombard. Still they were lost to 
 the Byzantine empire ; but the Byzantine empire yet retained 
 some ground in the centre of the peninsula, and the rebel 
 spirit of the Beneventan dukes inclined them to favour any 
 intervention in Italian affairs which might damage the 
 supremacy of their own legitimate kings. With such mate- 
 rial to work upon, the intrigues of Irene were incessant, and 
 mnst certainly be taken into account, when we are esti- 
 mating the difficulties of Charlemagne beyond the Alps. 
 We have already seen her excite the Avars against her rival, 
 and abandon them in their peril. A still more signal instance 
 of her animosity, and it must be added, of her impotence, 
 was the assistance of a Byzantine fleet afforded to the young 
 Adalgisius, son of the last Lombard king, who was endeavour- 
 ing to recover his father's kingdom from the Franks. The 
 attempt was an entire failure, and the fleet afforded no 
 material assistance ; but its presence was sufficient proof that 
 the Greeks were ready to unite with their bitterest enemies 
 against the establishment of Frank influence in Italy. " The 
 proverbial cunning of the Greeks," observes M. Thierry, 
 was never exhibited in a more subtle and menacing form 
 than in the policy of Irene, who held the whole power of 
 Charlemagne in check, by preventing its consolidation ; 
 keeping alive, as she did, among the Lombards, the spirit of 
 nationality and vengeance, and among the fickle Italians, the 
 vague hope of an improvement in their condition." '=^ 
 
 (4.) In many respects the struggle with the Saracen 
 
 excites, by its associations, more vivid and lasting interest 
 
 than either the German or Italian wars. The cycle of 
 
 Caiiovingian romance has poured an affluence of song and 
 
 * Histoire d'Attila et ses Successeurs, vol. ii. p. 144. 
 
WARS WITH THE SAEACENS. 50^ 
 
 legend around the memory of the great emperor, with his 
 paladins and peers, which has completely overwhelmed 
 and concealed the scantier records of authentic history. 
 Bojardo, Ariosto, and numberless other bards less known to 
 fame, long filled the listening ears of Europe with tales 
 of wild adventure and gallant feats of arms, where bold 
 knights and lovely ladies are continually entangled in the 
 sorceries of the foul worshippers of"Mahoun and Terma- 
 ganst," but only to win at last deliverance and a splendid 
 revenge. Yet the acclaim of triumph is broken by the 
 melancholy strains of the chanson of Eoland, as it rises 
 above the blood-stained ravine so fatal to France and ta 
 Christendom, when — 
 
 *' Roland the brave, and Olivier, 
 And many a paladin and peer. 
 At Eoncesvalles died." 
 
 It is not indeed difficult to understand how the contest 
 between the Franks and the Spanish Arabs assumed a 
 greater prominence in the literature of that rude age, than 
 the more formidable wars and bloodier battles fought beyond 
 the Rhine. Whatever remained of intellectual culture, and 
 the capacity to clothe in the grace of language the incidents 
 of history, was to be found among the Romanized inhabitants 
 of Aquitaine and southern Gaul. This was emphatically 
 the case with the national poetry. The Trouveres of the 
 Langue d'Oui, and more remotely their brethren, the Pro- 
 vencal Troubadours, were brought into direct contact with 
 the strife against the Saracen unbeliever ; and all the strongest 
 instincts of religion, patriotism, and song, were kindled into 
 a blaze by the collision. It fired the imagination of these 
 * children of a young and heroic age, to look forth from their 
 dwellings upon the mighty chain of the Pyrenees, and feel 
 that beyond that rocky barrier lay another world and 
 people, associated in their minds with the most terrible 
 j)erils, as well as the most glorious triumphs, of their country 
 
510 CHARLEMAGNE. 
 
 and their faith. It is impossible even now to stand upon 
 the summit of the mountain-ridge which separates Spain from 
 France, without feeling somewhat of the old heroic sentiment 
 to which the great cycle of Carlovingian romance gave an 
 utterance at once passionate and picturesque. Before us, 
 far as the eye can reach, to the banks of the winding 
 Nivelle, lies a pleasant land of corn and vines, bright 
 with the green and yellow lines which endear to its 
 children the memory of " la belle France" in a foreign land. 
 In the background, stretching far away towards the west, 
 rise the stern sierras of Spain, whose iron aspect and 
 serrated edges at once explain the origin of the name. On 
 the right tower the gigantic masses of the Pyrenees, so 
 unlike the rugged mountain-chains of Switzerland, yet 
 possessing a grandeur of their own, softened by the rich 
 foliage of the forests which clothe their sides, yet abounding 
 in precipices, defiles, and paths among the clouds, more in- 
 accessible than the Spliigen or the Stelvio ; while here and 
 there, high above them all, some snow-capt pinnacle glitters 
 in the southern sunshine like a silver star. To complete the 
 picture ; far below, on the left, roll the broad waters of the 
 boundless Atlantic, for three thousand years the bourne of 
 human ambitions and human passions, the barrier beyond 
 which the tide of conquest, ever surging towards the west, had 
 never passed. Amid such scenes was fought the fatal fight of 
 Eoncesval. Ten centuries have rolled away since that memo- 
 rable day j mightier armies have swept through those blood- 
 stained defiles ; greater leaders have associated their names 
 with rock, and river, and fiercely-contested pass ; beneath 
 the shadow of those hills the fate of empires has been decided 
 by the sword ; but the Basque peasant still sings of Roland * 
 and Charlemagne, and still the traveller seems to see the 
 long line of white turbans and swarthy faces, winding slowly 
 through the woods, and Arab spear-heads glittering in the 
 pass. It is not surprising, then, that on such a theme, among 
 
RONCESVALLES. 511 
 
 an imaginative race, legend should triumph over history ; but 
 there is also another cause which bestowed a disproportionate 
 interest and importance upon the Spanish campaigns of 
 Charlemagne. The religious exaltation, which in after-years 
 found its expression in the crusades, was engendered and 
 fostered in that frontier land where the two Eeligions stood 
 face to face, and where there was no cessation, for century 
 after century, in those bitter animosities and alarms from 
 which the triumphant field of Tours had delivered northern 
 Europe. The exasperation and enthusiasm which burst forth 
 in the great square of Clermont, at the fiery preaching of Peter 
 the Hermit, had long smouldered in the heart of soldier and 
 priest and peasant, in the land that lay beneath the Pyrenees. 
 Not seldom had it blazed forth fiercely in " razzia " and re- 
 prisal. No fanatic crusader, who stood in the breach at 
 Ascalon or scaled the walls of Jemsalem, regarded himself 
 more surely as the champion of the faith, and the chosen of 
 God, than the Christian swordsman who fought the Saracen at 
 Koussillon or Roncesval. From the eighth to the eleventh 
 century, the Spanish Marches were to the chivalry of France 
 what Syria and Palestine were to the steel-clad nobles who 
 followed the banner of Philip Augustus or Cceur-de-Lion. 
 And if the Carlovingian romance has outlived and super- 
 seded history, it is because, from the nature of the subject 
 and the necessities of the case, it obtained a stronger hold 
 on the affections and occupied a larger space in the minds of 
 men. 
 
 Passing, however, to the actual condition of things which 
 gave birth to these brilliant products of the imagination, we 
 find that even the absorbing fanaticism which inspired the 
 followers of Mohammed was not proof against the tempta- 
 tions of secular ambition and the evils arising from it. The 
 Abassides reigned at Bagdad, the Ommiades governed Spain. 
 As a necessary consequence, the Ommiad dynasty was per- 
 petually harassed by the partisans of the opposite faction. 
 
512 CHARLEMAGNE. 
 
 • 
 
 The whole country was in a state of turbulent agitation, 
 when the aid of Charlemagne was invoked by a seditious 
 leader against Abderaman, the lieutenant of the ruling 
 caliph. The opportunity was not to be lost. Islamism 
 might be driven beyond the Ebro ; possibly also the northern 
 paladins might revel in the orange-groves and gorgeous 
 alcazars of Cordova and Seville. Two Frank armies were 
 speedily across the Pyrenees. The rendezvous was Saragossa, 
 for Saragossa was to be delivered by treachery into their 
 hands. But this must be classed among the occasions when 
 " treason never prospers," because, that is to say, it does not 
 succeed. Saragossa, so far from opening her gates, stood a 
 stout siege against the invaders, and anticipated her own 
 history by a thousand years. Charlemagne, unable to make 
 any impression upon the town, and harassed by the in- 
 habitants of the province, who rose against the foreigner, 
 withdrew his army, and marched northward, whither he was 
 summoned by more important cares. As the rear-guard 
 defiled through the pass of Roncesval, the people of the dis- 
 trict, then called Vasconia, assisted, it is said, by the Saracens, 
 closed in upon their ranks. The Yascones or Basques, who 
 obeyed Duke Lupus II., son of the famous Guaifer, and de- 
 scended from the Merovingian Cariberfc, had small affection 
 for the Frank army or the Carlovingian house. They were 
 eager for vengeance, and having previously occupied a narrow 
 gorge in the mountains through which their enemies w-ere 
 compelled to pass, they showered down upon them rocks, 
 trunks of trees, and missiles of all sorts. The result was 
 a frightful disaster. The Frank division, forming the rear- 
 guard of the army, was annihilated. Eoland fell at the 
 post of honour. Ever since he has been the darling hero of 
 romance ; and if 
 
 " The blast of his dread horn 
 On Fontarabian echoes borne," 
 
 did not reach the ears of Kin^r Charles as he sat at Paris in 
 
WAES IN FRANCE. 613^ 
 
 council with liis peers, it has performed perhaps as great a 
 marvel ; it has echoed through song and legend for a 
 thousand years, and still lingers in the imagination of the 
 poet and the memory of the historical student. 
 
 (5.) The domestic wars of Charlemagne, as they may be 
 called, were not of very grave importance. Through all that 
 wide region which extends between the three seas and the 
 Ehine, the two Pepins and Charles Martel had borne down 
 opposition with a heavy hand. There still, however, re- 
 mained two centres of resistance : Aquitaine, ever restless 
 from its Roman reminiscences, and the Armorican peninsula, 
 never perfectly subdued. The first had already felt so often 
 and so terribly the weight of the Carlovingian sword, that 
 Charlemagne was enabled to reduce it in a single 
 expedition ; nor does it appear that treason, as by 
 this time it had begun to be called, ever troubled him again 
 in Southern Gaul. The Bretons most probably offered a 
 stouter resistance. If they ever yielded to Pepin, it was not 
 with a complete or cheerful obedience. In a rugged land, 
 amid storms and mists and waves, the old Celtic superstitions, 
 kept alive by wild legends and the mysterious memorials of 
 Druid worship, scattered through lonely glens and plains, 
 had stamped a character upon the popular mind, which still 
 lingers in the nineteenth century, but which, we may be 
 sure, was vigorous and vivid in the eighth. It is little sur- 
 prising, therefore, that the Bretons were ever ready for 
 revolt, or that they united themselves for the purpose, as they 
 are said to have done on this occasion, with the enemies of 
 the Empire beyond the Bhine. But Charlemagne was not 
 the man to be dismayed by any such combination. He 
 speedily smote his foes with either hand, and disposing of all 
 opposition in two successful inroads, extended an undisputed 
 sway up to the base of the very rocks which receive the 
 Atlantic surge. 
 
 (6.) Several miscellaneous and incidental conflicts fill up 
 2 L 
 
514 CHAELEMAGNE. 
 
 the catalogue of the wars of Charlemagne, They may be 
 briefly summed up as follows : — Against the 
 A.D. — . g^j^cgjjs^ ^ho had settled in Italy, Corsica, 
 and Sardinia, five expeditions, — these were of course sup- 
 plementary to his straggle with the Lombards 
 A.D. 808—811. ^^^ ^^^ possession of Italy ; — against the Danes 
 three expeditions, — these were the natural corollary of 
 the German war ; — against the Greeks of 
 A.D. 809— . ^-^^ Eastern empire, on the Adriatic coast, 
 two expeditions. 
 
 The general territorial result of all these wars was an em- 
 pire which equalled, if it did not surpass, the Roman empire 
 of the "West. From the Atlantic seaboard to the great 
 eastern rivers of Germany, the Save and the Oder ; from 
 the Danish peninsula to the limits of the duchy of Benevento 
 and to the banks of the Ebro, — all civilized and semicivilized 
 Europe obeyed the behests of the Austrasian Frank, who 
 had made himself the successor of the Caesars. Saxon 
 kings from Briton, Saracen emirs from Spain, the Lombard 
 dukes of Italy, the wild Slavonian chieftains from beyond 
 the German border, flocked to Aix-la-Chapelle, and crowded 
 the Carlovingian court with a more motley band of suitors 
 than had ever presented themselves at the Palatine. But 
 even these were not the most marked and important visitors 
 who did homage to the new dynasty, and testified to the 
 widespread influence of its name. The court of Constan- 
 tinople recognized its rival by politic embassies, presents, 
 and smooth words. It is not probable that much real dis- 
 position to a coalition of any sort lurked behind these 
 courtesies. The proposal for a union between the two 
 empires, by a marriage between Charlemagne and the 
 reigning empress Irene, widow of Leo III., most probably 
 emanated from the West. It bears the stamp of that com- 
 prehensive genius which had already revived the imperial 
 traditions, and organized so vast a political unity from such 
 
KELATIONS WITH THE EAST. 515 
 
 unpromising materials. That it was ever sincerely enter- 
 tained at Constantinople, may be considered as more than 
 doubtful. The Greek intellect, if incapable of prosecuting 
 any exalted design for political regeneration and national 
 glory, was still subtle enough to discern that the destinies of 
 the East, already overshadowed by the power which had risen 
 beside the Ehine, would suffer an entire and dismal eclipse, 
 if the two should be brought into still closer collision. 
 But perhaps Bagdad offered to Charlemagne some consola- 
 tion for the repugnance of Byzantium. If Irene refused his 
 hand, Haroun Alraschid, the ruling caliph of the Abasside 
 dynasty, testified the warmth of his friendship by sending to 
 Aix-la-Chapelle an ape, an elephant, and a curious clock, 
 which struck the hours. He is said to have proffered, also, 
 the keys of the holy sepulchre, a gift which might, in after- 
 ages, have spared whole oceans of blood. But I am inclined 
 to believe that the story itself is the offspring of a later age, 
 when the possession of these keys was a question to be 
 decided by a world in arms, and Christian zeal might be 
 stimulated by connecting them with the name of the great 
 Christian emperor. Be this as it may, the connection of 
 Charlemagne with the Caliphate, in the days of its " golden 
 prime," was a fitting complement to his relations with the 
 Papacy and the Byzantine empire ; for these three powers 
 were, as Sir J. Stephen has somewhere said, the three 
 venerable or splendid ideas which held in bondage the 
 imagination of mankind. 
 
 (II.) The wars of Charlemagne, therefore, were something 
 very different from the freebooting razzias of his Merovingian 
 predecessors. They were the more full and skilful develop- 
 ment of a policy which had been inaugurated by the Pepins 
 and Charles Martel ; a policy which had for its object to 
 keep Barbarism at a distance, and gradually to absorb into 
 the Frank empire all the sources of strength, political or 
 territorial, which could be gathered from the dehris of the 
 2 L 2 
 
516 CHAELEMAGNE. 
 
 patrimony of the Caesars. Elevated above all liis prede- 
 cessors in the path which he pursued, by the fixed purpose 
 to make the progress of civilization coincide with the march 
 of conquest, Charlemagne has larger claims upon the admira- 
 tion of posterity, in his character as lawgiver and adminis- 
 trator, than as victor over half the contemporary world. He 
 saw that all attempts at true culture and improvement must 
 begin at home, and he wisely began his efforts to introduce 
 something like organization into the state, by calling into 
 more vigorous action that body which was both best able to 
 understand the national interests and most disposed to aid in 
 promoting them. The free assemblies of the Franks (under 
 the Merovingian dynasty) had fallen into disuse, as the 
 natural consequence of a transition from forest life to the in- 
 terests and occupations of an incipient civilization. By Pepin 
 of Heristal, however, they had been partially revived, 
 and Charlemagne, in pursuance of a policy which gave 
 strength to the Carlovingian line, convoked every spring and 
 autumn the national assemblies which had originated in the 
 tribe-meetings of his Teutonic ancestors, and which un- 
 doubtedly formed the germ of all similar institutions, whether 
 Diets, Cortes, Parliaments, or States-general. Of these assem- 
 blies, the chroniclers enumerate thirty-five betw^een the years 
 770 and 813. That convoked in spring, and styled " the 
 Field of May," alone had the privilege of passing laws ; and 
 in it the third estate, or the people, were associated with the 
 clergy and nobles. The autumnal assembly, on the contrary, 
 was composed only of bishops, abbots, and peers. Its 
 duties were entirely deliberative, and, indeed, its principal 
 function appears to have been the preparation of measures 
 for discussion in the following spring. But the Field of May, 
 the origin, as I have said, of the States-general, either passed 
 laws of its own or afforded its sanction to those already 
 decided upon by the sovereign. The latter was most pro- 
 bably their chief task. The prodigious mental activity of 
 
THE CAPITULAEIES. 517 
 
 the emperor found vent in the construction of what are still 
 known as the Capitularies, a vast body of laws heaped to- 
 gether in wild confusion, and dealing with all imaginable 
 topics, ecclesiastical, military, financial, scholastic, and sump- 
 tuary. Sir J. Stephen has well explained, in reference to 
 their incoherent arrangement, that in this respect they re- 
 sembled the petitions of parliament presented to our own 
 Plantagenet kings at the close of each session of parliament. 
 No classification was attempted, nothing but a simple chrono- 
 logical order observed, and the whole became collectively a 
 single statute, often comprising the most incongruous contents. 
 But this can in no wise diminish our wonder at the infinite 
 number and diversity of the subjects to which the Capitula- 
 ries refer. We have ecclesiastical canons ; the terms and re- 
 quirements of military service ; laws relating to property and 
 crime, accommodated to the native codes of the numerous 
 nationalities which the Empire contained ; fiscal and adminis- 
 trative provisions for the management of the royal estates, de- 
 scending to the minutest particulars; minutes and regulations 
 for the management of schools, which might produce despair 
 in her Majesty's inspectors, and complete instructions for the 
 Missi Bominici, or royal officers, whose duty it was to gallop 
 into every corner of those vast dominions, and report to Aachen 
 or Ingelheim whatever might seem to require the sovereign's 
 attention. There has appeared to certain writers — Gibbon 
 among the number — something ridiculous in this association 
 of things great and little. They speak with contempt of a 
 central authority which was directed at one and the same 
 time to matters so incongruous as the settlement of a church 
 usage, and the laying of eggs upon the royal farms. But, 
 perhaps, all vert/ great minds partake more or less of the 
 resemblance to an elephant's trunk, which picks up a needle 
 as easily as it rends an oak. Of Charlemagne this seems 
 especially true. 
 
 The machinery employed to carry out the requirements of 
 
518 CHAELEMAGNE. 
 
 this astonishing mental activity was not entirely central. It 
 is true that the appointment of the " Missi Dominici" evinces 
 a tendency to that centralization which has ever found 
 favour in France. But the dukes, counts, vicars, centeniers, 
 scabini, and other officers who administered the business of 
 their several localities, appear to have exercised the func- 
 tions of tax-collectors, judges, and police magistrates, as 
 well as the more feudal office of levying and equipping 
 troops. Nor must we omit the beneficiaries, though into the 
 vexed question of their tenure we cannot fully enter here. It 
 seems probable that when the purely allodial fiefs failed to 
 fulfil the purpose of their institution, and the military service 
 sufiered by their lapse or accumulation in single hands, a 
 new species of tenure was invented, according to which, lands 
 granted by the sovereign returned to him, when no longer in 
 condition to furnish the aid, or fulfil the purpose for which 
 they were intended. But revocation is always an invidious, 
 and often an impolitic act. It is not, therefore, surprising that 
 it became an unusual one, and that the two tenures, allodial 
 and beneficial, difiered, very little in practice from each other. 
 We cannot suppose that machinery so complex worked 
 without a flaw, or that it obtained in any permanent form, or 
 commensurate degree, the results for which it was put in 
 motion. But we must not on that account withhold our 
 admiration from the gigantic efibrt made in so dark and 
 stormy an age to substitute Christianity for Paganism, 
 political security for perpetual invasion, order for anarchy, 
 and knowledge for ignorance, throughout the largest portion 
 of a continent inhabited by disorganized nationalities, widely 
 differing from each other in habits, interests, laws, locality, 
 and race. 
 
 The objection which has been most frequently and most 
 vehemently urged against the policy and actions of Charle- 
 magne, is the undue elevation to which he has been supposed 
 to have exalted the Church. It is for this reason, probably, 
 
CHARLEMAGNE AND THE CHUKCH. 519 
 
 that he has met with such scant justice at the hands of 
 Gibbon, who, however, admits that he is the only man to 
 whose name posterity has indissolubly united the title of 
 " great." But in this matter he has hardly been judged ac- 
 cording to the circumstances of the age in which he lived and 
 was compelled to act. We may doubt, in the first instance, 
 whether that " power," which is the offspring of " knowledge," 
 would not have placed the Church in her dominant position 
 among a semi-barbarian people, even if he had disliked such 
 a result. A power which acted by a temporal as well as a 
 spiritual leverage, upon the inert ignorance of the masses ; 
 which dispensed the conveniences of this life, and the hopes 
 and fears which appertain to another, had little to apprehend, 
 with regard to the strength of its influence, from a con- 
 queror, however great, or a lawgiver, however wise. But 
 between Charlemagne and the Church there was no anta- 
 gonism in action or design. If all the objects of his life 
 could be concentrated into and expressed by a single word, 
 that word would be — civilization. Now, upon the lowest 
 view of the case, the great work of civilization cannot be ela- 
 borated among a half-civilized race, without instructing them 
 in the things that make up the highest objects of human 
 life ; without giving them some taste for art, science, and 
 the refining influences which follow in their train j with- 
 out some knowledge of the destinies of their species, as it is 
 to be learnt from the working of human societies in the 
 past j without some notion of those moral capacities and 
 responsibilities which elevate us above the imperfect instincts 
 and grovelling appetites of the brutes that perish. Where, 
 in the ninth century, could have been sought the means or 
 the men to do these things, save in the Christian church ? 
 In the Church alone were to be found the instruments and 
 the materials for education. The Church had a monopoly of 
 all the knowledge which the age possessed, in science, in art, 
 in philosophy, in history, and above all, in religion. The 
 
520 CHAELEMAGNE. 
 
 Church alone had the opportunity and the authority to 
 appeal to those deep-seated instincts in the heart of man, 
 which tell him, even in his profoundest degradation, that he 
 is an heir of immortality. The cycle of the seven sciences, 
 as they were called, were the only intellectual accomplish- 
 ments of the time ; and with these, the clergy alone were 
 conversant. It was natural, therefore, that Charlemagne 
 should have looked to ecclesiastics for the furtherance of 
 his projects for social improvement ; it is natural that he 
 should have gathered them around him, and encouraged 
 them when they came ; it is natural that his educational 
 schemes, when carried out, should have taken the shape of 
 cathedral and conventual schools. Our own Saxon Alcuin, 
 Mailros his contemporary, a disciple of the venerable Bede, 
 Peter of Pisa, Paulinus of Aquitaine,and Clement an Irishman, 
 were among the most illustrious of that brilliant assemblage 
 who formed themselves into a society called the "School of 
 the Palace," and received their royal master within their ranks 
 as a student of grammai', rhetoric, music, and astronomy. 
 Nor was the zeal of the imperial neophyte engrossed by his 
 own education. " He founded and supported schools," says 
 Bonnechose, " in a multitude of places ; he often instructed in 
 them himself, and by his personal interrogations ascertained 
 the progress of his pupils." Patronage of learning was, 
 therefore, necessarily accompanied by patronage of ecclesi- 
 astics. Indeed they were the same thing. We must set the 
 good against the evil, and perhaps Ave shall find that the 
 former predominated. But that there is a dark as well as a 
 bright side to the picture, it would be uncandid to deny. 
 The arrogant pretensions asserted by the clergy after the 
 death of Charlemagne, may, in some measure, be attributed 
 to the exalted functions performed by them during his life, 
 and the despotism of the bishops in the temporal afiairs of 
 the empire has not unreasonably been traced to the share 
 
THE LEGENDARY CHARLEMAGNE. 521 
 
 in the civil administration which he encouraged them to 
 claim, and permitted them to exercise. 
 
 (III.) In any effort of the mind to represent unto itself 
 the personal attributes of the great Carlovingian emperor, it 
 becomes indescribably confused, owing to the double image 
 presented to the vision by the historic and the legendary 
 Charlemagne. To the medics val imagination, excited by the 
 romantic strains of Minnesingers and Trouveres, the last was 
 undoubtedly predominant. His mother, " Berthe aux grans 
 pies," — " Bertha of the large feet" (the original, perhaps, of the 
 goose-footed queen still known in nursery tales), daughter of 
 the king of Hungary, the betrothed of Pepin, for whom a 
 false Bertha was substituted by the officer intrusted to 
 bring home the royal bride, is as mythical a personage as 
 Deiainra or Ariadne. Her wanderings in the forest ; her 
 residence with the good miller of Mans, for whom she spins 
 so gracefully and so patiently ; the coming of King Pepin 
 when lost in the chase j his love at first sight for the gentle 
 peasant maid ; the gradual denouement of the truth ; the 
 punishment of the traitors ; the marriage of the lovers, and 
 the birth of Charles, form an introduction to the life of the 
 hero of Carlovingian romance, which removes him at once into 
 the region of the fabulous. And when at last he emerges 
 into the twilight land which lies between the domains of 
 Legend and History, he becomes, after the immemorial habit 
 of the myth, the nucleus round which are concreted innu- 
 merable traditions of warlike enterprise and religious ani- 
 mosity, — the spontaneous products of a time when the 
 instincts which underlie both are in a state of preternatural 
 excitement. 
 
 Charlemagne, surrounded by his paladins and " Douze 
 Pairs," like the British Arthur amid his Knights of the 
 Round Table, formed a much more distinct and familiar 
 image in the popular mind, than the great monarch who 
 
522 CHARLEMAGNE. 
 
 sat as a real lawgiver in the court of his palace at 
 Aix-la-Chapelle. And probably his relations with Haroun 
 Alraschid, and the actual incidents of the Saracenic wars, 
 were altogether distorted and obscured by the legends of 
 his campaigns in Spain and the Holy Land, to win from the 
 children of Mahoun the sacred relics of Calvary, the crown 
 of thorns, the holy lance, and the nails of the true cross. 
 But it is through this delusive medium that the image of 
 Charlemagne ha« generally been presented to our modern 
 perceptions. Coloured by the prismatic light of legend, myth, 
 and song, the form of the greatest man of early European 
 times assumes to the gazer's eye a brilliant, but strangely 
 changeful aspect. We fill up, from mingled sources of his- 
 tory and romance, a great though indistinct outline, — the vast 
 but well-knit body, the towering stature, the " dome-shaped " 
 skull, the broad, lofty forehead, with the " large quick eye " 
 beneath, the snowy hair and beard which swept his waist, 
 like the blossoming hawthorn or the flowering laurestinus, the 
 giant strength which could cleave a knight in twain at a 
 single blow, from helmet-peak to saddle-bow, his famous sword 
 Joyeuse, with its religious legend engraven on the blade — 
 "Decern prseceptorum custos Carolusj" his death -dealing 
 spear, supposed by some to be the very lance which pierced the 
 Saviour's side ; his glittering mail of proof ; the large robes 
 of otter-skin in which he sat wrapped, while, during the long 
 winter evening, he listened to the " harhara et antiquissima 
 carmina'' of his favourite bards, most probably the earliest 
 rhapsodies of the Niebelungenlied ; his hearty, jovial spirit, 
 the outpouring of a great, strong, sensuous nature; his 
 honhomie, developed in practical jokes upon pedants and 
 fools ; his strong common sense, his courtesy, his patronage 
 of learning, his feats of strength, his amours, his restless 
 locomotion, his laborious efforts to write, his fatherly fond- 
 ness for those beautiful but unworthy daughters whom he 
 could not bear to leave behind, even in his warlike expedi- 
 
PERSONAL ATTRIBUTES OF CHARLEMAGNE. 523 
 
 tions — all these form a complex portraiture most probably 
 very unlike " the rough, tough, and shaggy old monarch," as 
 Sir F, Palgrave calls him, who had the courage, the energy, 
 and the skill to govern that wild ninth-century world. Yet 
 it may be doubted whether some modem writers have not 
 wandered still further from the original, while they ignore 
 the lapse of a thousand years, and depict a constitutional 
 monarch of modern Europe. " Each generation, or school " 
 says Sir F. Palgrave (with some little exaggeration), "has 
 endeavoured to exhibit him as a normal model of excellence. 
 Courtly Mezeray invests the son of Pepin with the faste of 
 Louis Quatorze ; the polished Abbe Velly bestows upon the 
 Prankish emperor the abstract perfection of a dramatic hero. 
 Boulainvilliers, the champion of the noblesse, worships the 
 founder of hereditary feudality ; Mably discovers in the 
 Capitularies the maxims of popular liberty ; Montesquieu the 
 perfect philosophy of legislation."* There is considerable 
 force in the same writer's remark, that, after all, it is an. 
 equivocal commendation to pronounce a great man in ad- 
 vance of his age. One important element of greatess is to 
 comprehend our age and the work which we have to do in it. 
 Failure in this is ill excused by that sort of imputation upon 
 the Divine counsels which implies that we have been mis- 
 placed in an uncongenial generation. In a certain sense, 
 doubtless, Charlemagne may be described as in advance of 
 his times ; in a certain sense, his work may be said to have 
 been premature. Yet he was emphatically the man of his 
 age j he fully understood it, its wants and capacities, its 
 sources of weakness, and its sources of strength. The vine- 
 clad rocks of the Ehine, and the Minsters whose towers are 
 reflected in its waves, are memorials of his care for the moral 
 and physical well-being of his people ; and his conquests, 
 his Capitularies, his Fields of May, his Missi Dominici, and 
 
 * Palgrave's History of Normandy, vol. i. p. 25. 
 
624 CHAKLEMAGNE. 
 
 his Schools, are all evidences of a similar anxiety to seize the 
 instrument as occasion offered it, for carrying out those large 
 conceptions, and schemes for social improvement, which dis- 
 tinsruish him from most great wielders of the sword. This is 
 I think patent from any candid consideration of his policy, 
 and the objects to which his life were devoted. They 
 were — I gladly quote words of more weight than my own — 
 " to conciliate the attachment of his German subjects, by 
 studiously maintaining their old Germanic institutions ; to 
 anticipate, instead of awaiting, the invasions of the barbarous 
 nations by whom he was surrounded ; to court the alliance 
 and support of all other secular potentates of the East and 
 West ; and to strengthen his own power by the most inti- 
 mate relations with the Church." These principles he pro- 
 bably derived from the former representatives of the Carlo- 
 vingian house ; it is possible, however, to discover others 
 which were more emphatically the growth of his own mind. 
 " It was only in a mind of surpassing depth and fertility 
 that such maxims could have been nurtured and made to yield 
 their appropriate fruits. For, first, he firmly believed that 
 the power of his house could have no secure basis except in 
 the religious, moral and intellectual, and social improvement 
 of his subjects ; and, secondly, he was no less firmly persuaded 
 that, in order to that improvement, it was necessary to con- 
 solidate all temporal authority in Europe, by the reconstruc- 
 tion of the Csesarean empire — that empire beneath the shadow 
 of which, religion, law, and learning had so long and so 
 widely flourished throughout the dominions of imperial 
 Kome." * 
 
 That Charlemagne did not succeed in these grand designs 
 during his life, and that, after his death, scarce even the re- 
 collection of them was left to fire the ambition or form the 
 policy of his immediate successors, is one of the established 
 
 * Sir J. Stephen, vol. i. Lect. iii. 
 
RESULTS OF THE EMPIRE OF CHARLEMAGNE. 525 
 
 facts of history. But the result might have been anticipated. 
 To no human being is it given to create. Great empires are 
 the growth of ages. National institutions, and the habits of 
 mind which render them durable, ripen by slow processes, 
 like the vaster products of the material world, and no single 
 genius, however gigantic, can confer upon them, in a lifetime, 
 the shape and consistency which it requires ages to elaborate. 
 So it was with the imperial fabric erected by Charlemagne. 
 It fell because it was the creation of a single man. Pallas 
 sprang full-armed into life ; but it was from the brain of 
 Jove. Only the Omnipotent and Immortal can set aside the 
 fixed laws of organic development, and confer maturity upon 
 men or nations at their birth. Yet are we to say that the 
 whole really passed away like "the baseless fabric of a 
 vision," leaving not " a wreck behind " % This would be to, 
 misunderstand the character of the man and of his work. 
 
 Charlemagne deserves to be considered as one of the 
 greatest among the heroic men of history, because he com- 
 bined with the moral and material elements of greatness, 
 larger opportunities for its exercise than have fallen to the 
 lot of most among his rivals for the world-sanctioned name 
 of " Great." He was great in valour and military skill ; 
 great in victory and territorial conquest ; great in intellec- 
 tual activity and the giant power of his unwearied energy ; 
 great in his religious instincts, as religion was understood 
 and practised among his contemporaries, despite his aberra- 
 tions from the highest standard of Christian purity ; great 
 in his genius for legislation and affairs, and above all, great 
 beyond the common claimants for the name, in a firmly- 
 fixed desire to make every act of legislation, no less than 
 every acquisition of arms, minister more or less directly to 
 the welfare of the nationalities beneath his rule. 
 
 And what we have said of the man, must be said of his 
 work. It was as great as himself. The task which lay before 
 him, was nothing less than the reconstitution of a world. 
 
526 CHARLEMAGNE. 
 
 Through him the old civilization was to form the new. 
 Through him the ancient empire was to pass, by a new and 
 painful birth, into the still more august image of a common 
 Christendom ; and the stage upon which the problem was to 
 be worked out, was nothing less than the whole portion of 
 the habitable globe, which was, at that period, the home of 
 civilized life. In answer, therefore, to the question which we 
 have proposed, we must reply that, though to the heedless 
 eye, the vast and imposing fabric of Carlovingian imperialism 
 did pass away " like the baseless fabric of a vision," it is 
 Tiot true, that it " left not a wreck behind." No great idea, 
 that has even partially clothed itself in fact, ever perishes 
 from the memory of the world. By the vastness of the ruiu 
 we conjecture the proportions of the mighty pile upon whose 
 debris we tread. We do more ; we are led by an unde- 
 finable sentiment to re-construct the edifice in imagination, to 
 shape out once more its stately pillars and its walls, to people 
 it again with the living multitudes who surged through its 
 gates. The heroic Carlovingian slept in his tomb at Aix-la- 
 Chapelle ; his empire and its institutions passed away ; the 
 laws he had framed, the learning he had encouraged, the con- 
 quests he had made, the unity he had so painfully elaborated — 
 were trampled in the mire and gore of battle by his degene- 
 rate descendants; the transient splendours of the resus- 
 citated empire were followed by the dreariest and most 
 disastrous period in the history of the human race, as the 
 feudal system slowly struggled into birth ; but let us not 
 believe that all the ignorance, rapine, and crime, — all the 
 blood and tears of those dark days, obliterated from the 
 imagination of men the civilizing work of Charlemagne. 
 The glories of the Eoman Caesars were separated by too 
 great a gulf from the new world of thought and sentiment 
 which had arisen since their fall j the old imperial image 
 was too faint and too dimly distant to affect the mind of 
 mediaeval Europe. Had no new power, less alien in time 
 
IN WHAT SENSE IT MAY BE EENEWED. 52T 
 
 and race, intervened between the great power of the past 
 and the confused tyranny of feudalism, there would have 
 been nothing to keep alive in the mind of modern nations- 
 the grand idea of imperial unity or a common Christendom. 
 It is true that no man may, in exact terms, describe the 
 influence of this idea upon the European mind, estimate its 
 past action, or foretell its future developments. Neverthe- 
 less, it abides as a fact. It is not ours to unravel the com- 
 plications of politics, or to seek for uncertain glimpses of the 
 future destinies of nations, as they may be modified by 
 dynastic ambition or the aspirations of race ; but we may 
 be permitted to hope, that, for the sake of the great cause- 
 of humanity, for the best and dearest interests of men, the 
 instincts so often abused, may be directed to objects which 
 resemble those of Henri I Y. more than those of Napoleon I. ; 
 and that the soul of the poet was really kindled by " the 
 vision and the faculty divine," as he saw, in the light of 
 a slowly uncoiling future, the auspicious hour, 
 
 '* When the war-drum throbs no longer, and the battle-flags 
 are furl'd 
 In tlie ParUament of man — ^the Federation of the World ! " 
 
LECTURE X. 
 
 SPAIN— THE VANDALS, ALANI, SUEVI, VISIGOTHS. 
 
 " La monarchie des Visigoths, aprbs la chute de I'Arianisme, est 
 r^tablissement des barbares le plus profond^ment marqu^ de la domi- 
 nation eccldsiastique ; de Ik cet esprit d'dquit^, de justice impartiale, 
 I'enervement des habitudes militaires, qui modifie les tendances con- 
 qu^rantes et voyageuses des Goths primitifs ; sous Tinfluence ab- 
 sorbante des ^veques, tout ce peuple s'occupe des regies de la legislation 
 civile et militaire." — Capefigue, Lcs quatix premiers Sieclcs de VEylise 
 ClirStienne, vol. iv. cb. 27. 
 
 Synopsis. — Spanish history interesting to Englishmen. — Spain dis- 
 covered by the Phoenicians; its state under Roman occupation ; involved 
 in the struggle between Honorius and Constantino, &c. ; frightful result 
 of it ; invaded from Gaul by the Vandals, Sueves, and Alani ; con- 
 quered for Rome by the Visigoths. — ^The Visigoths established in Gaul ; 
 are driven over the Pyrenees by the Franks ; they found a Visigoth 
 kingdom in Spain ; its character and annals. — The Councils of Toledo. 
 — ^I'he Suevic kingdom incorporated by the Visigoths. — The conversion 
 of the Visigoths from Arianism ; they drive the Byzantine Greeks from 
 the seacoast. — Brilliant period. — Arrival of the Saracens. — Roderic 
 and Count Julian. — Battle of Xeres. — Complete triumph of the in- 
 vaders. — Its causes: (1.) Physical degeneracy ; (2.) Domestic dissen- 
 sions ; (3.) Persecution of the Jews. — Organization of the Christian 
 kingdoms which finally expelled the Mohammedans. 
 
 It is observed by an able historian, who has done much 
 to confirm the truth of his own remark, that Englishmen 
 have contributed more to the illustration of Spanish history 
 than that of any country except their own. This may be 
 accounted for by the fact that our relations with Spain were 
 intimate, if not agreeable, at a time when our literature 
 was rapidly developing, and the national intelligence keenly 
 alive to the great questions at issue between the two coun- 
 
ENGLAND AND SPAIN. 529 
 
 tries. The part played by Spain on the stage of European 
 politics, during tlie lifetime of Henry YIII. and his imme- 
 diate successors, was that of a leading, if not of the chief, 
 actor in a drama of great and absorbing interest. The 
 union of its saturnine and fanatical monarch with the 
 daughter of Henry, and the subsequent appearance of the 
 invincible armada in the English Channel, brought home to 
 the English mind, and perpetuated, the impressions which it 
 had already received from the grasping policy and formidable 
 power of Charles V. And had such impressions been likely 
 to fade away, incidents were not wanting to revive them. 
 The long rivalry of the two nations in the Spanish main ; 
 the sack of towns and capture of galleons, with all the 
 spirit-stirring adventures of Drake and Raleigh ; the wars of 
 after-times, which saw the ingots of Mexico and Peru pass 
 in cartloads through the streets of London to the treasury 
 of the Tower ; the exploits of Anson and his enterprising 
 followers, inflamed the popular imagination, and kept alive 
 the memory of our former struggle for life or death with 
 that proud and valiant race. Above all, the religious in- 
 stincts of the English people kept them in a state of lively 
 and lasting antagonism to a country which they regarded, 
 and rightly regarded, as the stronghold of the Romanist 
 faith, in its most exclusive, bitter, and persecuting form. 
 These considerations are enough, I think, to account for the 
 fact which Mr. Prescott has observed, and for the attention 
 bestowed by our ancestors on the history of Spain. The 
 political decadence of the country itself, and the marvellous 
 phenomena which have been exhibited by the annals of 
 France for the last hundred years, equally explain the 
 change which has taken place in public opinion, and the 
 direction of public interest, since the days of Elizabethan 
 writers and the popular adventurers of the early Georgian 
 <era. Yet the history of Spain yields to none other in the 
 possession of those elements which render history attractive. 
 
 2 M 
 
580 SPAIN. 
 
 In romantic incideDt and legends of heroic stamp ; in 
 sudden alternations of fortune ; in long and resolute strug- 
 gles against adversity; in constitutional development ; in tlie 
 complicated relations of rival states, resulting in the con- 
 solidation of one great central power ; in the marvellous 
 consequences of vast commercial and territorial aggrandise- 
 ment ; in the action of religion and religious institutions 
 upon the body politic ; — in these, and many similar things, 
 the story of Spain supplies abundant materials for excite- 
 ment and instruction. It is only with a small part of this 
 great subject that we at present have to deal. Anterior to 
 the attempt of Charlemagne to establish himself south of 
 Pyrenees, the history of Spain resolves itself into three 
 general topics, — the great barbaric inroad of Sueves, Alans, 
 and Yandals, which finally broke up Roman rule in the 
 Peninsula ; the annals of the Visigoth dynasty, which re- 
 placed it j and the Mohammedan conquest. Those Christian 
 kingdoms which, from the effects of mutual gravitation, 
 coalesced into the Spain of Charles Y. and Philip II., in 
 the eighth century only existed in their germs among the 
 mountain-fastnesses, inaccessible to the cavalry of the 
 Saracen invader. It "will form a subject for future con- 
 sideration, to observe the manner and the degrees by which 
 the kingdoms of Navarre, Aragon, Castile, and Portugal 
 arose, slowly gathered strength, united, and expelled the 
 infidel. At present, we are concerned with a different, 
 yet scarcely less interesting subject — the fortunes of the 
 Vandal, the Visigoth, and the Saracen. But we must first 
 say a very few words upon the previous condition of the 
 country. 
 
 Spain seems to have derived its appellation from a Phoeni- 
 cian source. The Phoenicians were the earliest foreign 
 -visitors who explored her shores, attracted by the veins of 
 metallic wealth which intersected her nigged mountains ; 
 and they have left a memorial of their presence in the cities 
 
THE PHOENICIANS. 531 
 
 of Cadiz and Medina Sidonia, named from the Sidon on tlieir 
 own coast. The voyagers who first beheld the rabbit upon 
 her shores, bestowed the name of that useful, though not 
 very heroic animal, upon the new land. If the story be 
 true, as we have at least Eoman authority for believing,* 
 the word has won for itself a more glorious and permanent 
 life than that which often falls to the lot of appellations 
 boasting a more dignified etymology. Useful for its natural 
 resources, and illustrious from the valiant character of its 
 people, Spain became the prize contested by Boman and 
 Carthaginian arms, long before Gaul itself had attracted the 
 cupidity of that aspiring race, with whom to covet was to 
 conquer the world. One hundred and fifty years before 
 Caesar landed on the coast of Kent, Spain was reduced to 
 a Roman province. The lapse of a century and a half 
 impressed, as might have been expected, the stamp of 
 Koman manners and institutions more powerfully upon a 
 country so long subjected to the arms of Eome, than upon 
 the later acquisitions of her sword. Indeed, even now, the 
 material works raised by Roman skill and labour in the 
 Peninsula, — such, for instance, as the aqueduct of Segovia, — 
 are admitted, by competent judges, to rival, or perhaps 
 surpass, the more famous relics of the same gigantic genius 
 in Italy and the south of France. The Spanish provinces 
 were, therefore, favourites with the central power during 
 the republican as well as the imperial era ; and in ages long 
 subsequent, the ejQfects of this intimate connection continued 
 to exhibit themselves in a somewhat singular manner. We 
 know, from contemporary writers, how important was the 
 part played by Spain in that long series of struggles out of 
 which Augustus finally emerged as ruler of the world ; and 
 they also inform us of the pains taken for its pacification 
 
 * In Addison's Dialogue upon Medals may be seen a Eoman medal 
 representing a female seated upon a rock, with a rabbit perched upon 
 her foot. It is the emblem of Spain. 
 
 2 M 2 
 
532 SPAIN. 
 
 and settlement by that master of imperial statecraft. The 
 division adopted by his government was threefold : Lusitania, 
 corresponding to the modern kingdom of Portugal ; Bsetica, 
 which included Granada and Andalusia ; and Tarraconensis, 
 which may be regarded as comprising the remainder of the 
 Peninsula. When the Roman world was broken up, this 
 favoured and splendid portion of the great inheritance fell 
 mainly to the Yisigoths ; not, however, in the first instance, 
 or entirely. As early as the middle of the third century, 
 some barbarous tribes, members of the Frank confederation, 
 after laying waste the greatest part of Gaul, adopted what 
 must then have been the most daring project of crossing 
 the Pyrenees. For twelve years, the Spanish provinces 
 were subjected to the most frightful ravages. Cities, the 
 growth of a long and prosperous peace, were ruthlessly 
 sacked by barbarian races, of w^hose very existence they had 
 scarcely dreamed. Tarragona was entirely reduced to ashes. 
 When nothing more was left to plunder, the Franks dis- 
 appeared, by way of the sea, into Mauritania, as rapidly as 
 they had come ; and Spain seems to have enjoyed along rest 
 from the agitations and sufferings which disturbed the less- 
 fortunate portions of the Empire. But the time was at 
 hand when, even in that remote province, the prestige of 
 imperial protection was to be of no avail. We have else- 
 where given, with full particulars, an account of the events 
 by which this was brought about.* The great inroad of the 
 Sueves, Alani, and Vandals into Gaul has been already de- 
 scribed. We have seen the fearful devastation which they 
 committed in the years 407 and 408, in the southern pro- 
 vinces of that country ; and we have also seen that, for a 
 moment, this terrible surge of barbarian war was rolled 
 back from the roots of the Pyrenees. But the respite was 
 not of long duration. The circumstances which brought 
 them over the mountain-barrier of Spain were these. 
 * See Lecture VIII. 
 
HONORIUS AND CONSTANTINE. 533 
 
 Spain itself was at this time agitated by a struggle between 
 two rival candidates for the empire ; Honorius, son of the 
 Spaniard Theodosius, and Constantine, who had been raised 
 to the imperial throne by the legionaries of Britain. The 
 former was, naturally, supported by the national party in the 
 peninsula; but Constantine was represented by Gerontius, an 
 able general, who had the advantage of receiving perpetual 
 reinforcements from the armies of Britain and Gaul. The 
 popular cause speedily succumbed ; the soldiers of Constan- 
 tine pillaged the conquered country, and the passes of the 
 Pyrenees were confided to the care of a tribe of their bar- 
 barian auxiliaries, the Marcomanni. It is said that the 
 latter invited their German compatriots into Spain. But 
 ere this we find them serving under the standard of Geron- 
 tius, who had by this time cast off all allegiance to his 
 former friend and master, and was grasping at the imperial 
 purple really for himself, though nominally for his creature 
 and client, or, as others say, his son, an obscure officer of the 
 guard, named Maximin. With an army composed 
 of Sueves, Alani, and Vandals, he encountered 
 Constans, the son of Constantine, and defeated him. The 
 next year he invaded Gaul, with the intention of dethroning 
 Constantine himself. At first he was successful. Yienne 
 and Constans fell into his hands. Constans he beheaded, 
 and proceeded to lay siege to Aries, which Constantine had 
 made his capital. Then occurred a singular combination of 
 circumstances. We have already seen that Ataulphus, the 
 successor of the great Alaric, had, from caprice or policy, 
 placed his sword at the service of Honorius, the Roman 
 emperor. Honorius saw no better employment for the 
 fierce Goths who had sacked his capital and frightened all 
 Italy from its propriety, than to launch them beyond the 
 Alps, against his two formidable rivals Constantine and 
 Gerontius. The Goths arrived at the very moment when 
 the latter was besieging the former in the city of Aries. 
 
534 SPAIN. 
 
 They were commanded for Honorius by Constantius, his 
 future brother-in-law, a noble Goth, who had saved Placidia, 
 the emperor's sister, in the great sack of Alaric, and who 
 subsequently espoused her. Constantius was eminently 
 successful. No sooner did he appear upon the scene, than 
 he was joined by the troops of Gerontius, who slew himself 
 in mortification and despair. Constantino was equally un- 
 fortunate, and soon surrendered. In the mean time, Ataul- 
 phus had disposed of Jovin, another pretender to the 
 empire, and sent his head to Honorius. But scarcely two 
 years elapsed before Ataulphus and Honorius became ene- 
 mies. The latter was maintaining the claims of Attains, a 
 puppet of the great Alaric, who had twice already raised 
 him to the throne and deposed him. Once more Constan- 
 tius appeared in arms for his master, defeated Ataulphus in 
 & great battle near Narbonne, and restored to Honorius un- 
 disputed possession of the Western world. But amid this 
 terrible phantasmagoria of wars, revolts, battles, sieges, and 
 assassinations, what must have been the condition of the 
 wretched people whose country was the scene of this san- 
 guinary drama ! Compelled to furnish sustenance to every 
 army that entered their confines ; pillaged alike by those 
 who vanquished and those who fled ; constrained into un- 
 willing allegiance to each ephemeral emperor who reigned 
 the victor of the hour, and burdened with new imposts, as 
 one cause and court succeeded to another ; — what marvel, if 
 they sounded the utmost depths of poverty and endurance 1 
 The final result of all these " dim complicacities," to use an 
 expression of Mr. Carlyle's, so far as the Spanish provinces 
 were concerned, was the expulsion of the Sueves, Alani, and 
 Yandals from Gaul, by Constantino and the Franks, whom 
 he had induced warmly to adopt his cause. In the month of 
 October, 409, they accepted the proposal of the 
 Marcomanni, and plunged through the passes of 
 the Pyrenees, — the Vandals under the conduct of Gunderic, 
 
INVASION OF THE GERMANS, 406 a.d. 535 
 
 their king ; the Sueves commanded by Hermeric; the Alani 
 by a leader named Respendial. The dismal tragedy of their 
 Oaulish inroad was ouce more repeated, with aggravated 
 violence on their part, and aggravated misery upon the part 
 of the sufferers. Contemporary writers tell us that famine 
 and pestilence followed the relentless exaction of Roman 
 officials, the pillage of contending armies, and the devas- 
 tating sword of the barbarians. Thousands perished for 
 want of food ; men ate each other's flesh ; mothers were 
 seen to devour their newborn offspring. Even the very 
 beasts of prey, who were generally satiated with the corpses 
 of those who had died of disease, or had been slain in battle, 
 rendered desperate by hunger, were now seen to attack the 
 living. The confederate nations proceeded to a partition ot 
 the country. Of the five provinces established by Constan- 
 tino the Great, the Sueves and Vandals obtained the whole 
 country between the Douro, the sea, and the Sierra d'Oca^ 
 comprising Galicia, Tras-os-Montes, and the northern por- 
 tions of the kingdoms of Leon and Old Castile, the Asturias, 
 and Biscay ; the Alani, Lusitania and the Carthaginian 
 district, or the part of Portugal between the Douro on 
 the north, and the Guadiana on the south ; Estremadura, 
 New Castile between the Guadiana and the Tagus, and then 
 Murcia and Valencia. The Silingi Vandals, the second 
 tribe of the nation, had Bsetica for their portion, — the 
 country included between the Guadiana and the sea, or the 
 modern Andalusia. The province of Tarraconensis was left 
 to the Roman emperor, or rather to his representative 
 Gerontius. Upon the death of the latter, Honorius 
 officially recognized this partition. That the re- 
 cognition was a mere temporary expedient and a cheat, we 
 have already seen : it was never meant to secure Spain to 
 its new possessors. Of these, the Yandals were of course 
 the most powerful and important. They have left in 
 ^'Andalusia," "the Yandal land," a lasting record of 
 
536 SPAIN. 
 
 their name and glory. Still, inasmuch as the Vandal occu- 
 pation cannot be regarded as a permanent one, we have been 
 compelled, by the nature of our plan, to treat of it in the 
 general account already given of the fortunes of their tribe.* 
 It is only necessary to take up the thread of our history at 
 the point of their final displacement by the Goths j a result 
 which was not effected without several previous repulses and 
 defeats. There is some variety of opinion respecting the 
 circumstances attending their appearance in Spain. Orosius 
 informs us, in a passage which has been variously interpreted, 
 that, as early as the year 414, Ataulphus, the 
 Gothic king, had been compelled by Constantius 
 to withdraw from Gaul into Spain. Gibbon asserts that 
 he " surprised, in the name of the emperor, the city of 
 Barcelona." But the city of Barcelona, and the whole pro- 
 vince of Tarraconensis, were already the property of the 
 emperor, in virtue of the partition already described. There 
 is no reason to suppose the existence of any treaty or spe- 
 cial agreement between Goths and Romans. The former, 
 as other writers hint, crossed the mountains, from the or- 
 dinary causes which give impulse to all barbarian migi'ation 
 — want, and the pressure of external force. And they 
 conducted themselves after the usual fashion of barbarian 
 immigrants, laying siege to the cities on their line of march, 
 which they would scarcely have ventured to do had any 
 compact subsisted between them and the imperial court. 
 Six months after the occupation of Barcelona, Ataulphus 
 perished by apoplexy or assassination, leaving 
 behind him his royal widow, Placidia, the em- 
 peror's sister, whose hand had been sought by Constantius, 
 the preserver of her life. His brother Wallia succeeded 
 him upon the throne, and, by restoring her to Rome, 
 established friendly relations with her brother the emperor, 
 for whom he undertook once more to reduce to submission 
 * Lecture VII. 
 
VISIGOTHS INVADE SPAIN AND EETIRE. 537 
 
 the Spanish provinces, now overrun by Yandals, Alani, and 
 Sueves. He may, doubtless, have been willing to accept the 
 
 assistance which the prestisre of the imperial 
 
 1 1 r 1,° 1 /-^ • -^-D. 416-418. 
 
 name would confer upon his arms; but it is 
 
 impossible to believe that he prosecuted the war in any other 
 interest than his own. During the two following years, he is 
 said to have annihilated the Silingi Yandals, and so nearly 
 annihilated the Alani, that the miserable remnant of the 
 nation incorporated themselves with the Vandals properly 
 so called, whose monarch, Gunderic, with his successors, 
 henceforth received the double title of king of the Vandals 
 and Alani. Wallia almost immediately returned to Gaul, 
 and founded there, under the auspices of Eome, that power- 
 ful Visigoth kingdom whose fortunes we have traced in a 
 previous lecture. The reasons for this return are not 
 altogether patent. It seems clear, however, that notwith- 
 standing the boastful language of the Gothic writers, Wallia 
 either was unable to make any permanent impression upon 
 the Vandal power, or had begun to distrust the sincerity of 
 Home. It is remarkable that, almost directly after his 
 victory, he adopted the project of passing over into Africa. 
 The same design, it will be remembered, was entertained 
 by his predecessor and kinsman, the great Alaric, whose 
 armament perished in the Sicilian strait. A like fate 
 awaited the vessels of Wallia in the Strait of Gibraltar. He 
 was compelled to retrace his steps, and once more to pass 
 the Pyrenees into southern Gaul. Perhaps he owed the 
 lands which he there received from imperial liberality, to a 
 well-grounded apprehension lest he might be induced to 
 repeat his attempt, and so deprive the capital of a province 
 upon which it mainly depended for its subsistence. 
 
 His departure left the Vandals and Suevi masters of the 
 Roman population of the Peninsula. In the struggle between 
 the two for supremacy, the former were successful ; but before 
 many years had elapsed, they were induced to repeat the 
 
538 SPAIN. 
 
 experiment in which both Alaric and Wallia had failed. 
 At the invitation of Boniface, they passed over 
 into Africa, in the year 429 A.D. Upon the pro- 
 bable causes of this adventurous policy, and the circum- 
 stances which attended on its execution, we have already 
 commented with some minuteness.* It is, therefore, needless 
 now to repeat the history of the establishment of the 
 Vandals in Africa. They left behind them the Suevi, the 
 last remaining members of the triple confederation, and 
 these soon established a widely-extended domination over 
 the old half-Romanized inhabitants who still continued to 
 cling to the traditions and manners of the Empire. Several 
 years passed away without events of importance. But in 
 the mean time, great things were occurring beyond the 
 Pyrenees. The Visigoth kingdom, founded by Wallia in 
 the south of France, soon outgrew its dependence upon the 
 patronage of Rome, and for a brief period assumed the 
 leading place among all the new barbarian nationalities. 
 Taking advantage of the decrepitude of the Empire, the 
 Visigoths " annexed " the territory of Narbonne to their 
 kingdom, and ruled over all the land between the Garonne 
 and the Loire. This expansion brought them into contact 
 with the people of the great mountain-chain which separated 
 them from the Roman provinces in Spain, and with the 
 inhabitants of those provinces themselves. Every nation, 
 as we have before observed in the case of Ermanaric and 
 the original Ostrogoth monarchy, boasts, in its early days, of 
 some hero-monarch great alike in policy and war. Among 
 the Visigoths, Euric seems to occupy this place. Not only 
 did he largely extend his paternal dominions in Gaul, about 
 the time that Rome succumbed to Odoacer and barbarian 
 rule, but he also crossed the great military barrier of the 
 Pyrenees, and in a single year reduced all Spain beneath his 
 
 ♦ Lecture VII. 
 
VISIGOTHS ESTABLISH A SPANISH KINGDOM. 539 
 
 sceptre, compelling even the Suevi to hold their kingdom 
 of Gallicia as a sort of appanage to his crown. 
 His reign formed for the Visigoth people the cul- 
 minating point of their political grandeur and military- 
 power ; for he received from the sovereign, who now ruled at 
 E-ome, the formal cession of Gaul and Spain, — one of those 
 gifts which we may feel sure would never have been granted 
 could they possibly have been withheld. But Euric came to 
 an untimely end. He was succeeded by his son Alaric, a 
 minor. It is, however, impossible in a stormy age for a 
 minor to hold together a great empire agitated by internal 
 dissension and menaced by foreign arras. The terrible Frank 
 confederation had arisen in the north of Gaul, and evinced a 
 determination to allow no antagonist dynasty between the 
 Rhine and the ocean, the marshes of Belgium and the peaks 
 of the Pyrenees. Clovis had embarked upon his career of con- 
 quest, and soon, as we have seen, smote down the power and 
 pride of his Visigoth rival, with the Frankish battleaxe, 
 upon the plains of Vougle.* From that moment the Visi- 
 goths had practically done with Gaul. The tardy arrival of 
 their renowned kinsman Theodoric, the great Ostrogoth 
 ruler of Italy, saved for the vanquished a narrow strip of 
 land to the north of the Pyrenees. Probably it also saved 
 for them their trans-Pyrenean possessions. At any rate, it 
 transferred the Visigoth capital to Toledo from Toulouse, 
 and determined for centuries the destiny of Spain. The 
 commanding genius of Theodoric united for a time the 
 kindred nations. For a time, the Ostrogoth on the Tiber, 
 and the Visigoth on the Douro, obeyed the same master, 
 and formed part of the same monarchy. It seemed as 
 though the Gothic was about to substitute itself for the 
 Koman name, and resuscitate the departed traditions of 
 universal empire. But the death of the one great man 
 
 * Lecture VIII. 
 
640 SPAIN. 
 
 of the age divided the kindred nationalities once more, and 
 Amalaric succeeding to the throne of Euric, inau- 
 gurated the long, dreary, and monotonous annals 
 of the Visigoths of Spain. 
 
 The obscure and unimportant character of the Yisigotliic 
 annals, says a late writer, extends over their whole duration. 
 "Erom the accession of Amalaric to the overthrow of the 
 monarchy, in the person of its last sovereign E-oderic, we 
 are required to survey a weary waste of nearly two centu- 
 ries, barren alike either in events of intrinsic interest or 
 foreign value. Through the thick darkness which shrouds 
 all this period, we may indeed faintly discern the confusion 
 and crimes of barbarian revolution ; the disorders of a regal 
 succession, which was rather elective in the noble blood of 
 the Goths, than absolutely hereditary; endless civil wars, 
 and disputed pretensions to the throne ; the usual assassina- 
 tions and atrocities which defiled all the palaces of Europe 
 with blood and violence during the same ages j and, above 
 all, the fierce bigotry of religious persecution, which even 
 already seemed to have fore-marked the Peninsula for its 
 chosen and durable theatre."'' While acquiescing, however, 
 generally in this language, we must admit that there is one 
 subject connected with the period which deserves our atten- 
 tion, and the study of which will reward it. 
 
 The councils of Toledo have acquired a more particular 
 interest than they would have otherwise possessed, because 
 they are generally regarded as ofiering the first instance of 
 anything like an approach to parliamentary institutions. To 
 ourselves, who have learnt to consider popular representation 
 as the chief element in a parliament, the resemblance will of 
 necessity appear very faint ; but if we go back to the etymo- 
 logical and original sense of the term, which simply implies 
 discussion, — a thing in its real nature impossible under 
 despotic governments, — we shall discover sufficient analogy 
 * Encyc. Metropolitana — History. 
 
THE COUNCILS OF TOLEDO. 541 
 
 to justify us in connecting the Spanish assembly of clergy and 
 notables with those parliaments of France and England, out 
 of which has grown the representative system of modern 
 times. We shall at least recognize in it an indication of the 
 direction in which society was about to move, and a decided 
 step in advance of the absolute and oriental silence of all 
 classes upon questions of political right, into which the 
 ancient world had subsided. 
 
 The constitution of the council does not aj^pear, in its 
 origin, to have differed from those which we find subsisting 
 in France under the Carlovingians. The matters also with 
 which the council in the first instance concerned itself, were 
 probably very similar to those which engaged the synods of 
 Saltz and Lestines. But as its members lived in a land 
 isolated from the great contests of the age, and as they had 
 to deal with the more peaceful Visigoth monarchs, and not 
 with Carlovingian mayors or kings, they gradually drew 
 towards themselves more of the elements of power, and 
 assumed a larger political importance. Isidore of Seville, in 
 the one country, may fairly be compared with Boniface in 
 the other ; but the French prelate had many more counter- 
 acting influences to contend against, a stronger and more 
 self-willed master, and a country far more deeply involved 
 in the turmoil of European war and domestic intrigue. To 
 the Toledan councils were summoned, according to Hallam, 
 " the dukes and other provincial governors, and in general 
 the principal individuals of the realm, along with spiritual 
 persons."* But even a very superficial examination of the 
 " Acts" of these councils, as they have been published in 
 ■ecclesiastical collections, will be sufficient to show that the 
 last soon became the engrossing element in the whole. Nor, 
 indeed, could it have well been otherwise. Even without 
 taking into account the more special sources of spiritual 
 
 * Hallam, Hist. Middle Ages, vol. ii. p. 19. 
 
642 SPAIN. 
 
 influence in a superstitious age, it is easy to see, tliat in a 
 deliberative assembly, unless there be disturbing causes, know- 
 ledge, eloquence, and a practical acquaintance with affairs, will 
 always assert a manifest superiority. When the noble could 
 rarely write his name, and the churchman possessed all the 
 knowledge of the past, all the acquaintance with snch rudi- 
 ments of jurisprudence, theology, and science as survived in 
 the general ignorance, — nay, even all the practical skill avail- 
 able for the common arts of life, it is little surprising that, 
 when churchmen and nobles met together in an intellectual 
 arena, the former very soon gave a tone to the deliberation, 
 and directed it towards objects of their own. This is evident, 
 even upon the most cursory inspection of the proceedings. 
 The earliest canons with which we are acquainted go back to 
 the year 400 a.d. They concern themselves with one of the 
 most difficult problems of the age, — the means of asserting 
 the true sanctity of Christian marriage, and the discourage- 
 ment of concubinage, which was, however, so far tolerated 
 as not to be considered a disqualification for Christian com- 
 munion. The second council enters more closely into the 
 same question, and still further purifies the marriage rela- 
 tion, and clears the conception of the family, by definitely 
 laying down the " prohibited degrees." The third council 
 is mainly occupied with proclaiming the conversion of the 
 Visigoths, under Recald, to the orthodox church, and in 
 framing a confession of faith, in close accordance with the 
 formula of Nice. Its further provisions descend into 
 minute particulars of ecclesiastical discipline ; the observance 
 of the Lord's day is strictly enjoined upon all men, under 
 penalty of a fine and punishment by the lash. It would be 
 easy to multiply examples, but these are sufficient to show 
 how largely the "spiritual persons" had engrossed the 
 action and the authority of the council, and how certain 
 it was that, when social and political questions arose, they 
 would be contemplated from an ecclesiastical stand-point.. 
 
ECCLESIASTICAL CHAEACTER OF THE COUNCIL. 64$ 
 
 As time went on, tlie bishops and tlie secular nobility were sa 
 mixed in the assemblies, that Capefigue is right in remark- 
 ing upon the confusion of religious and political ideas, which 
 prevailed in the council, and appeared in its acts. " The acta 
 of the council of Toledo decided at the same time," he 
 says, " questions of dogma and discipline, and pronounced 
 sentence on the rights of property and government."* 
 Yet this does not transfer, as he would insinuate, the respon- 
 sibility of cruel and persecuting measures, in at least an 
 equal share, to the lay element. For the reasons above 
 given, the Church must accept alike the praise and blame 
 which we may be pleased to assign to the acts of the counciL 
 It was an experiment in ecclesiastical legislation, and as such, 
 perhaps, as little deserves the severe censure of Montesquieuf 
 as the enthusiastic admiration of the Catholic Capefigue, 
 who, speaking of the right assumed and actually exercised 
 by the assembly to unseat archbishops and dethrone kings, ex- 
 claims, " Une visible ^quite, une science profonde, se manifes- 
 tent dans ces jugemens du concile." The judgment of Gibbon, 
 though so unsatisfactory to the ultramontane historian, is 
 more fairly balanced; for he allows the merit of the Toledan 
 notables " in composing a code of civil and criminal juris- 
 prudence for the use of a great and united people." " I 
 dislike the style," he adds in a note ; " I detest the supersti- 
 tion j but I shall presume to think that the civil jurispru- 
 dence displays a more civil and enlightened state of society 
 than that of the Burgundians, or even of the Lombards."^ 
 Against this is to be set the mistaken spirit, though it may 
 have been the natural product of the times, which, as we 
 have already said, enjoys the evil honour of having instituted 
 persecution for religious opinion, and which most certainly 
 contributed to the downfall of the kingdom by its treat- 
 ment of the Jews. 
 
 * Capefigue, vol. iv. ch. 27. f Esprit des Lois, xxviii. 1. 
 
 J Gibbon, ch. xxxviii. 
 
544 SPAIN. 
 
 Whatever may have been the merits or demerits of this 
 legislation, it produced, for the student and historian, that 
 dreary monotony in the Visigoth annals of which the writer 
 above complains. Monotony of annals, however, it must be 
 remembered, does not of necessity imply misery in the people 
 or incapacity in the government. We have almost no 
 grounds for conjecturing the condition of the people during 
 this unexciting period. 
 
 The events, however, which break this monotony between 
 the accession of Amalaric and the invasion of the Saracens, 
 and which most deserve our notice, are these : the incor- 
 poration of the Suevic kingdom with that of their conquerors ; 
 the conversion of the Arian Visigoths to the Catholic 
 faith; and the reduction of the few maritime possessions 
 which still belonged to the Greek emperor in Spain. The 
 two first events were more closely connected than might 
 appear possible at first sight. The Suevi, as we have shown, 
 were originally established in the north-west part of the 
 Peninsula. This has been found, even in the very latest times, 
 to be the strongest position, in a strategical sense, which 
 the whole country aflbrds. Its former inhabitants were 
 described by the Roman bard as untaught to suffer the 
 Roman yoke ; at the present hour, the partisans of Don 
 Carlos linger among the sierras of Guipuzcoa and Biscay. 
 Here, then, the Suevi, after having been driven from the 
 plains, continued to maintain themselves in a sort of inde- 
 pendence, till, about the year 584 A.D., they 
 either yielded to the strong arm of the Visigoth 
 king, or perhaps submitted to incorporation from a sense of 
 its political advantages. Singularly enough^ the Suevi, 
 almost alone among their barbaric brethren, had adopted 
 from the first the orthodox form of the Christian faith. 
 More singularly still, after three years of amalgamation, 
 they were enabled to impress it upon a people so much 
 more powerful, and, as we may reasonably suppose, more 
 
VISIGOTHS CONQUER THE SUEVI. 5-15 
 
 intellectual than themselves. After enumerating all the 
 secondaiy causes and accidental circumstances which may 
 have aided to bring about such a result, there still, I think, 
 remains behind much which cannot be explained by the 
 common rules and course of human conduct. The first pre- 
 disposing influence is, however, undoubtedly to be found in 
 the character and religious associations of what may bo 
 described as the substratum of Visigoth society. Spain had 
 never entirely ceased to be Roman. Long before the bar- 
 baric invasion, its inhabitants had been deeply imbued with 
 the opinions, practices, and spirit of Latin Christianity. The 
 Church had come to them with all the prestige and autho- 
 rity of the Empire. They conceded to it the immemorial 
 reverence which had ever clung around the mighty name ot 
 Rome, and obeyed instinctively the oracular utterances ot a 
 voice which spoke from the Seven Hills. At a very early 
 period, therefore, we find the Spanish church orthodox even 
 beyond the orthodoxy of Italy, — powerful, proud, and active 
 in persecution. In the sentence of death pronounced against 
 Priscillian and his followers, early in the fourth century, she 
 claims the glory or the shame of the first serious persecution 
 inflicted for religious opinions. Such a church, by her 
 energy and her resources, must have struck deep root among 
 the people. When, therefore, the Visigoths, with their 
 Arian bishops and Arian creed, obtained possession of Spain, 
 they doubtless encountered an antagonism not always latent 
 or inoperative among the great masses of the subject popu- 
 lation. Nor was there anything in Visigoth legislation, 
 conducted, as it mainly was, under ecclesiastical inspirations, 
 which was likely to conciliate the Catholics, or diminish their 
 natural anxiety to strengthen and perpetuate their own 
 form of faith, with, as they believed, its divinely-sanctioned 
 institutions. Persecution of the most unrelenting sort 
 seems to be one of the " cosas d'Espaila," inexplicable to 
 the foreigner, but inseparable from the soil under all phases 
 
 2 N 
 
64« SPAIN. 
 
 of its social condition. In this instance, it was eminently un- 
 successful j for, in addition to the general disaflfection which it 
 produced, it brought about a romantic series of events, which 
 may be considered as the proximate cause of the national 
 conversion to orthodoxy. Hermenegild, son of the reigning 
 monarch Leovogild, had sought a bride beyond the Pyre- 
 nees. Ingundis was daughter of a Merovingian king, and 
 had, of course, been educated in the Catholic faith. But 
 scarcely had the unfortunate princess reached her new home, 
 before she was subjected to every species of ignominy by her 
 husband's stepmother, on account of her religion, to which 
 she was sincerely attached. The persecution at last became 
 intolerable ; and the indignation or pity of Hermenegild so 
 wrought upon his mind that he was converted to the creed 
 of the sufferer. The disaffected among the original popula- 
 tion adopted the cause of the young couple. The result was 
 a frightful civil war, in which the son was arrayed against 
 the father, and the subject against his king. Though the 
 struggle was long and sanguinary, the rebellion was at last 
 subdued. Hermenegild fell into the hands of his incensed 
 parent. He was offered the terrible alternative of apo- 
 stasy or death. The young prince chose the latter. 
 At first he was loaded with chains like a common male- 
 factor, and confined in a filthy dungeon. But his reso- 
 lution remained unshaken. It became necessary to dispatch 
 him, and he met the fate which is said to have befallen the 
 unfortunate Eichard in Pomfret Castle : an assassin, secretly 
 introduced into the prison, cleft open his skull with a battle- 
 axe. The Romish church has commemorated his heroism, 
 and canonized his name, in the legend of St. Hermenegild. 
 " The blood of martyrs is the seed of the Church ;" but 
 rarely is it given to mortal eyes to witness so rapid and 
 complete a growth as was seen in the kingdom of the 
 Visigoths. Within a few years the Arian clergy and the 
 Arian court were professing the faith which they had per- 
 
CONVERSION OF VISIGOTHS TO CATHOLICISM. 547 
 
 secuted and proscribed. Eecared, brother of the murdered 
 man, had adojDted his brother's creed ; but he contrived to 
 conceal the fact during the lifetime of his father. Upon 
 Leovogild's decease, he boldly threw aside the mask, espoused 
 the sister of Ingundis, proclaimed himself a Catholic, and 
 invited his people to join him in adopting the faith of 
 the martyred Hermenegild. The appeal was successful : it 
 is difficult to imderstand how or why ; but successful it was. 
 A council, composed of Arian prelates, with the leading 
 members of the Visigoth nobility, abjured their former 
 heresy, and the mass of the nation immediately imitated 
 their example. Then followed the most brilliant 
 period of the Visigoth annals. Underneath its 
 orthodox monarchs, the country reached its apogee of glory, 
 and perhaps the precise time of its culmination coincided 
 with the occurrence of the third event to which we have 
 referred. About the year 552, the Greek Justinian, in that 
 brief gleam of glory which gilded the evening of the Empire, 
 made himself master of some places on the eastern coast of 
 Spain, which the internal dissensions of the Visigoths had 
 exposed to foreign arms. But when these dissensions had 
 been appeased by the result of the great religious revolu- 
 tion, the relative position of the parties was inverted. The 
 Visigoth king was strong, the Greek emperor was weak, 
 and, as a natural consequence, the grasp of the latter upon 
 his Spanish possessions became daily more and more feeble. 
 Sisebert soon wrested from his rival the last remaining cities 
 which acknowledged allegiance to the court of Byzantium, 
 and established for himself an undisputed dominion through- 
 out the whole Peninsula. Yet between this bril- 
 liant period and the astounding event which shat- 
 tered the sceptre of the Visigoth, and scattered his people, 
 like hunted wolves, among the Asturian mountains, barely 
 eighty-seven years elapsed. This was but a short tenure of 
 empire ; a brief part to play in the great drama of the 
 2 N 2 ■ 
 
548 SPAIN. 
 
 world's destinies. But, for the general interests of society 
 and civilization, it was doubtless long enough. We can discern 
 nothing in the spirit or policy of the Visigoth dynasty which 
 might induce us to regret its departure from the scene. 
 
 From one evil, however, which was exceedingly active 
 and mischievous among their neighbours, the administration 
 of the Visigoths appears to have been free. We hear 
 nothing of that partition of kingdoms among the male mem- 
 bers of the reigning family, which broke up the unity of the 
 Merovingian monarchy, and became a source of weakness 
 to the more powerful and politic Carlovingians. Though the 
 crown was elective, the right of election was vested in a gene- 
 ral assembly of nobles and bishops ; and in their choice they 
 never departed from the purest Gothic blood. And as some 
 set-off against that picture of the manifold evils in legislation 
 and practice which we have just quoted, it is perhaps only 
 fair to add, from the writer liimself, his estimate of the 
 actual working of this mixed civil and ecclesiastical con- 
 stitution : — " Upon the whole, the laws and the internal 
 policy of the Spanish monarchy were far more equable and 
 uniform, and probably better administered, than those of 
 the Frankish empire." Nevertheless, the Spanish monarchy 
 was soon to be swept away by an inundation against which 
 the Frankish empire found a successful barrier in the wis- 
 dom of its rulers and the valour of its sons. The vices of 
 the Visigoth kings, the feuds of the nobility, and the ge- 
 neral misery of the people, appear to have reached their 
 highest point in the reign of Witika. Witika was, in con- 
 sequence, deposed ; his throne was occupied by Roderic, who 
 represented in his person the most illustrious Gothic lineage, 
 after that of the royal house, which could be found in 
 Spain. But the Visigoth Tarquin left behind him sons, 
 who, like their prototypes, were prepared to struggle obsti- 
 nately for their heritage ; nor did Koderic exhibit the 
 wisdom of the Eoman Brutus. His court repeated the de- 
 
EODERIC AND COUNT JULIAN. 549 
 
 grading scenes of luxury, lust, and rapine which had ren- 
 dered his predecessor hateful to an insulted nobility and a 
 suffering people. As a natural consequence, the old drama 
 of disaffection and revolt was once more repeated, and the 
 sons of "VYitika headed a powerful party against the reigning 
 prince. To this party, in all probability, belonged Count 
 Julian, governor of Ceuta, a strong fortress upon the African 
 coast. At this distance of time, it is impossible to ascer- 
 tain the exact causes which determined the strange conduct 
 of Julian in this momentous crisis. He was a Goth of pure 
 blood, member of a family renowned for valour and conduct 
 in his country's wars. He had been himself distinguished 
 for a resolute and successful defence of Ceuta against the 
 Saracens. He suddenly appears as a dishonourable and bitter 
 enemy to his sovereign and his native land. He delivers 
 up his impregnable fortress, the scene of his glory, to a 
 baffled foe, and brings upon himself the eternal infamy 
 which attaches to the name of traitor and apostate. At 
 his summons, and by his aid, the armies of the infidel were 
 introduced into Spain. What motive could have induced, 
 what injustice provoked, such incomprehensible treachery ? 
 It was naturally felt that the ordinary incitements of ambi- 
 tion or faction could not account for guilt so black as this. 
 There must have been some bitter wrong goading on his 
 spirit to madness and despair. Of any such wrong contem- 
 poraries do not speak. But after the lapse of a few centuries, 
 the legend of Boderic's lust and the wrongs of Cava, the 
 lovely daughter of the count, assumed a palpable form, and 
 became a fixed article of popular belief. Are we to believe 
 it also 1 The dispassionate historian, who looks only to the 
 testimony of written records, is staggered by the absence of 
 contemporary mention, and rejects the tale ; — the poet, 
 more deeply conversant with the workings of the human 
 heart, will not believe that it could be stirred into such 
 stormy action except by a cause connected with its more 
 
550 . . SPAIN. 
 
 passionate emotions, and repeats the tale how the destinies 
 of an empire were changed by the dishonour of a Cava, a 
 Virginia, or a Lucrece. We cannot venture to decide between 
 them. The marvellous fact remains. Wlien the eighth century- 
 opened upon the world, the tide of Mohammedan war had 
 rolled on in one unbroken wave of victory from the borders 
 of the Eed Sea to the Pillars of Hercules and the great 
 Western Ocean. But the caliphs were not in the predica- 
 ment of Alexander : there were yet ether worlds for them 
 to conquer; — all Europe lay before them, rich with the 
 treasures of ten centuries of civilization, — a noble prize for 
 " the naked locust-eaters of the Arabian desert," a goodly 
 heritage to be won for the children of the Prophet of God. 
 There were but two portals through which, with their 
 limited knowledge of maritime affairs, they could pass into 
 this promised land, — the Bosphorus and the Straits of Gades. 
 The former was fated in after-days to be the scene of their 
 most successful effort. By this the Turcoman passed to the 
 destruction of the Greek empire ; by this the faith of Islam 
 established a permanent settlement on the confines of Euro- 
 pean Christendom. But many centuries before this great 
 event, another race, professing the same religious creed, but 
 endowed with many more splendid and admirable qualities, 
 availed themselves of the latter route. At the bidding, and 
 with the aid of Julian, the Saracens poured in a resistless 
 torrent across 
 
 " The narrow seas, whose rapid interval 
 Parts Afric from green Europe," 
 
 and established themselves in the neighbourhood of that 
 great Bock whose name is so famous in English history, 
 whose form is so familiar to the English eye, and gave to it 
 that appellation of world-wide renown — " Gibraltar," Gebel- 
 al-Tarik, or the rock of Tarik, the chief who led these strange 
 legions into the new land. Their coming, with its accredited 
 
THE COMING OF THE SARACENS. 551 
 
 •causes and consequences, has been described with striking 
 spirit and fidelity by a great English poet : — 
 
 " Long had the crimes of Spain cried out to Heaven ; 
 At length the measure of offence was full. 
 Count Julian call'd the invaders ; not because 
 Inhuman priests with unoffending blood 
 Had stain'd their country ; not because a yoke 
 Of iron servitude oppress'd and gall'd 
 The children of the soil ; — a private wrong 
 Housed the remorseless baron. Mad to wreak 
 His vengeance for his violated child 
 On Roderic's head, in evil hour for Spain, 
 For that unhappy daughter and himself, — 
 Desperate apostate, — on the Moors he call'd ; 
 And, like a cloud of locusts, whom the South. 
 Wafts from the plains of wasted Africa, 
 The Mussulmen upon Iberia's shore 
 Descend. A countless multitude they came ; 
 Syrian, Moor, Saracen, Greek renegade, 
 Persian, and Copt, and Tartar, — in one bond 
 Of erring faith conjoin'd ; strong in the youth 
 And heat of zeal ; a dreadful brotherhood. 
 In whom all turbulent vices were let loose ; 
 While conscience, with their impious creed accurst. 
 Drunk as with wine, had sanctified to them 
 All bloody, all abominable things. 
 Thou, Calpe, saw'st their coming ; ancient Rock 
 Renown'd, no longer now shalt thou be call'd 
 From gods and heroes of the days of yore, — 
 Kronos, or hundred-handed Briareus, 
 Bacchus or Hercules ; — but doom'd to bear 
 The name of thy new conqueror, and thenceforth 
 To stand his everlasting monument. 
 Thou saw'st the dark-blue waters flash before 
 Their ominous way, and whiten round their keels ; 
 Their swarthy myriads darkening o'er thy sands. 
 There on the beach the Misbelievers spread 
 Their banners, flaunting to the sun and breeze. 
 Fair shone the sun upon their proud array, — 
 White turbans, glittering armour, shields engrail'd 
 With gold, and scimitars of Syrian steel ; 
 And gently did the breezes, as in sport. 
 Curl their long flags outroUing, and display 
 The blazon'd scrolls of blasphemy. Too soon 
 The gales of Spain from that unhappy land 
 Wafted, as from an open charnel-house. 
 The taint of death ; and that bright sun, from fields 
 Of slaughter, with the morning dew drew up 
 Corruption through the infected atmosphere." •'■ 
 
 * Southey ; Roderic, the last of the Goths, 
 
552 SPAIN. 
 
 The invaders landed without opposition. The Visigoths 
 were, probably, too much occupied by intestine dissension to 
 care for what we should call " foreign policy," and were, there- 
 fore, ignorant of the true character of the enemy who were 
 coming against them, and of their own imminent peril. Per- 
 haps they despised their numbers, and ijnagined that these 
 southern strangers would be immediately crushed, as soon as 
 the great, heroic, and victorious race of the Goths appeared 
 on the field of battle. If they entertained sucli a hope, 
 it was bitterly disappointed. In a preliminary combat, the 
 Saracens scattered the raw levies opposed to them, with 
 their accustomed energy, and the invasion became an 
 accomplished fact. The Gothic king and his people were^ 
 now thoroughly roused : the signal to arm passed through 
 the land from sea to sea, and an immense host (numbering, 
 perhaps, 100,000 men) was collected at Xeres. But this host 
 was certainly undisciplined ; probably ill-armed and worse- 
 handled in the manoeuvres which preceded the final conflict- 
 They were opposed by a veteran army, which had swept 
 kingdoms before them, and traversed a whole continent 
 without a cheek ; an army animated by a burning: 
 fanaticism, which was something more than valour, and 
 which possessed discipline, arms, and skill in war, such as 
 could not be found in Europe, except, perhaps, among the 
 Prankish bands of Charles Martel. The result may be 
 imagined. The immense body of armed men which had 
 been collected for the defence of Spain, was pierced in all 
 directions by ceaseless charges of the Saracen horse, and 
 hewn in pieces by the Saracen scimitar. The treachery of 
 an archbishop, Oppas, a name infamous in Spanish history, 
 is asserted to have given rise to the triumph of the infideL 
 "Whether this be an historic fact, or a patriotic fiction, 
 invented to palliate a national disgrace, the victory wa» 
 sudden, bloody, and comi)lete. "Ptoderic, the Ust of the- 
 Goths," is said to have sought safety in headlong flight from, 
 
THE SARACENS MASTERS OF SPAIN. 553 
 
 that fatal field. But he did not live to regenerate his race 
 and restore its destiny. He is generally believed to have 
 perished in the waters of the Guadilquiver, though Spanish 
 romance adorns his subsequent history with mystery and 
 marvels. We may form an acquaintance with tlie legend 
 from that beautiful but neglected poem in which Southey 
 describes his fate. It is enough for us to know that the 
 Yisigoth kingdom was annihilated by this terrible cata- 
 strophe. The panic-stricken forces made no attempt to 
 rally, and Tarik found himself master of Toledo without 
 further trouble. His advance was rapid enough to outstrip 
 even the pursuit of envy and malevolence. From the Bay 
 of Biscay to the rock which bears his name, the whole 
 country had submitted to his sword, before Musa, the 
 lieutenant of the Caliph, found time and opportunity to 
 supplant him. Little remained for this unworthy officer to 
 accomplish. A few cities which lay out of his predecessor's 
 line of march had still to be reduced ; but they almost im- 
 mediately capitulated. And now the Saracen deluge covered 
 the face of the whole land, except where, on the summit of the 
 Asturian mountains, reposed the ark of the Christian Faith. 
 The gates of hell had well nigh prevailed against it, but the 
 words of the abiding promise were not to fail. The small 
 band of Christian warriors, who made their home with the 
 wolf and the eagle, formed, amid those inaccessible fastnesses, 
 the germ of a kingdom which was not only to drive the 
 infidel from the Peninsula, but to assert for itself an empire 
 over half the extent of Europe, and the fairest regions ot 
 what was then an undiscovered world. Of all this, how- 
 ever, nothing was as yet discernible, when, aroused by a 
 wrong inflicted upon another high-box^n daughter of the 
 Goths, Pelagius, or Pelayo, descending from the mountain- 
 peaks to avenge the outraged honour of his sister, began 
 that series of unceasing assaults upon the invader which, 
 after continuing for 770 years, terminated in the downfall of 
 
554 SPAIN. 
 
 Granada and the expulsion of the last Moor from the soil of 
 Spain. The early chroniclers give an extravagant account of 
 the exploits of Pelayo. They assure us that he overthrew 
 large Moorish armies with tremendous slaughter ; but this 
 is the usual mythic tribute to a national hero. A great and 
 politic nation of warriors, like the Saracen conquerors of 
 Spain, would scarcely have neglected to crush a fevv^ fugitive 
 enemies had they given such a proof of their capacity for 
 mischief. The struggle of the first Christian chieftains — 
 princes they can hardly with propriety be called — must have 
 resolved itself into that sort of guerilla warfare for which 
 the Asturias and Estremadura have, in after-ages, been 
 renowned. Their title to glory and the gratitude of 
 posterity depends upon the fact, that in its darkest days 
 they did not " despair of the Republic ; " that they cherished 
 the expiring flame of patriotism and religion through one of 
 the fiercest storms which ever swept over a nation or a 
 church. 
 
 Of the causes which produced or precipitated the Visi- 
 goth overthrow, it is needless to speak at length. Some- 
 thing may be assigned to the physical deterioration of a 
 northern race under the enervating influences of the climate 
 and luxurious life of southern Spain. But that this is 
 insufficient to account for such marked inferiority and des- 
 perate defeat, is proved by the fortunes of other northern 
 races under similar circumstances ; indeed, we require no 
 other example than that of the same race, when its energies 
 had been revived in the hard school of adversity. No 
 soldiers ever merited the praise of gallantry and hardihood 
 for more daring exploits than those of the Cid Campeador 
 and the Christian chivalry who expelled the Moors from 
 Spain. We must, therefore, look rather to social and po- 
 litical causes than to those of a physical character. The 
 internal condition of the Visigoth kingdom, such as it has 
 already been described, will justify us in ascribing to 
 
CAUSES OF THEIR SUCCESS. 555 
 
 domestic disorders the easy success of foreign arms. When 
 the Saracens appeared on the horizon, those disorders had 
 reached their cl.max in the violent feuds of the nobility and 
 clergy, in the disaffection of the Visigoth aristocracy to the 
 reigning house, and in the efforts of the sons of the deposed 
 king to regain their paternal throne. That treachery from 
 the last source co-operated in the fall of Roderic seems 
 certain, from the fact that the Saracens restored to the sons 
 of Witika their private possessions, and even adjudicated 
 upon their rival claims. But in addition to the corruption 
 of the court and the disaffection of the aristocracy, there 
 "were probably other causes at work among the population, 
 which contributed to the same result. One of these is so 
 •curious and interesting, that we may be excused for dwelling 
 upon it for a moment. 
 
 The spirit of persecution which so unhappily distin- 
 guished the Spanish church was developed with special 
 intensity and bitterness against the Jews. The fortunes 
 of that favoured yet miserable race form one of the most 
 interesting portions of modern history. It is a tale of 
 strange vicissitudes, sufferings, and triumphs, yet one of 
 which few persons except the professed historical student 
 can be said to know anything. From the eyes of the 
 ordinary readers of history, the Jews disappear from the 
 annals of the world on that memorable day when their city 
 and temple perished by foreign fire and sword, and the 
 terrible voice of the departing Presence proclaimed that the 
 glory of the nation was to pass away along with the protection 
 of Jehovah. But to those more intimately acquainted with 
 mediaeval annals, the undying and indestructible people 
 emerge in the records of every Christian city in Europe, 
 and in almost every remarkable scene in her history, under 
 strange alternations of degradation and prosperity. In 
 all those unaccountable and uncontrollable panics which, 
 whether engendered by superstition or calamity, were per- 
 
656 SPAIN. 
 
 petually agitating the mediseval mind ; in the first advent 
 of the Saracen ; in the stormy prelude to the Crusades ; in 
 the wars of French and German princes; in the bloody 
 annals of the Spanish Inquisition ; in the growth of the 
 Italian cities; in the troubles of our own Plantagenet 
 monarchs, the Jews play a conspicuons and, very often, a 
 most important part. We have only at present to do with 
 the first-mentioned event ; but the influence of the Jew in 
 bringing it about cannot be disputed, and ought not to be 
 omitted from our consideration. The politic toleration of 
 the Empire had entered into and inspired the Roman law ; 
 and the Jews, satisfied, as we have seen, that the statue of 
 Jove should stand on the Capitol, provided that it was not 
 seen in the streets of Jerusalem, had, with some few excep- 
 tions, very generally enjoyed the benefit of the contemptuous 
 indifference of the imperial procurators, who, like Gallio) 
 " cared for none of these things." The Theodosian code did 
 not depart from the spirit of its predecessor. Though it 
 drew a strong line of demarcation between Jew and Chris- 
 tian, it strongly discountenanced persecution. It extended 
 protection to the synagogue and the rabbinical priest, pro- 
 claiming the inviolability of the one, and exempting the other 
 from civil and military imposts. Slaves, though of Christian 
 belief, were not emancipated from their Jewish masters. 
 Jewish assemblies were not forbidden. At a later period, 
 in this as in other matters, the great Ostrogoth legislator 
 adopted the principles of the imperial policy, and adhered to 
 the ancient law. Theodoric threw the shield of his protec- 
 tion over the Jews in his empire, and defended them from 
 the animosity of their Christian fellow-subjects. The same 
 course appears to have been followed by his co-religionists 
 the Arian Yisigoth princes of Spain. But the great Ca- 
 tholic conversion was followed, as might have been expected, 
 by a strongly-develoj)ed impulse of orthodox zeal. The 
 Jews were the first to suffer. It is said that there were 
 
THE JEWS. 557 
 
 80,000 victims of the first persecution under Sisebert. One 
 of his successors decreed the banishment of the whole race. 
 The canons of the councils of Toledo exhibit no unworthy 
 anticipation of the Inquisition. Spoliation, torture, and 
 death, are everywhere sanctioned and enjoined. The unfor- 
 tunate children of Abraham were robbed at on,ce of their 
 substance and their faith. Circumcision, tlie Sabbath, and 
 the Passover, were prohibited ; they were even compelled to 
 contaminate themselves with the forbidden thing, and to 
 eat the flesh of swine. To all this there could be but one 
 result, — the common result of all persecution, — detestation 
 of the persecuting authority, and a fixed conviction that any 
 alternative was preferable to submission enforced by such 
 unhallowed means. Such an alternative was not long in 
 offering itself to their choice. The Jew had brethren in 
 many lands. His communications extended from the Syrian 
 cities and the Parthian empire to the remotest districts of 
 Spain and Gaul, and the sympathy produced by common 
 interests, a common faith, and common wrongs, was in his 
 case rendered still more active by a network of commercial 
 transactions, of which, even at that early i)eriod, he had 
 nearly secured the monopoly. The Spanish Jews must, 
 therefore, have received early intelligence of that immense 
 movement which had arisen in the East, and was advancing 
 with giant strides along the north of Africa to the Atlantic 
 Ocean. To them the crescent of Islam must indeed have 
 been a star of hope, rising in the eastern heavens, for they 
 had doubtless heard that the fierce warriors who were 
 sweeping on so irresistibly towards their prison-house, 
 themselves also claimed descent from Abraham, and though 
 propagating a new phase of faith, had treated in every land, 
 with the clemency of a kindred race, the scattered children 
 of the Father of the Faithful. Better at any rate, in antici- 
 pation, was the supremacy of the Saracen than the heavy 
 and bitter yoke of the Goth. There can be little doubt 
 
558 SPAIN. 
 
 but that tlie Mohammedan invaders were materially aided 
 by intelligence, and still more tangible assistance furnished 
 by the Spanish Jews. The sting of the traraj^led race in- 
 dicted as severe a wound upon the pride and power of the 
 Visigoth monarchy as the degeneracy of the people or the 
 wickedness and incapacity of its rulers. Indeed, we are 
 not left to conjecture. The council of Toledo was sum- 
 moned to arrest the coming peril, and the king expressly 
 declared, " the sin of Judah is written with a pen of iron 
 and the point of a diamond ; they themselves forestall their 
 doom ; they plot with the Jews of Africa to shake the 
 foundations of the throne." * Terrible was the penalty 
 proposed. All property proved to belong to a Jew was to 
 be confiscated ; every Jewish child above seven years of age 
 was to be torn from its parents, and brought up in the 
 Christian faith. The menace was a vain one. Within 
 fifteen years, the council of Toledo was impotent either to 
 legislate or to strike, and its surviving members hunted 
 fugitives on the Asturian mountains. 
 
 One other cause of the utter and ignominious collapse of 
 the Christian power south of the Pyrenees, deserves a 
 moment's attention. The inexperienced student may be 
 inclined to feel some surprise at the apathy of their northern 
 brethren when the fate of the Christian Visigoths hung 
 trembling in the balance, and he perhaps will echo the 
 language of the poet, — 
 
 *' Where were thy tears, wide Europe, when the blast 
 Of Paynim war o'er those fair regions pass'd ?" 
 
 But the isolation of the Visigoth monarchy in this perilous 
 crisis will not astonish any one who reflects upon the im- 
 perfect state of international relations in that early age, and 
 upon the special local circumstances of the country itself. 
 
 * Quoted in an interesting paper upon the Jews of Europe in the 
 Middle Ages : Oxlord Essays, 1857. 
 
ISOLATION OF THE VISIGOTHS. 55& 
 
 Many centuries were to elapse ere the nations of Europe 
 could comprehend the effect which they were capable of 
 exercising upon each other, or rise to the conception of one 
 great interest pervading the whole mass. It was this very 
 fact of a struggle against a dangerous power, external and 
 antagonistic to them all, which, perhaps, gave the first idea 
 to the states of Christendom of a common policy and a united 
 action. Yet, notwithstanding the struggles of the knightly 
 orders and the Crusades, half the seventeenth century had 
 elapsed ere the idea bore fruit. Europe looked on apathetic, 
 or appalled, when her dearest interests, perhaps her whole 
 future destiny, hung upon the results of the battle before the 
 walls of Vienna. It was left to the heroic sword of Sobieski 
 to redeem her from a peril which the great monarchs ot 
 Europe had either failed to see or did not dare to meet. 
 What wonder, then, if the rude political conceptions of 
 Carlovingians and Lombards were unable to discern that 
 the fortunes of the Visigoths might, possibly, foreshadow 
 their own, and that the battle of the Faith ought to be 
 fought far away, beside the Pillars of Hercules. Isolated in 
 position, Spain was also isolated in action during the earlier 
 centuries of the Christian era. The encircling ocean, and 
 "the long waving line of the blue Pyrenees," from Fontarabia 
 to Perpignan, shut her out from the external world of 
 intrigue and action ; and this separation from more stirring 
 social influences and scenes, aggravated, in some degree, the 
 evils incident to a young and semi-barbarian society. Hence 
 her narrow and blind policy, her want of sympathy with the 
 rest of Christendom ; and the want of sympathy which the 
 rest of Christendom exhibited towards her in her imminent 
 peril and miserable fall. The same causes have, even in much 
 later times, contributed to produce the same results. But 
 they have been greatly modified by circumstances well 
 known to every student of history. These may be the sub- 
 ject of future consideration ; at present, the direct course of 
 
660 SPAIN. 
 
 our narrative leads iis to consider the origin of that mar- 
 vellous movement among the Arab tribes which transported 
 them in almost one great impulse from the banks of the 
 Nile to the banks of the Loire ; the incidents of its progress, 
 and the character of the people by whom it was brought 
 about. The extent of the inquiry, however briefly con- 
 ducted, demands more space than can be assigned to it at 
 the close of the present lecture. We shall reserve it for 
 another, and a final one. In the mean time, we may be 
 excused for devoting the remainder of our space to a brief 
 sketch of the circumstances under which the great reaction 
 of the Christians against their conquerors arose, gathered 
 (Strength, and finally acquired irresistible power. I have 
 said "excused," because the most important part of this 
 heroic story belongs to an era subsequent to the death 'of 
 Charlemagne, and therefore does not fall within the limits of 
 our present task. The slight transgression, however, of those 
 limits which we shall be compelled to make, will furnish 
 matter useful for future reference, and render more intelligi- 
 ble the state of things we have already attempted to describe. 
 When in the valley of Canyas, Pelayo set up a standard 
 and beat a drum to summon his followers for a foray against 
 the infidel, he may be regarded as having laid the foundation 
 of a kingdom long one of the greatest and most famous in 
 the world. This kingdom — known originally from its birth- 
 place, as the kingdom of Asturias, — as its limits expanded 
 and its power increased, received the names of Oviedo, Leon, 
 and Castile. M. Augustin Thierry, in a brief historical 
 fragment, has admirably sketched the character of this little 
 society at its origin, and the nature of its progress. As his 
 remarks are very short, I shall make no apology for adopt- 
 ing them : — " Civil war, the consequence and development 
 of conquest, never ceased to agitate the mixed population of 
 Gaul. By a great general disaster, the population of Spain 
 was early united in a common fraternity, confounded in the 
 
THE STATE OF SPAIN AFTER THE INVASION. 561 
 
 same interest, the same sentiment, the same condition, and 
 the same customs. In the year 712 the Arabs took posses- 
 sion of the whole country, except a small desert on the north- 
 west, between the sea and the mountains (the province of 
 the Asturias), the sole habitation left to those who did not 
 acknowledge the right of the conquerors over the dwelling 
 of their ancestors. Confined in that corner of land which 
 became a country for them all, — Goths and Romans, con- 
 querors and conquered, strangers and natives, all united by 
 the same misfortune, forgot their ancient feuds, aversions, 
 and distinctions. There was but one name, one law, one 
 state, one language. All were equal in this exile. 
 
 " They descended their steep mountains, and placed the 
 limits of their dwelling in the plains ; they built fortresses 
 to insure their progress, and the name of Land of Castles 
 (Castilla) is still preserved by two provinces, which formed, 
 in succession, the frontiers of the reconquered kingdom. To 
 assist them in these expeditions, they made an alliance with 
 the ancient race of inhabitants of the Pyrenees, — a race at 
 all times independent, which had never yielded to the power 
 of the Romans, whose language it never spoke ; had never 
 yielded to the ferocious valour of the Franks, whose rear- 
 guard it had crushed at Roncesvalles, and had seen the tor- 
 rent of the fanatical warriors of the East roar vainly at its 
 feet. This union deprived the Moors, towards the commence- 
 ment of the twelfth century, of the great cities of Saragossa 
 and Toledo : other cities soon shared the same fate. The 
 grandest part of the history of Spain is the political history 
 of these cities, successively reconquered by the ancient popu- 
 lation of the country." 
 
 This description applies, in all its main features, to the 
 other Spanish kingdoms of cognate origin ; for not from 
 Castile alone has grown up the splendid fabric of Spanish 
 grandeur and Spanish power. Charlemagne had crossed the 
 Pyrenees. The country which stretches from these moun- 
 
 2 o 
 
562 SPAIN". 
 
 tains to the river Ebro, did, undoubtedly, at one time, under 
 the name of the Spanish Marches, form part of his vast and 
 irregular empire. But outlying provinces in the neighbour- 
 hood of an ambitious and active enemy, can only be retained 
 by a vigorous exercise of the central administrative power. 
 As long as the great emperor survived, his missi dominici 
 may have galloped backwards and forwards between the 
 Ebro and the Rhine, and conveyed the impress of his 
 authority, and the 'protection of his name, to this remote 
 corner of his dominions. But under his successors, the case 
 was widely different. The feeble Louis could not retain 
 within his grasp other possessions which were much more 
 valuable, and more closely connected with the seat of 
 government. The brave mountaineers, therefore, who 
 dv/elt upon both slopes of the Pyrenees, took counsel of 
 themselves, and elected a chief to meet the exigencies of the 
 situation and protect them from their dangerous neigh- 
 bours. Thus, about a hundred years after the foundation of 
 the first Gothic kingdom, a second arose, to perpetuate the 
 traditions of the nation, and, after playing no mean part in 
 history, under the appellation of Navarre, to give birth to the 
 progenitor of a race of kings once the most conspicuous and 
 the most powerful in the world. 
 
 From Navarre, again, was projected an offshoot which 
 soon becajaae greater and stronger than the original stock. 
 This was the kingdom of Aragon. The Aragonese seem to 
 have possessed, from the earliest times, an independent and, 
 it must be confessed, a somewhat stubborn spirit, which 
 repudiated with indignation the pretensions of everything 
 which approached to the assertion of absolute authority. It 
 is not, therefore, probable that they, at any period, lived in 
 very strict submission to the sovereignty of Navarre. The 
 final rupture, however, did not take place till the- 
 middle of the eleventh century, when Aragon 
 became an independent state. The peculiar institution of 
 
NAVAERE AND ARAGON. 663 
 
 the Justizia, which recalls to our minds the Spartan 
 Ephoralty, is a strong proof of the spirit which informed 
 them ; for it was the especial duty of this officer to judge 
 between the prince and his people, when the latter felt 
 themselves aggrieved. The Aragonese never lost the 
 sturdy republican principles which they inherited from 
 those days when their fathers fought, each on his own 
 responsibility, against the Moors. It was their boast that 
 laws existed before kings, and their oath of allegiance taken 
 to Philip II. pushes constitutional principles quite as far as 
 their most earnest advocate in our own times would be 
 inclined to desire. They take the oath on the understanding 
 that they are as good as he, and shall have more political 
 power, and only accept him as king and seigneur on condi- 
 tion of his protecting their rights and liberties. How far 
 the Aragonese element in the nation may have modified 
 and, in despite of many defeats and discouragements, may 
 still modify the character of the Spanish people and the 
 form of their institutions, is a question deeply interesting 
 to the modern statesman, but one upon which we cannot 
 enter here. 
 
 Four years after the separation between Navarre and 
 Aragon, a similar event took place in Castile. Henry of 
 Burgundy, a descendant from the Capetan monarchs 
 of France, and the counts of his own country, had entered 
 Spain at the close of the eleventh century, animated by 
 the spirit of knight-errantry common in that age, and 
 in quest of military adventure and distinction. He became 
 connected by marriage with the great house of Castile, and 
 governed the Lusitanian provinces of that monarchy in the 
 interest of his father-in-law, the Castilian king. His son 
 Alfonso succeeded him as count of Portugal. Those were 
 stirring times. The crusade against the Moors was being 
 carried on with all the energy and excitement which fanati- 
 cism, patriotic fervour, and the love of warlike glory could 
 2 o 2 
 
SCi SPAIN. 
 
 supply. On the eve of a greafc expedition against the na- 
 tional enemy, the army of Henry, influenced perhaps by a 
 dream which he related to them, or, at any rate, with imagi- 
 nations strongly worked upon by the solemnity of the 
 occasion, formally saluted him as their king. This 
 ^'^' ' ' was the origin of the little kingdom of Portugal, 
 the only one among the early Spanish states which resisted the 
 strong attraction of political cohesion, and has continued to 
 maintain its independence. The result is to be attributed to 
 the valour and policy of those wise and able monarchs who 
 presided over its destinies during the first two centuries of 
 its existence. 
 
 The internal condition of the Spanish monarchies was 
 determined by the circumstances under which they grew up. 
 We have seen how M. Thierry has described these circum- 
 stances ; we will also avail ourselves of the language of the 
 same great authority to present, as the closing picture of our 
 lecture, an eloquent sketch of their social and political 
 results. " The equality which reigned in the patriotic armies 
 of the Asturias and of Leon could not perish by victory ; 
 they were perfectly free men, who occupied the houses and 
 ramparts deserted by the flight of the enemy ; they were 
 perfectly free men, who became burgesses and citizens. 
 Urban and rural property established no distinction of rank 
 among men. Rank or personal consideration did not pass 
 from the possessor to the domain ; and no domain was able 
 to communicate to him who obtained it, as his share, power 
 over lands or men. No one could demand from another any- 
 thing besides his legitimate rights : no one could take from 
 the hands of another the weapons they had borne together. 
 Thus, the man of the fortress and the man of the city, the 
 lord of the manor and the peasant, equally free in their 
 various possessions, lived as friends, and not as enemies. It 
 was not that men were better in those countries than else- 
 where j it was because everything was established there on 
 
ITS SOCIAL AND POLITICAL CONDITION. 565 
 
 a groundwork of primitive equality and fraternity ; whilst, 
 in the neighbouring countries, the main point of revolutions, 
 on the contrary, was the basis of an absolute inequality im- 
 pressed on the soil by the footstep of conquest, and degrading 
 itself little by little, yet unable to become totally effaced. 
 
 " Every city repeopled by Christians became a commune, 
 that is to say, a sworn association under freely-elected magis- 
 trates : all this sprung without an eftbrt, without a dispute, 
 from the simple effect of the occupation of the city. The 
 citizens had nothing to pay beyond the civil contribution ; 
 they had no obligation beyond that of maintaining their 
 society and defending its territory. They had to rally in. 
 times of common danger round the supreme chief of the 
 country ; each one came at the summons, to place himself 
 under the banners of his commune and leaders of his own 
 choice. Whoever possessed a war-horse and armour of a 
 horseman, was exempted, for this service, from the contribu- 
 tion of war ; the others paid a moderate duty : thus, the 
 population was divided in the language into horsemen and 
 iaxahles : this distinction, in fact, was the only one. The 
 influence of foreign customs added to it later rights, which 
 were not derived thence. 
 
 '• The chiefs, settled in vast territories for the care of the 
 general defence, likewise founded towns, by calling into an 
 inclosure, protected by their fortresses, the Christians escaped 
 from the Moorish country, and those who had no certain 
 abode. Here there were treaties, contracts, and charters, 
 which expressed the rights of the future city, and stipulated 
 the price of land for whoever should make it his dwelling. 
 The charter bound for ever, or until a new agreement, the 
 citizens and their sons, as well as the sons of him who had 
 founded the commune ; the cities possessed round them vast 
 portions of land, which submitted to their municipal juris- 
 diction ; their power oi justice extended to the castles, which 
 received instead of granting it. There were no various 
 
566 SPAIN. 
 
 ranks or servile labours for the workmen. It seemed as if 
 
 all those who had reconquered their native land were sacred 
 
 to one another : mutual respect, mutual pride, protected 
 
 them j and the traces of this noble character are to be met 
 
 with in the present day in the pride of the peasant ol 
 
 Castile."* 
 
 * Augustin Thierry, ut supra. 
 
LECTUEE XL 
 
 AEABIA— MOHAMMED— ISLAMISM— THE SARACENS. 
 
 " For the Eastern world, it is, I suppose, generally acknowledged 
 that we ought to regard Mahometanism as having had, no less than 
 Judaism, a place, though doubtless a very different place, in the deter- 
 minate counsels of God." — Gladstone's Homer, vol. ii. p. 523. 
 
 "De Arabia la feliz vino al mundo la mayor infelicidad que jamas 
 padecio en lo temporal y espiritual." — Coronica de los Moros de Espaua, 
 por el Padre Presentado Feay Jayme Bled a. 
 
 Synopsis, — ^The Arab character affected by locality and race. — ^The 
 Saracens described by Ammianus Marcellinus. — Ancient commerce 
 passed through Arabia. — Brigandage. — Poetry. — Religion. — Meeting 
 of Paganism, Judaism, and Christianity in the Peninsula. — The nature 
 of the doctrine proclaimed by Mohammed ; his personal character. — 
 The progress of Islamism not more wonderful than its origin ; the 
 reasons why it so entirely extirpated other religions. — The birth of 
 Mohammed ; his flight from Mecca ; his conquests and his death. — 
 The succeeding Khalifs. — The Ommiades. — ^The Abassides. — Foreign 
 conquests of the Khalifiate ; their several stages. — The Khalifs triumph 
 over the Greek emperor ; over the Persian Sassanides ; make them- 
 selves masters of North Africa ; pass over into Spain. — Permanent 
 results of the Civilization which they introduced into Europe. 
 
 The origin and growth of that most startling of all reli- 
 gious and historical phenomena, the faith and victory of 
 Islam, is only connected incidentally with European history 
 and the scope of these Lectures. The story is a strange one ; 
 brilliant, startling, and most interesting. But we need not 
 elaborately repeat it here, for it is far more familiar to the 
 ordinary reader than the obscurer tale of Hunnish or 
 
668 ARABIA. 
 
 Yandal adventure ; and it has been fully given in the 
 greatest historical work of our literature. The illustrious 
 author of the ''Decline and Fall," influenced, perhaps, 
 by a somewhat equivocal motive, has put forth his whole 
 strength upon the narrative. Some of the opinions, indeed, 
 which it contains are not likely to command the sympathy 
 of his readers at the present hour, when even those who 
 share the writer's latent dislike to Christianity, are disposed 
 to assail its defences from another stand-point. But, idle 
 as well as arrogant would be the attempt to rival the 
 luminous arrangement and vivid colouring of that pictured 
 page. The masterpiece of Gibbon, spite of its defects, will 
 probably never be superseded ; and we must refer all 
 who desire a larger acquaintance with the subject than 
 can be derived from our own. meagre sketch, to the cele- 
 brated chapters which contain an account of Mohammed, 
 his country, his religion, and his people. We cannot, how- 
 ever, in pursuance of our purpose, dispense with a few re- 
 marks upon the nature of that great national movement 
 which projected Asia upon Europe, and upon the secondary 
 or concurring causes which promoted its success. 
 
 I am far from asserting that these causes, as they are 
 generally conceived, or as I shall rejoresent them, constitute 
 a sufficient account of the matter. On the contrary, some- 
 thing deeper than all secondary causes lies at the root of the 
 Divine dispensations ; and that something it is seldom given 
 to us to detect. In the present instance, there was a power 
 assuredly working upon the minds of men, — a moral lever, 
 so to speak, upheaving the old-world order of things, — 
 greater and more wonderful than anything which the mere 
 historian's eye can detect in the external aspects of human, 
 nature and human society. To the theologian belongs what 
 amount of speculation on the hidden councils and the 
 secret operations of Providence is permitted to our imper- 
 fect intelligence. We shall address ourselves to a less- 
 
THE ARABIAN PENINSULA. 669 
 
 exalted task, and reserve the few remarks which it is our 
 duty to make upon the higher subject, until that task has 
 heen concluded. 
 
 Race and locality are, as we have seen in a former lecture," 
 among the most powerful of those influences which act upon 
 national character. The people who first accepted the re- 
 ligious system of Mohammed, and carried his victorious 
 standard over Asia, Africa, and Europe, were subjected to 
 both these influences in a very remarkable way. Their race 
 was Semitic ; their dwelling-place was the Arabian penin- 
 sula. Arabia, from its position and j^hysical conformation, 
 enjoyed a larger exemption from the inroad of foreign arms 
 than any other portion of the Old world. Situated between 
 the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf, connected with Africa 
 only by a narrow isthmus, and with Asia by a frontier most 
 unfavourable for military operations, it would scarce have 
 offered available means of access to the invader, even had 
 its internal situation been such as to tempt his cupidity. 
 But this was far from being the case. A waste of sand and 
 rock, burning, to borrow the Scripture imagery, like molten 
 iron beneath a firmament of brass, and often engulfing cara- 
 vans and even armies beneath its treacherous surface, and 
 a wild nomad race, who wandered to and fro over a pathless 
 desert, and vanished from view as the enemy appeared on 
 the horizon, offered none of the usual inducements which 
 tempt the avarice or ambition of great conquerors and their 
 invading hosts. The long streaks of scanty pasturage 
 which gleamed upon the slopes of the mountains, running 
 parallel to the two gulfs; the vine or palm, which here 
 and there had been planted, by human labour, beside the 
 wild tamarind and acacia, the only natural products of that 
 arid land ; the ie\m rude horse-hair huts, which might be 
 pitched on the morrow a hundred miles away ; — these were 
 not treasures to tempt the grasping genius of Assyrian 
 * Lecture III. 
 
Jin ARABIA. 
 
 or Persian kings. Where conquest was so difficult, and the 
 results of conquest of such little value, it is not surprising 
 that it was seldom attempted with success. National inde- 
 pendence has ever been a characteristic of the race, concern- 
 ing whose great progenitor it was proclaimed, by the Divine 
 voice, that he would be a wild man, whose hand should be 
 against every man, and every man's hand against him.""' 
 Gibbon, as ever, has attempted to elude the force of the 
 prophetic evidence which the history of the Arabian penin- 
 sula affords ; but he is constrained to admit that the in- 
 stances of foreign occupation have been temporary or local, 
 and that the arms of Sesostris and Cyrus, of Pompey and 
 Trajan, could never achieve the conquest of Arabia. Even the 
 all-conquering hand of E-ome was laid but lightly upon this 
 intractable race and inaccessible land. The Poman bard 
 who most loudly proclaims his country's triumphs in her 
 palmiest days, tells us also of the " inviolate treasures of 
 Arabia," and the " unconquered Sabean kings." + A few 
 not very important possessions, and some naval inroads of 
 Trajan, were, as Gibbon admits, what history and medals 
 magnified into the Poman conquest of Arabia. In this, there- 
 fore, as in so many other instances, locality exercised a power- 
 ful influence upon national character and national history. 
 The Arabs were the wild people of a rugged land, and such 
 has been the account which tradition has consistently given 
 of them. Here is the description of Ammianus Marcellinus, 
 a very graphic, and, we may be sure, authentic description ; 
 for that stout old soldier had seen and fought with them, 
 much, apparently, to his own disgust. It will be observed 
 that he speaks of them as Saracens ; an appellation under 
 which were confounded, by the Greeks and Latins, all 
 the Arabian tribes from Mecca to the*Euphrates. " The 
 Saracens, whose friendship and hostility were to us alike 
 
 * Gen. xvi. 12. f Hor. Od. I. xxix. 3. 
 
AMMIANUS MARCELLINUS ON THE SARACENS. 571 
 
 undesirable, rushing hither and thither, plundered in a 
 moment whatever they could lay their hands on ; just 
 like a band of rapacious kites, who, when they catch a 
 glimpse of their prey, swoop down upon it like lightning, 
 and are off in a moment if they miss their mark. Among 
 these tribes, which extend from Assyria to the cataracts of 
 the Nile and the confines of the Blemmyse, all are alike 
 warriors, and half- naked, their only covering being a co- 
 lonred cloak reaching to the loins. By the help of their 
 swift horses, and camels of active frame, in peace and war 
 alike, they scour the whole country, to its most opposite 
 limits. No man among them ever puts his hand to the 
 plough, plants a tree, or seeks a livelihood by cultivating 
 the soil. They wander everlastingly over regions lying far 
 and wide apart, without a home, without fixed settlements 
 or laws. The same clime [coelum] never contents them long, 
 nor are they ever satisfied with the occupation of a single 
 district. Their life is one perpetual motion. Their wives 
 they take on hire, and keep with them for a time fixed by 
 previous agreement ; and as this is a sort of wedlock, the 
 bride brings to her future master a spear and a tent, with 
 the privilege of leaving him after some specified day, should 
 such be her pleasure. The licentious passion of both sexes 
 is incredible. So wide are their wanderings, and so uninter- 
 rupted throughout their whole lives, that a woman weds in 
 one spot, gives birth to her child in another, and brings up her 
 family far away from either, without ever being permitted 
 to enjoy an oi3portunity of rest. Al], without exception, 
 live upon the flesh of wild animals : they have milk in 
 abundance for their siipport, vegetables of all sorts, and 
 such birds as they are enabled to capture by fowling. The 
 majority of them ^e have seen to be entirely ignorant of 
 the use of corn and wine. Thus much of this pernicious 
 race of people." * Such were the race who furnished the 
 * Ainmianus Marcellinus, lib. xiv. § iv. 1. 
 
572 ARABIA. 
 
 material for Mohammed's great religious experiment. Who 
 does not recognize in this portrait of them, drawn long 
 before his birth, the features of those fiery warriors who 
 raised his standard against the world, and galloped their 
 untiring steeds over all the country between the Punjab 
 and the gates of Toulouse ? 
 
 These national characteristics, as Ammianus has depicted 
 them, afford some clue to the problem which is involved 
 in the marvellous success of the Mohammedan invasions. 
 Eut, as we have said, they did not arise from locality 
 alone. Race contributed its share to the result, and circum- 
 stance modified it, determining the direction of energies 
 which might, under external influences of another kind, have 
 worked out very different results. A certain fixedness of 
 resolve, a strength of will degenerating into stiff-neckedness 
 and obstinacy, united to a warm and brilliant, though limited 
 imagination, seems to mark the Semitic mind. This power of 
 purpose, united to an imaginative tendency, has perjjetually 
 proved itself capable of engendering a religious exaltation, 
 which in its most favourable development becomes a fervent 
 and operative faith, but which may equally break forth into 
 that terrible fanaticism which is more irresistible than fire 
 and steel. The qualities for which the Jew was selected by 
 the wisdom of Jehovah to be the keeper and champion of 
 his law, and to uplift his standard against an idolatrous 
 world, were found perhaps as strongly marked in his kins- 
 man the Semitic Arab. The same scorn of the stranger, 
 the same indomitable zeal and national pride, the same 
 headlong faith, which, regardless of human chances, stormed 
 the strongholds of Phoenician giants and trampled on the 
 necks of Canaanitish kings, were shown in after-years, by the 
 invincible zealots who scourged alike the Persian, the 
 Greek, the Koman, the Yisigoth, and the Frank, and shouted 
 the watchword of the Prophet before the walls of Damascus, 
 Constantinople, Alexandria, Toledo, and Tours. 
 
THE CHANNEL OF ANCIENT COMMERCE. 573 
 
 Sucli being the influences of locality and race upon the Arab 
 mind, it was natural enough that the nation should exhibit 
 an inclination and aptitude for military adventure. The in- 
 herent obstinacy and pride of the people, fostered by an almost 
 unbroken tradition of independence, gave them the spirit of 
 self-confidence wMch is the surest presage of victory ; the 
 discipline of desert life added the hardihood and activity 
 which enabled them to overcome obstacles that must have 
 proved insuperable to more organized armies. But other 
 influences, as we have said, contributed their share to the 
 same result, and greatly augmented the force of the original 
 impulse by which these isolated bands of herdsmen and 
 shepherds were projected upon the external world. The 
 situation of the Arabian peninsula, owing to the dangers of 
 the Red-Sea navigation, made it the great thoroughfare for 
 the commerce of the ancient world. The treasures of India 
 and Abyssinia were transported in Arabian caravans ; the 
 corn of Mesopotamia, the steel of Damascus, the pearls of 
 the Persian Gulf, gems from the Indian mountains, the gums 
 and aromatics of the seaboard of the Southern Ocean, daily 
 passed before the eyes of the children of Ismael. The Avild 
 man's hand might occasionally aid in the labours of com- 
 merce, but his heart, like that of his progenitor, was set on 
 rapine and on war. It would have been strange had he 
 neglected such brilliant opportunities. '•' The innumerable 
 tribes of this nation," says Pliny,'-" " are equally divided be- 
 tween brigandage and trade." The national instinct, fos- 
 tered and developed by the force of circumstance, became a 
 powerful auxiliary to schemes of ambition and territorial 
 conquest. A race of robbers readily obeyed the call which 
 summoned them to the plunder of the world. 
 
 We should, however, do injustice to the Arab character, 
 and greatly obscure our view of the true causes of Arab con- 
 quest, did we not admit that something more than the mere 
 * Hist. Nat. vi. 32. 
 
674 ISLAMISM. 
 
 force of predatory habits, sometliing higher than a mere bar- 
 baric lust for blood and gold, animated and supported those 
 immense undertakings which cast into shadow all the ex- 
 ploits of the other adversaries of the Eoman empire and 
 the Christian church. 
 
 The sentiment of military glory is to. be found among 
 the savage aborigines who go out against their enemies, 
 as against the beasts of the field, with clubs, and arrows 
 tipped with fish-bones or flint. Something more, however, 
 is required before this sentiment can assume the strength 
 or importance which would justify us in classifying it 
 among the influences which mould the character of a peo- 
 ple, and determine the direction of its powers. It is the 
 " sacer vates " who gives the sentiment permanence and 
 weight, not only, or principally, when he appears as the 
 Homeric rhapsodist or Kunic bard, but also when his func- 
 tions are discharged by the varied literature of a cultivated 
 age. There can be no doubt but that this influence existed, 
 and acted powerfully among the Arab race. A strong, 
 though somewhat sterile imagination, — sterile, that is to 
 say, rather from the want of variety than of vigour, is a 
 marked characteristic of the people among whom arose 
 
 " The Man of TJz, the morning star of Song." 
 
 The earliest poetry of the world pours from the lips of Elihu 
 and Job. The profane muse has never soared in so high a 
 flight as the soul of the inspired penman, whose strains were 
 most probably meditated in the broad star-lit solitudes of 
 the Arabian desert. "The vision and the faculty divine" did 
 not fade from the mind and memory of his descendants. A 
 fraternity of bards, with the usual accompaniment of public 
 recitations and contests of excellence, appears to have 
 existed among the Arab tribes as among those of Northern 
 Europe. The most distinguished and successful of these 
 compositions were inscribed upon linen and letters of gold. 
 
AEABIAN LITERATUEE. 675^ 
 
 and suspended in the national temple of the Caaba. Gibbon 
 has told us, with his usual magniloquence : " The arts of 
 grammar, of metre, and of rhetoric, were unknown to the 
 freeborn eloquence of the Arabians ; but their penetration 
 was sharp, their fancy luxuriant, their wit strong and sen- 
 tentious, and their more elaborate compositions addressed 
 with energy and eifect to the mind of their hearers."* The 
 subjects, however, of these southern rhapsodists were some- 
 what less diversified than those of their European brethren. 
 Love and war are, among all men, people, and languages, 
 the perennial founts of song ; but their illustration is sug- 
 gested and limited by the aspects of external nature. The 
 boundless sands, the burning sky, the green oases which 
 spread a carpet of emerald verdure beneath the shade of 
 stately palms, the gush of waters glittering like the diamond, 
 the graceful gazelle, and the noble steed, whose neck is 
 clothed with thunder, and who neighs amid the trumpets of 
 battle, formed the stock of imagery under which they repre- 
 sented the gentle or terrible emotions of the human heart. 
 And if it should seem to us that these topics do not consti- 
 tute a very large repertory for a poetic literature, we find 
 that one of the national bards, Antar, a contemporary of the 
 Prophet, was himself oppressed by the same conviction. 
 "What subject," he complains, "now remains unsung'?" — 
 the "omnia jam vulgata" of the poet of another and an 
 effete age. Yet perhaps this very coincidence between a 
 large poetic literature and a strong poetic feeling, on the 
 one part, and an exhaustion of the material of poetic senti- 
 ment on the other, may have tended to act upon the Arab 
 imagination, and propel it onward in a course which opened 
 out to view long vistas of enterprise and renown. Be this^ 
 as it may, the fact that there existed among the Arabs, in 
 the days of their famous leader, something like a recognized 
 literature to record the hero's renown, and stimulate the 
 * Decline and Fall, ch. ii. 
 
576 ISLAMISM. 
 
 valour of the people, elevates tlieir exploits beyond mere 
 brigandage and bloodshed, while it helps to account for the 
 vigour and pertinacity with which they were pursued. 
 
 But whatever may have been the influence thus exercised, 
 it is to the state of religion that we must look for the cause 
 most likely to strengthen or counteract it ; and this is more 
 particularly true in reference to a revolution excited by an 
 appeal to religious instincts, and developed in a religious 
 form. It must appear to the thoughtful student of his- 
 tory, probable, a priori, that such a revolution would be 
 preceded by a strange condition of belief and worship, in 
 the country where it so suddenly triumphed ; and such was 
 the fact. A grovelling idolatry, confused and contradictory, 
 without the grace of Greece or the subtle symbolism of 
 Egypt, had long been the autochthonous worship of the 
 Arabian peninsula. Three hundred and sixty idols of men 
 or brute animals were ranged along the walls of the Caaba, 
 when Mohammed proclaimed, in that great national temple, 
 the unity of God. Each probably represented a supersti- 
 tion prevailing in some particular tribe, and accepted with 
 comprehensive indifference within the walls of the sacred 
 edifice, which contained the black stone supposed to have 
 fallen from heaven. The mystic stone so long worshipped 
 at Mecca, a black quadrangular block, was probably a relic 
 of the rudest Fetishism ; and if we are to believe the 
 passionate reproaches of some ancient authorities, the 
 most horrid rites of human sacrifice annually defiled the 
 national altars. But it was not simply upon the ruins of 
 this ignorance and brutality that the faith of Islam arose. 
 Just as these idolatrous cults were becoming effete, further 
 impulse was given to scepticism and confusion, by the contra- 
 dictory action of the three, or rather the four, great religions 
 then existing in the world, which had by this time approached 
 Arabia from different quarters. Sabaism, — the worship of 
 Sabaoth, or the host of heaven, had lingered on in the East, 
 
STATJE OF RELIGION. 677 
 
 even after tlie downfall of Babylon and the persecution of 
 the astronomers of Chaldsea. The Persian Magi had in their 
 turn succumbed to the Macedonian sword, and the professors 
 of both religions found their way to the comparative freedom 
 of Arabia and its deserts. To a certain extent Arabia had 
 always been regarded as a kindred country by the Jews. A 
 considerable remnant escaped thither after the Roman wars, 
 and the great and terrible day of Jerusalem. With the 
 facility of their race, they soon struck root in the new land, 
 mingled in its commercial dealings, built synagogues in its 
 cities, and aspired to convert its sons to the faith of Abraham. 
 Christianity too had its representatives among this motley 
 assemblage. It penetrated thither from Byzantiue Greece, 
 from Alexandria, and from the Christian kingdom of Abys- 
 sinia. The Christians of the latter country had been induced 
 by the emperor Justin I. to establish their religion in Arabia 
 by force of arms. The attempt met only with a temporary 
 and partial success. It was enough, however, to create, 
 among a fiery and patriotic people, a feeling of impatient 
 dislike towards a foreign faith thus arbitrarily thrust 
 upon them, while it could not but communicate to them 
 some of its grandest and most vivifying ideas. But the 
 weakness of Christianity more especially lay in the fact, 
 that its intestine dissensions had projected many of the 
 warring parties beyond the boundaries of the Roman empire, 
 and that these rival sects met and battled in Arabia, as in 
 an arena open to all. " The Marcionites and Manichaeans," 
 says Gibbon, " dispersed their phantastic opinions and apo- 
 cryphal gospels ; the churches of Yemen, and the princes of 
 Hira and Gossan, were instructed in a purer creed, by the 
 Jacobite and Nestorian bishops."* It was, indeed, one of the 
 darkest periods of the Christian church ; speculation and 
 practice were alike corrupt, and the mingled evils of worldly 
 ambition, false philosophy, sectarian virulence, and sensual 
 * Decline and Fall, ch. i. 
 
 2 p 
 
578 ISLAMISM. 
 
 living, were well nigli victorious over the blood of martyrs, 
 tiie wisdom and piety of the great men who here and there 
 ministered at her altars, and the burning zeal, too often 
 degenerating into fanaticism and folly, which animated a 
 certain class of her children. Those who believe in " the soul 
 of goodness," which, even in the worst and darkest times, 
 dwells in the institutions of the Church, redeeming her 
 from ultimate degradation, and justifying to after-ages the 
 promise of her Divine Founder, will not be led away by 
 eloquent generalities, into the conviction that she was ever 
 abandoned to utter and iiTedeemable corruption. They 
 will hesitate to accept, without modification, the language of 
 a writer, once of considerable repute, and may perhaps 
 regard with some impatience the trenchant style which 
 found favour with the divines of the last century. Here, 
 however, is the description given by a Bampton lecturer, of 
 the condition of the Christian church at the time when she 
 should have arisen in her strength, and done battle with the 
 rival faith, which was to shake the world. " If, in surveying 
 the history of the sixth and seventh centuries, we call to 
 our remembrance that purity of doctrine, that simplicity of 
 manners, that spirit of meekness and universal benevolence, 
 which marked the character of the Christian in the apo- 
 stolic age, the dreadful reverse which we here behold, cannot 
 but strike us with astonishment and horror. Divided into 
 numberless parties, on account of distinctions the most 
 trifling and absurd ; contending with each other from per- 
 verseness, and persecuting each other with rancour ; corrupt 
 in opinion and degenerate in practice, the Christians of this 
 unhappy period seem to have retained little more than 
 the name and external profession of their religion. Of a 
 Christian church, scarce any vestige remained. The most 
 profligate principles and absurd opinions were universally 
 predominant ; ignorance amidst the most favourable oppor- 
 tunities of. knowledge , vice amidst the noblest encourage- 
 
STATE OF CHRISTIANITY. 679 
 
 inents to virtue ; a pretended zeal for truth, mixed witli the 
 wildest extravagances of error ; an implacable spirit ot 
 discord about opinions which none could settle ; and a 
 general and striking similarity in the commission of crimes, 
 which it was the duty and interest ofall to avoid !"* 
 
 Possibly we shall agree to hope, to believe, that there is 
 much exaggeration here. Yet the fact remains. The great 
 image of the Catholic church, overlaid with vain ceremonial, 
 darkened by the clouds and shadows of oriental mysticism, 
 distorted by western ambition, and shattered by internal 
 strife, no longer presented to the world that sublime aspect 
 which won unwittingly the eyes and hearts of men, and 
 banished, for a time, all other religious institutions and forms 
 of faith beyond the horizon of their vision. It was then, 
 with this strange congeries of error, superstition, and 
 ignorance, that Mohammed had to deal, and he brought to 
 the task a wonderfully perspicacious and subtle genius. 
 Perhaps also, in the first instance, he may have been actuated 
 by a sincere, and though a mistaken, yet excusable convic- 
 tion, of the necessity for a great religious reformation among 
 a people of degraded life and contradictory creeds. 
 
 The unscrupulous syncretism of the old idolatry, partly 
 disturbed and partly enlightened by the admixture of other 
 forms of belief, formed a most appropriate soil upon which 
 to plant a fresh religious system. The experiment could 
 hardly fail to be successful, when the new faith elimi- 
 nated the old sources of weakness, while, on the other 
 hand, it assimilated to itself those principles in the rival 
 religions which it found to be most vigorous, and care- 
 fully suited its teaching and requirements to the predo- 
 minant instincts of those to whom it was proclaimed. This 
 is precisely what Islamism did. It swept away the old 
 brutish idolatry ; it seized upon the salient features of 
 
 * White's Bampton Lectures for 1784 ; Sermon ii. p. 61. 
 
 2 p 2 
 
680 ISLAMISM. 
 
 Judaism and Christianity, and rejecting what was repugnant 
 to the natural tendencies of the human heart, cut short all 
 difficulties, either of speculation or practice, by the bold 
 declaration of " an eternal truth and a necessary fiction " 
 — " there is but one God, and Mohammed is his prophet." 
 This truth is asserted in a way well adapted to satisfy the 
 aspirations of the natural intellect, disgusted by the gross- 
 ness or confusions of the traditions by which it was sur- 
 rounded, yet with such bare and logical strictness, so coldly 
 and imperfectly, that it could not co-exist for a moment in 
 the same mind with the verities of the Christian faith, not- 
 withstanding its hollow professions of a spiritual alliance. 
 It is said that Mohammed was assisted in the composition 
 of the Koran by a Nestorian monk and a Syrian Jew.* The 
 story is doubtless false ; yet, like many historical fictions, it 
 veils and conceals a truth. The impostor evidently attempted 
 a combination of the two dispensations in his own person, 
 partly in order to obtain the support of existing religious 
 traditions for his own system, and partly to attract the pro- 
 fessors of both creeds, by an apparent recognition of their 
 spiritual rights. Nor was he altogether unsuccessful. He 
 taught his followers that the Jews, with whom he claimed a 
 common origin from Abraham, were to be regarded in a very 
 different light from other unbelievers; and we have seen 
 that, in an evil hour for Europe,t the Jews returned the 
 favour by sympathy, and perhaps support. By all, however, 
 who really deserved the Christian name, his advances were 
 rejected with contempt. Even while admitting the abstract 
 proposition which forms the basis of Islamism, — the unity of 
 God, the Christian was obliged to introduce modifying state- 
 ments, which at once cut him off from all communion with 
 the new creed ; and when he advanced beyond the region 
 of abstract propositions, and entered upon the sphere of 
 practical morality, the divergence became wider still. His 
 * Gibbon, Decline and Fall, ch. i. f Lecture X. 
 
ACCOMMODATION TO NATIONAL PREJUDICE. 581 
 
 morality was based upon a Divine Example, and consisted 
 in the imitation of a Divine Person, the concrete image ot 
 the Son of God, who was also Son of Man. This morality, 
 therefore, required self-sacrifice, pui'ity, goodness, and truth 
 in the inward parts ; a renunciation of the instincts of the 
 natural man, and a new birth of the soul into another life. 
 The morality of Islam was entirely subservient to its tem- 
 poral objects : it was constructed upon the accommodating 
 principle so keenly ridiculed by our great English satirist, of 
 compounding for the sins to which it was inclined, by condemn- 
 ing those to which it had no mind.* Contrast the conclusion 
 of the Christian's course, unto which he is to attain, purified by 
 resistance to temptation, by the denial of the natural desires, 
 and the exaltation of his soul to a capacity for spiritual enjoy- 
 ment, with the paradise, " earthly and of the earth," in which 
 the followers of Islam are to find the reward of their virtues 
 and the perfection of their being. The green oasis, con- 
 secrated to sensual joys, which awaits the true believer beyond 
 the arch of Al-Sirat ; the jewelled pavilions rising in groves 
 of shady verdure ; the crystal rivers coursing over beds of 
 amber ; the silks, the perfumes, the flowers, the exquisite 
 viands, the carpets of brilliant dyes, upon which recline the 
 dark-eyed and immortal daughters of Paradise, are evidence 
 enough of the truths and duties which the morality of 
 Mohammed avoided, of the illegitimate fascinations which it 
 supplied, of the causes which prevented the rejection of his 
 mission, and contributed to its success. The morality which 
 depends upon the mutual relations of the sexes, the bond of 
 family life and the basis of national greatness, he syste- 
 matically violated both by precept and example ; for, accord- 
 ing to the testimony of all ancient authors, it would have 
 cost him a bitter struggle to enforce it upon the peculiar tem- 
 perament of his people. Drunkenness, the besetting sin of the 
 Northern races, to which, however, there are less seductive 
 * Butler's Hudibras. 
 
5B% ISLAMISM. 
 
 temptations in the arid countries parched by a soutliern sun, 
 he strongly discouraged and forbade, for drunkenness would 
 have destroyed the discipline of his ai'mies, and impaired the 
 vigour of their physical powers. The Prophet, again, who 
 bears a message from heaven, upon which depends the salva- 
 tion of men, may indeed be fanatic and uncompromising in the 
 means by which he attempts to force it upon their accept- 
 ance : still it is with him the one thing paramount ; to this 
 all other considerations are postponed, all other interests 
 yield. Mohammed professed that it was his mission to combat 
 for the conversion of the nations. " Believe or die, the 
 Koran or the Sword,'* was, upon his own principles, the only 
 alternative which he had a right to propose. Yet the 
 vanquished, upon payment of tribute, were permitted to re- 
 tain their creed ; — in other words, were permitted to purchase 
 from the Prophet of God the eternal perdition of their souls. 
 Nor do these exhaust the instances in which it is possible to 
 discern the clever accommodation of his teaching to the 
 circumstances of his time. Pride and superstition were the 
 predominant characteristics of the Arab race. To their 
 pride he appealed, as an Arab of the Arabs, the purest 
 blood of their land, of the family of Hashem, of the tribe of 
 Koreish, "the princes of Mecca, the hereditary guardians of 
 the Caaba." For their superstition he provided, by retain- 
 ing, with little change, the mysterious rites, the invocations, 
 the prostrations, the pilgrimages to sacred spots, the adora- 
 tion of the mystic black stone, which formed part of the 
 ancient idolatry. Indeed, after his death, the Caaba became 
 the object of more fanatic reverence than heretofore, while 
 honours no less idolatrous were offered to his own tomb. 
 But, as has been said, " he had philosophy for the wise as 
 well as superstition for the vulgar." The great questions 
 which have agitated the human mind, speculations about the 
 nature of God, the immortality of the soul, the resurrection 
 of tho body, with the unsolved, and perhaps insoluble ques- 
 
ITS PROGRESS A RESULT OF ITS CHARACTER. 583 
 
 tions of " fate, free will, foreknowledge absolute," employed 
 the early Mohammedan doctors, and redeemed the religion, 
 in the eyes of men of higher intelligence, from the not un- 
 reasonable charge of being little more than an accommodation 
 to the blind instincts of an incurious multitude. 
 
 It is a favourite opinion, that the progress of Islamism,. 
 and its permanence, constitute a much more marvellous 
 phenomenon than its birth. But if the considerations upon 
 which we have dwelt in any respect explain its origin, they 
 also account for its growth. It would be more marvellous 
 if the power and prestige of success, the stability which waits 
 upon "the accomplished fact," the splendid advantages offered 
 to its professors by a triumphant faith, which was making 
 the tour of the civilized world, had not tended to strengthen 
 and consolidate the religious system which the genius 
 of the Arab prophet had summoned up in obedience to the 
 spirit of the age. As well might we marvel that the avalanche, 
 when once launched from the mountain-peak, should gather 
 strength and volume in its fall. The Koran declared war 
 against mankind, and by precept, menace, and exhortation, 
 hurled its followers, sabre in hand, against the whole human 
 race. Before them were the gates of Paradise ; behind 
 them, the fires of Hell. The impulse was irresistible. "Who 
 could stay that roaring torrent in its path, and, when it 
 had swollen to a mighty river, roll back its waves to the 
 narrow limits of the desert oasis where it first sprung to 
 light 1 In Egypt, in Syria, and in Spain, it would be easy 
 to point out secondary causes, existing in the social condition 
 of those countries, which contributed, in no mean degree, to 
 the success of the Saracen arms. But these were unim- 
 portant compared with the one great cause, — a disciplined 
 fanaticism stimulated by victory and strengthened by the 
 acquisitions of conquest. Such success has a natural ten- 
 dency to reproduce, and, for a time, perpetuate itself; for 
 among the millions whom it attracted, who were calm, or 
 
684 ISLAMISM. 
 
 wise, or instructed enoiigh to question evidence which came 
 before them in such a form 1 And when once the fact of 
 conquest had been accomplished ; when the faith of Islam 
 had taken root in the minds of the rude populations whom 
 it subdued ; when its material splendours, backed by a 
 strong and visible power of the sword, were before their 
 eyes ; when its exclusive institutions shut them out from all 
 external influences of laws, learning, or civilization, — where 
 was the sceptic or reformer likely to arise who should cast 
 all this from himself and the hearts of his people, and 
 revolutionize the aspects of the world 1 Such deeds — nay, 
 the veiy conception of such deeds — were assuredly not for 
 that age of human history. On the contrary, from the very 
 nature of the case and the necessity of things, the creed of 
 Islam, when once accepted, could not be cast aside ; and, 
 for a time, each generation succumbed more entirely to its 
 influence than the generation that preceded them. It has 
 been well said, in reference to this very subject, by a living 
 ornament of our church : " There are few opinions, or forms 
 of belief, to which men may not, sincerely as well as in 
 pretence, become attached, provided they be frequently and 
 in any striking manner set before them ; and their assent to 
 these will be easier and more fixed in proportion as the 
 grounds of the belief itself become more obscured by the 
 lapse of time, and, as it were, merged in those accidents 
 and circumstances which at once keep out of sight, and 
 vouch for the existence of some foundation for themselves, 
 and the creed to which they belong."* 
 
 One concurring cause of the large success of Islamism 
 remains to be noticed, — the personal character of its author. 
 On this, as on some other kindred topics, the language of the 
 last century would scarcely be accepted now. We may not 
 share Mr. Emerson's hero-worship for the representative 
 men of the world's history, or echo his opinion, that 
 * The Bishop of St. Helena ; Oxford Essay. 
 
THE PEESONAL CHARACTER OF THE FOUNDER. 585 
 
 colossal theologies are the necessary and structural action of 
 the human mind, and assign to Mohammed the place of 
 master-architect in the vast system which bears his name ; 
 yet we shall not, on the other hand, resolve the whole 
 matter into a delusion and a cheat, and consider that we 
 have sufficiently described its author, by adopting such 
 well-worn phrases as the "Arabian Impostor," the "artful 
 Prophet of Mecca," and the like. We accept the lan- 
 guage of the great living statesman prefixed to the pre- 
 sent Lecture. It is in accordance with justice and 
 truth, to admit that Mohammed was one of those great men 
 raised up to a great work, who, while we contemplate the 
 firmament of the ages, flash, from time to time, across 
 our field of view. The words of M. Guizot, when speaking 
 of the agencies which have wrought out modern civiliza- 
 tion, are probably familiar to our ears. " There is a fourth 
 cause of civilization," he says, " a cause which it is impossible 
 to appreciate fitly, but which is not, therefore, the less real, 
 — and this is the appearance of great men. No one can say 
 why a great man appears at a certain epoch, and what he 
 adds to the development of the world. That is a secret of 
 Providence ; but the fact is not, therefore, less certain. 
 There are men whom the spectacle of anarchy and social 
 stagnation strikes and revolts ; who are intellectually 
 shocked therewith, as with a fact which ought not to 
 exist, and are possessed with an unconquerable desire. of 
 changing it, — a desire of giving some rule, somewhat of the 
 general, regular, and permanent, to the world before them ; 
 — a terrible, and often tyrannical power, which commits a 
 thousand crimes, a thousand errors, — for human weakness 
 attends it ; a power, nevertheless, glorious and salutary, for 
 it gives to humanity, and with the hand of man, a vigorous 
 impulse forward, — a mighty movement."* Something, then, 
 must be attributed to the nature of the man himself. But 
 * Guizot, History of Civilization. 
 
686 ISLAMISM. 
 
 "witli what exact object, and in what exact way, he exercised 
 his influence, it is not so easy to determine. Probably he was 
 as little of a mere enthusiast as of a mere impostor. Gifted 
 with a wonderful genius for organization, and with strong 
 religious instincts, his soul may have been hot within him 
 when he saw the vile abominations of the national idolatry, 
 and the hopeless social antagonism of the Arab tribes. If 
 he looked abroad for a remedy, it was natural to seek it in 
 the foreign religious systems which had introduced them- 
 selves into his country. Yet how could a spirit like his 
 throw itself heartily into the Christianity of that age and 
 place ? The cry of unceasing theological strife, and the idle 
 babble of philosophical speculation so called, must have been 
 utter weariness and sickness of soul to a man of that fiery 
 and practical temperament. He seems, therefore, to have 
 fallen back upon Judaism, and adopted so much of its 
 doctrine and practice as he knew were suited to the 
 revolution which he meditated. His approximations to 
 Christianity were trifling ; just enough to enlarge the basis 
 of his religious system and conciliate some opposition. It 
 is not likely that his original design extended beyond the 
 introduction of political order among the Arabian tribes, 
 and a reformation of the grosser elements and attributes 
 of their worship. This he may have considered himself 
 divinely commissioned to accomplish. But success brought 
 with it other and more ambitious aims : it entirely changed 
 the nature of his sentiment toward the outer world. The 
 most superficial inspection of the Koran will show that in 
 the earlier stages of his career he contemplated friendly 
 relations with foreign nationalities of another faith. War 
 against the human race, death to the unconverted, and 
 Islamism for the world, were only conceived by the Prophet, 
 and proclaimed to his followers, when the marvellous success 
 of his arms enlarged his ambition and inflamed his religious 
 zeal. At what particular period, and whether by any self- 
 
WHY SO SUCCESSFUL. 587 
 
 conscious process or no, the honest enthusiast passed into the 
 deluder and conqueror of the ordinary type, it is impossible 
 for human judgment to decide ; for it is not before the 
 tribunal of human judgment that the question shall be 
 tried. 
 
 Finally, it has been asked, why was the triumpll of the 
 Mohammedan religion as complete as that of the Saracen 
 arms 1 Conquest does not always, or necessarily, imply con- 
 version. On the contrary, many instances will recur to the 
 recollection of every one, where the victorious and dominant 
 race have either adopted the religion of the vanquished or 
 failed to impress their own upon them. This was not the 
 case with the religion of Mohammed. In Syria, in Africa, 
 to a certain extent in Spain itself, the population, in a few 
 years, professed the faith of their conquerors, and the na- 
 tional cults died out. Why was this 1 Why were those 
 naked locust-eaters enabled to produce a result in the South, 
 which the scarcely more barbarous tribes of the North — 
 the Huns, the Vandals, and the Goths — never produced in 
 the slightest degree ? Why were the latter subdued by the 
 religion of the nation whose armies they had themselves 
 subdued, while the faith of the former was as victorious as 
 their sword, banishing the philosophical theism of Zoroaster 
 from the great empire of Persia, and trampling out Chris- 
 tianity in the countries of Origen, Augustine, and Isidore ? 
 The answer is undoubtedly to be found, to some extent, in 
 the inherent strength of the principle they proclaimed, as 
 contrasted with the internal strife of the Christian world, 
 the prevalence of pernicious heresies, like that of the Mono- 
 physites in Egypt, and the dreamy, unpractical, unwarlike 
 character impressed upon the Christian populations of the 
 South and East, by the eremite and monastic theory of the 
 Christian life which was then almost universally held, and 
 very widely practised. But, concurring with these, there 
 was another cause in operation, which must not be for- 
 
588 ISLAMISM. 
 
 gotten. When the Northern barbarian quitted the Asiatic 
 steppes or the Scandinavian peninsula, he came southward 
 in a complete migration, like the Roman, " cum prole ma- 
 tronisque nostris," or like the Israelites under Moses, " with 
 their young and with their old, with their sons and with 
 their daughters, with their flocks and with their herds." 
 The consequence was, that he brought a whole society with 
 him ; and this society, by the very fact of its coherence in 
 the new land where it had come to dwell, left an under- 
 structure of the old inhabitants, who preserved their own 
 domestic ties, their social habits, and to a certain extent, the 
 institutions more intimately connected with them. These 
 institutions, therefore, had an ojDportunity of being brought 
 face to face with those of the conquering race. There was 
 room for contact and comparison, and, therefore, for the 
 eventual triumph of truth. But the Arab went forth a 
 warrior and a fanatic, with the sabre in the one hand and 
 the Koran in the other. He meant to conquer and to 
 destroy, not to emigrate. " Fight^ fight ! — Paradise, para- 
 dise ! " was the battle-cry he was taught to raise, whatever 
 might be the foe before him, and death to the male popula- 
 tion was the strict corollary of the doctrine that brought 
 him into the field. But his fiery temperament, the permis- 
 sion of polygamy, the promises and practice of the Prophet, 
 all tended to the absorption of the whole female population 
 into the camp of the victors. The unfortunate daughters 
 of Persia, Africa, and Spain, crowded the harems of the 
 invincible Arabs. The conquered peoples, stripped of their 
 wives and daughters by the sword, and indisposed to con- 
 tract domestic ties, from the pressure of utter poverty, and 
 in some cases, from the prevalence of monasticism and the 
 monastic spirit, gradually faded and died out. And even 
 where the female captives did not apostatize to the reli- 
 gion of their masters, they were compelled to behold their 
 children brought up rigidly in the Moslem faith. 
 
SECONDARY CAUSES INSUFFICIENT. 589 
 
 I have discliarged my promise of enumerating what seem 
 the secondary causes and favourable circumstances to whicli 
 Islamism owes its success ; and as it is our duty to deal 
 with the secular rather than the religious aspects of 
 questions like this, I shall not dwell upon what falls within 
 the province of the theological teacher, more properly than 
 that of the historical student. Yet the causes and conse- 
 quences of religious revolutions are so intimately bound up 
 with the religious ideas, of which they are the outgrowth, 
 that the simplest record of events would be imperfect, which 
 made no reference to the nature of these ideas, and failed to 
 ask, in what their strength, vitality, and vivifying power 
 consisted. This must, I think, have struck every reader as 
 the one great defect which mars the splendid pages of 
 Gibbon. Where religion is involved, he seems ever to hover 
 round his subject, without penetrating into the heart of it. 
 Sceptical as to the existence of religious truth, he did not 
 care to search for the inner character of the special truth 
 which was the living and operative element in this immense 
 and, I will venture to say, on his principles, inexplicable move- 
 ment of the human mind. And therefore, the great sceptic, 
 " smiling, put the question by." We are, however, it may be 
 assumed, conscious that the form and nature of the social 
 life in which we find ourselves, is the result of a revolution 
 brought about by the action of religious ideas. And we 
 are also conscious that, because these ideas were living, 
 and true, and strong, and indestructible, they developed 
 themselves, despite of all difficulty and opposition, first, 
 in the practice of those who received them, and then in ex- 
 ternal institutions, which have changed not only the moral 
 condition, but the outward aspect of human society. When, 
 therefore, we encounter another great spiritual influence 
 exhibiting in its action upon mankind many features 
 analogous to that which has been experienced by ourselves, 
 — immense activity for instance, and immense success, — 
 
590 ISLAMISM. 
 
 if we have any faith in our own position, we shall be 
 constrained to believe that something living, and true, and 
 strong, and indestructible, was underlying this other move- 
 ment also, helping to bring it to the birth, and supplying 
 it with that unexhausted vigour by which it pervaded and 
 subdued half the population of the known world. The great 
 fundamental principle of Islamism will not escape the 
 thoughtful student of history, and when he has once 
 mastered its true character, he will not be surprised at its 
 victorious achievements and extraordinary strength. The 
 Monotheism of Mohammed, the simple proclamation of the 
 Unity of God, had it taken no other shape than that of a 
 mere formal proposition, would have fallen ineffectually upon 
 the minds of men ; for men are never moved in masses by 
 abstractions, and this particular doctrine has more than once 
 been put forth, without being followed by any such results. 
 But the idea of Mohammed involved much more than mere 
 arithmetical unity. The God he proclaimed to his people was 
 not merely One, but a personal and verily present God, an em- 
 bodied Will, an unseen but real Power, legislating for them, 
 speaking to them, encouraging, menacing, warning ; enforcing 
 the destruction of idolatry and error, by terrible penalties 
 and exquisite rewards. To the idea of Unity were added 
 the attributes of vitality, personality, volition, will, moral 
 purpose, power, and providence ; or, in less scholastic 
 language, the God of Mohammed was a real, living, acting 
 Being, ruling, directing, and assisting His people ; ordaining 
 that these things should be, and that those should not be ; 
 perpetually leading them on by the hand, in a path already 
 defined by a steady, personal, immutable Will. I am nob 
 concerned at present with the faults and short-comings of 
 this idea; nor shall I stop to point out the additional 
 elements which are required to supplement and perfect it. 
 We are concerned with the fact, that it came forth before 
 the men of that generation, as a reality and a power, when 
 
THE ROOT-PRINCIPLES OF ISLAMISM. 591 
 
 the human mind was oppressed with a sense of utter 
 unreality "in all around it, and degraded by the pressure ol 
 positive falsehood and corruption. Disgusted by the loath- 
 some impurity of the old national Fetish- worship ; blinded by 
 metaphysical subtleties and ever-unsuccessful attempts at the 
 logical definition of divine things ; distracted by a divided 
 worship ; deafened by the sound of perpetual controversy, 
 and tossed to and fro by the flux and reflux of opinion, even 
 the most earnest minds must have regarded God as a Being 
 very far away from them, and yearned for one like Him, 
 whom Mohammed proclaimed, an actual Teacher, Leader, and 
 Judge of men. At that moment a voice was heard declaring 
 to the poor Arab locust-eaters, the old Jewish truth, " There 
 is a God living, and personal, no empty formula to play 
 with, but a real Father and Lord, who sits in the highest 
 heavens, yet actually governs the kingdoms of the earth, not 
 far from every one of us, ruling the nations with a mighty 
 hand and an outstretched arm. He is your God, and you 
 are His people, the champions of His cause, the chosen 
 ministers of His will : go forth in His name to victory." 
 And they arose and conquered the world. 
 
 It is, as we have said, the province of the theologian to 
 point out that the grandeur of the idea ought not to blind 
 our eyes to its imperfection, and that, as it represents but 
 a single side of the truth, it cannot be destined to maintain 
 a permanent empire over the human intelligence. Yet we 
 may admit that the historian knows its outgrowth to have 
 been partial, temporary, and local. It has resulted in con- 
 quest, not in the permanent effects of conquest ; in conver- 
 sion, but not in the true fruits of conversion. Islamism has 
 overrun large portions of the earth's surface, but it has 
 created no polities which are not either already extin- 
 guished, or exhibit manifest signs of corruption and decay. 
 It has received vast numbers of human beings into its faith, 
 but its proselytism ceased with its aggression. It has never 
 
592 MOHAMMED. 
 
 given birth to a " Church," in the true sense of the word, — a 
 living society, which attests its life by growth and expan- 
 sion, and the assimilation of foreign elements into itself. It 
 gave birth to a brilliant civilization, in Cairo, in Damascus, 
 in Cordova, in Bagdad ; yet this civilization was not the 
 fruit of its religious faith, it was rather produced in spite of 
 it. Where the civilization flourished, the faith decayed, and 
 history shows no instance of their lasting co-existence. 
 
 A very brief narrative of events will be sufficient where 
 the facts are probably familiar to all. Mohammed was born 
 in the year 570 a.d. His father was of a family distin- 
 guished in the wars of his country, and had himself de- 
 fended Mecca against the Abyssinians. But the future 
 Prophet lost both his parents in infancy. Abou-Taleb, his 
 uncle, protected the orphan. This protection, however, 
 did not elevate him very highly in the social scale. The 
 boy became a camel-driver, — an occupation which engrossed 
 his early yeara, and gave him an acquaintance with persons 
 and places which exercised no small influence upon his intel- 
 lect and future fortunes. Khadijah, a rich widow, employed 
 him to superintend and regulate her affairs ; and being 
 pleased with the skill and integrity of his management, 
 eventually espoused him. His easy circumstances per- 
 mitted idleness, or, at any rate, rescued him from the neces- 
 sity of manual employment. Henceforward, his time was 
 spent in meditation : he sought the silence and solitude of 
 the desert ; he spent whole nights plunged in the profound- 
 est reveries. At length, when forty years of age, — ever a 
 mystic number in the East, — he declared his mission and 
 his designs. Those intrusted with this confidence were, in 
 the first instance, a small band. Khadijah his wife. Said 
 his freeman, Ali his cousin, and Abou-beker his intimate 
 friend. To them he disclosed the revelations made to him 
 by the angel Gabriel, which he embodied in " the Book " 
 (Al-Koran), and designated the doctrines it contained as 
 
HIS BIRTH AND FLIGHT. 593 
 
 " Islam," a word signifying complete abandonment to God. 
 The faithful few did not very rapidly increase their numbers. 
 Mohammed, however, was not discouraged ; he invited his 
 kinsmen, about forty in number, — forty again, — to a ban- 
 quet, and after a brief address, demanded, " Who will be my 
 Yizier, my Brother, my Deputy?" All were silent. Then 
 the fiery Ali broke forth, " I will : I will beat out the teeth, 
 pull out the eyes, rip up the bellies, and break the legs of 
 all who oppose you ! I will be your vizier over them." 
 Notwithstanding this highly encouraging response, Moham- 
 med did not make much progress with his countrymen. 
 The vested interests of the Koreishite priesthood were 
 against him. He became the object of popular odium. Old 
 Abou-Taleb warned him of the fact. But the Prophet was 
 inspired with the true spirit of religious enthusiasm, if with 
 nothing else. " If all the tiles on the housetops were 
 devils," said Luther, at the gates of Worms, " I would not 
 go back!" "Uncle," replied Mohammed, " if they could 
 set the sun against me on my right hand, and the moon on 
 my left, I would not abandon the affair !" * He continued 
 in his course ; but the Prophet was not accepted in his own 
 country. Persecution became very violent ; he had lost the 
 faithful Khadijah ; Abou-Taleb, too, was gone, and at last Mo- 
 hammed was compelled to fly from before the face of his ene- 
 mies, and take refuge in Yathreb, a city which had long been 
 the rival of Mecca. This was the famous 
 Hegira, or Flight, from which the Mo- ^^*^ "^"^^^ ^•°- ^^^^ 
 hammedans date the commencement of their era. Yathreb, 
 now Mediua-tal-Nabi, or the "City of the Prophet," received 
 him with open arms. His first care was to crush the Ko- 
 reishites. With only 313 men, he fell upon a thousand 
 of them at Bedar, and, by scattering a handful of dust in 
 the air, he at the same time scattered his almost victorious 
 
 * Ockley, Life of Mohammed, p. 15 : Bohn. 
 2 Q 
 
594 MOHAMMED. 
 
 enemies before him, with the imprecation, " May your face 
 be confounded ! " Still the war continued with unmitigated 
 ferocity and dubious success. To his other enemies were 
 now added the Jews. He was defeated at Ohad. The Jews 
 and Koreishites besieged him in Medina. He cut a formid- 
 able trench before the city, from which this struggle is 
 known in history as the "War of the Ditch ;" and partly 
 by the effect of this expedient, partly by a successful at- 
 tempt at sowing dissension in the hostile camp, he dispersed 
 the besiegers, and made a truce for ten years with 
 his enemies from Mecca. During this period he 
 entered the city itself, and made many conversions, probably 
 commenced some intrigues ; but the ])eople of Mecca are 
 said, in the year 630 a.d., to have broken the truce. This 
 time Mohammed was instantly upon them, at the head of 
 ten thousand men. He made his way into the city almost 
 without opposition. Seven times he rode on his camel 
 round the Caaba, then, entering, proclaimed with a loud 
 voice, " Alia akbar ! " (God is great), and gave 
 orders for the destruction of the three hundred 
 and sixty idols which adorned or polluted its walls. 
 
 He had now reached the object of his ambitious life and 
 fervent fanaticism. Chief of a powerful nation, and recog- 
 nized Prophet of God, he harangued his followers to the effect 
 "that God had put to flight his enemies, and put under his 
 feet everything that is visible, — men, animals, goods, riches, 
 — except only the government of the Caaba and the keeping 
 of the cup for the pilgrims to drink out of." * It does not 
 seem certain whether it was at this time, or a little before it, 
 that the firmness of his faith, or the vastness of his ambition, 
 induced him to defy, by an invitation to adopt Islamism, the 
 two most powerful potentates then existing in the world, 
 — Chosroes, king of Persia, and Heraclius, emperor of the 
 East. Chosroes tore the letter in pieces, and declared that if 
 * Ockley, p. 54. 
 
HIS DEATH. 595 
 
 the writer were not cured of his insanity, he would have his 
 head. " So shall his kingdom be rent piecemeal !" replied 
 the indignant Prophet. Heraclius, it is said by the Arabs, 
 treated the missive with respect, and placed it beneath his 
 pillow. " I will disturb his slumbers," must have been the 
 sender's thought. In a few years both predictions were fully 
 realized. But not by Mohammed himself. His successes 
 were limited to the submission of all the Arab tribes, who 
 voluntarily professed the new faith, or were exterminated by 
 Khaled, the Sword of God. Once only it seemed probable 
 that he would be compelled to measure himself against 
 the Byzantine emperor. A quarrel with the Syrian 
 Greeks, whose country had been reconquered by Heraclius 
 from Chosroes, brought Mohammed into the field. Mounted 
 on his camel, and clad in robes of green, he appeared at the 
 head of 10,000 horsemen, 20,000 foot-soldiers, and 12,000 
 camels. Heraclius had raised the force, and revived the 
 reputation of the Roman army, as it was still called ; but it 
 fell back before this formidable foe. The Prophet returned 
 to his country, and, probably feeling the approach of disease, 
 made a magnificent pilgrimage to Mecca, at the head of 
 114,000 followers. Scarcely had he reached Medina once 
 more, when he was struck down by the hand 
 of death, on the 8th of June, 632 a.d., the 
 eleventh year of the Hegira, and the sixty-first of his age. 
 
 The death of the Prophet for a moment imperilled 
 the success of his great attempt. Jle had left no special 
 directions either as to the form of government to be 
 established after his decease, or as to the order of succes- 
 sion. Faction availed itself of the omission, and a period 
 of anarchy seemed at hand. Ali was undoubtedly, from 
 relationship as from character and reputation, the fittest of 
 all the claimants for the glorious but difficult position of 
 leader o^f the tribes of Islam. He was son of Abou-Taleb, 
 and cousin-german of the Prophet, the very earliest of 
 2 Q 2 
 
596 THE SARACENS. 
 
 his converts (save Said and Khadijah), and, finally, the 
 husband of his daughter Fatima. But the intrigues of 
 Ayesha, Mohammed's favourite wife, procured the election 
 of her father, Abou-beker, after a hot dispute be- 
 tween the people of Mecca and those of Medina, 
 each of whom, like the men of Judah and Israel, claimed 
 the " greatest share" in the Prophet. The Khalif (Kha- 
 lifah, "successor" or "vicar"), says the quaint historian 
 of the Saracens, "had work enough to maintain his new 
 government, for it had not as yet taken such deep root in the 
 hearts of men, but that they would very willingly have 
 shaken it off, had they known how."* But the great dif- 
 ficulty was the common diffijculty in all feeble or unsettled 
 governments, — an " ignorant impatience '* of taxation. 
 " They will say their prayers," said Omar, to the new Master 
 of the Faithful, " but they refuse to pay their money," — a 
 perplexity which has beset rulers of o^ther creeds and times. 
 The Gordian knot of this difficulty was cut by Khaled, the 
 Sword of God, who commenced his brilliant career by 
 striking off the head of a leader among the recalcitrant chiefs, 
 Malec Ebn Noweirah ; but the peace of the Khalif was also 
 disturbed by a rival apostle and prophet, Moseilama, who 
 had composed a koran in imitation of Mohammed, and was 
 attracting a large number of followers. It cost the orthodox 
 a bloody battle before they could rid themselves of the 
 impostor, who was transfixed by a black slave; with the 
 very javelin that had slain Hamza, the uncle of Mohammed. 
 Of the foreign conquests of Abou-beker we must speak 
 hereafter. He died in their mid-career, on the 
 23rd of August, 634 a.d., the very day on which 
 Damascus was taken by storm. His character may be 
 judged of by the fact that the whole inventory of his 
 property amounted to five drachmas, which he ordered to be 
 
 * Ockley, p. 84. 
 
ABOU-BEKER AND ALL 597 
 
 distributed among the Mussulmans. " A hard pattern for his 
 successor," as Omar, his successor, truly said. Ali now hoped 
 that his claim would be recognized. But the dying man had 
 appointed Omar to say the public prayer in his place, and 
 the party of Ali appear to have felt themselves incapable of 
 offering opposition. There was considerable controversy 
 about the title of the new ruler. Originally, they had styled 
 him " Khalif of the Khalif of the Apostle of God ;" but, wisely 
 reflecting that the title was a very long one, and that in time 
 it would grow indefinitely longer, they substituted, as more 
 practicable, " Emperor of the Believers." The bril- 
 liant reign of Omar was occupied in the con- 
 solidation of his domestic power, and in an almost uninter- 
 rupted career of external conquest. He fell, in 
 the tenth year of his reign, by the dagger of a 
 Persian slave, as he was saying prayer in the mosque. 
 
 For the third time Ali was within a single step of the 
 throne; for the third time he was disappointed. Omar, during 
 the three days for which he lingered, would declare no suc- 
 cessor. He, however, appointed a committee of six to decide 
 the question ; among which number were Ali and Othman, 
 the editor, as we should call him, of the fragmentary 
 contents of the Koran. The latter proved himself more 
 compliant to the demands of his colleagues, and was, in 
 consequence, elected. " Though a religious man in his way," 
 we are told, " and well disposed, he was, nevertheless, very 
 unfit for government. He committed a great many im- 
 politic acts, and gave occasion to his enemies to murmur 
 and rebel against his government."* He was threatened 
 with deposition : cabals and conspiracies were multiplied 
 on every side. The treachery of his secretary, who forged 
 letters in his name, greatly increased the general animosity. 
 At last, he was invested, in his own house, by the Egyptian 
 
 * Ockley, p. 278. . . 
 
698 THE SARACENS. 
 
 insurgents, and slain, notwithstanding some partial assistance 
 from Ali, with the Koran in his lap, at the age of eighty- 
 two. 
 
 The forbearance of Ali was at last rewarded. On the 
 very day of Othman's death, the leading chieftains 
 took the oath of allegiance to him, many of them, 
 however, with the reservation of breaking it on the first 
 favourable opportunity. He, at first, refused the dignity ; 
 declaring, whether with sincerity or not it is impossible to 
 say, that he was ready to serve, but unwilling to rule. If 
 he entertained a presentiment of the bloodshed and dis- 
 sension which his accession was to cause, he may well 
 have paused before plunging into the frightful anarchy 
 which ensued. The friends of Othman, who were his 
 bitterest enemies, may be regarded as representatives of 
 the ancient Koreishites, whom the triumph of Mohammed 
 reduced to obscurity. The Fatimites, so called from All's 
 wife, the Prophet's daughter, on their part represented the 
 victors in the revolution which he brought about. These 
 were henceforth the two leading parties of Islamism. The 
 *' ancient grudge " was not appeased by their common adop- 
 tion of the new faith. Under the names of Sonnites, the 
 adherents of Othman, and Shiites (Sectaries or Separatists), 
 who continue their allegiance to Ali and the family of the 
 Prophet, these two sects have cursed, persecuted, and mur- 
 dered each other for about eleven hundred years. The 
 schism, if fatal to themselves, has been fortunate for Chris- 
 tendom. To the present day, the Sonnite descendant of the 
 Turcoman would scarcely combine with the Persian Shiite, 
 even to satisfy their common animosity against the Cross. 
 Throughout the whole of Ali's reign he was engaged in a 
 ceaseless struggle with these implacable enemies. To this 
 period belong many of the most interesting inci- 
 dents of Saracen story. The disaffected governors 
 of the provinces raised the gory shirt of the murdered 
 
MOAWIYAH. 599 
 
 Othman above the pulpit of Damascus, and thousands of 
 furious fanatics flocking to this strange standard, swore 
 vengeance against the house of Ali. But on the " Day of the 
 Camel," beneath the walls of Bussorah, the rebels were cut to 
 pieces, and Ayesha, the Prophet's widow, who had all along 
 been the leading spirit of the opposition, was made captive, 
 after a desperate struggle around the animal which bore her 
 litter. 
 
 The battle of Bussorah, however, did not rid Ali of his two 
 most formidable foes, Moawiyah, who had reduced Rhodes to 
 the dominion of the Khalifate,and Amrou, conqueror of Egypt. 
 With these indefatigable adversaries, the Fatimites are said 
 to have fought the incredible number of ninety battles in 
 one hundred and ten days. In the last of these, just as the 
 party of Moawiyah was about to give way, Amrou upreared 
 the Koran upon a lance, and restored the fortunes of the rebels 
 when at their last extremity, by the ingenious expedient of 
 declaring that the holy book, and not the sword, should 
 decide their differences. The result was a singular one. 
 Three frenzied zealots bound themselves to cut short the 
 tangled web of strife and intrigue by the slaughter of the 
 three leading chiefs. Poisoning their weapons, they went 
 forth upon their errand. Ali was the only victim. Like 
 his predecessor, he was stabbed in a mosque. The two 
 others escaped. 
 
 At the moment of his death, Moawiyah, his rival, "son of the 
 Liver-eater," held possession of Syria, Palestine, and Egypt, 
 and had been proclaimed Khalif in these countries.* Hasan, 
 the son of the murdered man, though nominated at first to 
 succeed his parents as leader of the Fatimites, did not feel 
 himself strong enough to contend against such an enemy. 
 He set forth to meet him in battle ; but either distrusting 
 his success, or disinclined, from the natural amiability of his 
 
 * After the battle of Chud, his mother, Hind, had eaten the liver of 
 Haniza, Mohammed's uncle. 
 
600 THE SARACENS. 
 
 character, to further effusion of blood, he consented to an 
 abdication. Hosein, the younger brother, opposed it vehe- 
 mently, but in vain. In a few months the deposed Khalif met 
 the fate which his dangerous proximity to the throne insured, 
 and died of poison administered by the machina- 
 tions of the reigning family. With him concluded 
 the dynasty of the family of the Prophet. 
 
 The son of the Liver-eater was now without a rival, and 
 took possession of the whole Khalifate. "With him began the 
 dynasty of the Ommiades, from Ommia, another form of his 
 own name, or that of his grandfather. For ninety-two years 
 this family were invested with the regal and sacerdotal office. 
 The natural beauty and advantageous situation of the Syrian 
 Damascus induced the Ommiades to adopt this city for their 
 capital, and here they established a splendid court. But 
 they never succeeded in quenching all elements of resistance. 
 " The family of Hashem, of which were Mohammed and 
 Ali," says the Arab historian, " lay like coals raked up in 
 embers not able to stir."* The hearts of the people were 
 with Hosein, who had escaped his elder brother's fate ; 
 but the Khalif disposed of the army as he would. Yet 
 even in this case it was seen that the elements of real 
 strength and permanent power are to be found in the former 
 rather than in the latter source of political supremacy. The 
 Ommiad Khalifs, degenerate in personal qualities, and stained 
 with the blood of the children of the Prophet, gradually lost 
 their hold upon the allegiance of their subjects, and, notwith- 
 standing the energy of Merwan II., the last of their dynasty, 
 succumbed before the Abassides, so named from Abbas, an 
 uncle of Mohammed. 
 
 Abul Abbas, " the bloody," raised the black banner of that 
 
 henceforward famous race, and the white ensign, so 
 
 long victoriously borne by the house of Moawiyah, 
 
 sank into the dust. Frightful butcheries were perpetrated by 
 
 * Ockley, p. 354. 
 
THE OMMIADES AND ABASSIDES. 601 
 
 the victors. Thousands of the opposite party were poni- 
 arded every day. Four-and-twenty of the leading chief- 
 tains among the Ommiades were invited to a banquet ; in 
 the midst of their revelry a bard was introduced, who sang 
 the miserable fate of Hosein and of Said, slain by the fathers 
 of the men who surrounded the festive board. As he 
 finished, four-and-twenty executioners appeared behind the 
 chairs of the Ommiades : their heads fell upon the table, 
 and the feast was prolonged beside their gory remains. The 
 sepulchres of the Khalifs of Damascus were violated, and 
 the bones of Moawiyah and his successors reduced to ashes 
 and scattered to the winds. 
 
 The dynasty of the Abassides was now firmly established 
 throughout the East. Almansor, second of the line, destroyed 
 Ctesiphon and Seleucia, the ancient capitals of Persia and the 
 Seleucidse, in order that no rival, richer in the traditions of 
 the past, might dim the rising splendours of Bagdad, the 
 newly-selected capital. Here was the seat of that civiliza- 
 tion which, despite the stain of its sanguinary birth, so long 
 fascinated the imagination of Western Europe, borne, like the 
 bark of the poet, down the Tigris, in " the sheeny summer 
 morn" — 
 
 ** By Bagdad's shrines of fretted gold. 
 High walled gardens green and old ; 
 
 A goodly place, a goodly time ; 
 
 For it was in the golden prime 
 Of good Haroun Alraschid." 
 
 Haroun, indeed, the third of the dynasty of the Abassides, 
 saw the culmination of Saracen glory in the East, at 
 the time when the star of the Carlovingian house 
 culminated in the West, and has been hailed by history as the 
 worthy contemporary of Charlemagne. His most glorious ex- 
 ploits were performed against the Greek empire. Eight times 
 he invaded the Greek territory ; he vanquished, successively, 
 Irene and the usurper Nicephorus ; he razed the city of 
 Hei-aclea, on the Pontus, and forbade its reconstruction ; he 
 
602 THE SARACENS. 
 
 imposed a tribute upon the Byzantines, which he compelled 
 them to pay in money stamped with his own effigy. Had 
 the two heroic representatives of the two twin civilizations 
 met in the conflict of battle, the scimitar of Damascus would 
 doubtless have recoiled before the Frankish battleaxe, as it 
 did on the ever-memorable field of Tours. But in all the 
 arts and refinements of peace, the victory would have 
 remained with the courtly oriental. In mathematical 
 science, in astronomy, in chemistry, in medicine, the Saraceny 
 V had revived the knowledge of Greece, and surpassed it. 
 Algebra and the Arabic numerals are the familiar evidence 
 of what Europe owes to the ingenious race which she so 
 long regarded as her most deadly foe. 
 
 The Khalifate of Bagdad had supplanted the Khalifats 
 of Damascus, and the Abassides waded knee-deep in the 
 blood of the rival house. Yet the proscribed family were not 
 utterly annihilated. One of the unfortunate Ommiades, 
 Abderaman, a mere youth, escaped the sword of his per- 
 secutors. He sought refuge in various parts of Egypt, 
 among the Bedouins of Barca, and with other North- African 
 tribes. Ultimately the Arabs of Spain, who had by this 
 time obtained a firm footing in the country, invited him 
 across the straits. As we have already seen, he 
 responded to the call, and having been proclaimed 
 king, revived in Europe the fallen fortunes of his house.* 
 Henceforward the Khalifate of Cordova yielded neither in 
 material splendour, nor in warlike glory, nor in the renown 
 that waits upon science and civilization, to its Asiatic rivals 
 of Damascus and Bagdad. 
 
 We have now glanced briefly at what may be called the 
 domestic history of the Khalifate. It remains for us to 
 give an equally brief sketch of its foreign extension. At the 
 period to which we have brought down their history, the 
 Saracens were masters of an empire nearly as extensive as 
 * Lecture X. 
 
FOREIGN CONQUESTS OF THE KHALIFATE. 603 
 
 that of Rome in her palmiest days. On the east it had passed 
 the Indus, and was established in the country of the Five 
 Eivers. The countries which lie towards the sources of the 
 Indus, and beyond the banks of the Oxus, and on the north- 
 east coast of the Sea of Aral, were also theirs. Here " silken 
 Saraarcand" formed a magnificent emporium for their 
 traffic with the nations of eastern Asia. The Caspian and 
 the great Caucasian chain prevented their progress to the 
 north. Nor do they appear to have effected any permanent 
 settlement west of the Taurus and the Cilician gates ; those 
 great barriers of Asia Minor, — barriers, however, over which, 
 in after-days, the Turcoman triumphantly carried the banner 
 of tlie Crescent and the faith of the Prophet. But the 
 Saracen possessed the whole seaboard of northern Afiica, 
 and even that part of its most western coast which lies 
 between the spurs of the Atlas and the Atlantic Ocean. In 
 Europe, if we except the province of Septimania in southern 
 France, his conquests did not pass beyond the Asturian 
 mountains and the Pyrenees. But he had won the rich 
 islands of Corsica, Sardinia, Sicily, Cyprus, and Crete, and 
 established the terror of his name by many a successful 
 descent upon the Italian mainland. By what victories, and 
 in what order, were these immense dominions acquired ? 
 
 The whole process may be conveniently divided into stages : 
 the consolidation of the Arab tribes in the Arabian peninsula 
 itself; the conquest of Syria, the conquest of Persia, the 
 conquest of Egypt ; the interruption in this onward march 
 of victory, caused by the internal discord which disturbed 
 the Khalifate of Ali and his Ommiad successors ; the re- 
 sumption of aggressive movements on the side of Asia 
 Minor and Constantinople, with the reduction of the ancient 
 Sogdiana and the country beyond the Oxus; the immense 
 impulse which carried the Arab horsemen over all the pos- 
 sessions of the Greek empire in Africa, and through the 
 Moorish tribes, into the very waves of the "Western Ocean ; 
 
604 THE SARACENS. 
 
 and finally the invasion of Europe, the subjugation of Spain, 
 and the daring project of passing through France and 
 Germany, by the course of the Danube, to the gates of Con- 
 stantinople, which was arrested on the field of Tours. 
 
 On the first of these topics we have already spoken. It 
 includes the life of Mohammed (570—632), the reigns of his 
 immediate successors (632 — 661), the dynasty of the Oaimi- 
 ades (661 — 750), and the dynasty of the Abassides, to the 
 reign of Haroun-al-Raschid (750 — 786). From the Hegira 
 (622) to the entrance of Abderaman into Spain (756), 
 only one hundred and thirty-four years elapsed ; yet this 
 period saw the establishment of the Prophet's power over 
 the united tribes of Arabia, and the foundation of the 
 Khalifates of Damascus, of Bagdad, and of Cordova. 
 
 The Arab conquests during this time were in some measure 
 contemporaneous. It will, however, aid the memory to 
 consider them as they were separately developed. It was 
 during the reign of the immediate successor of the Prophet 
 that they may be fairly said to have commenced ; for, as we 
 have seen, Mohammed himself was brought face to face with 
 the Greek empire only for a single moment. Abou-beker, 
 however, no sooner felt himself securely seated upon the 
 throne, than he sent what we should call a circular dispatch 
 to all the Arab tribes, summoning them to join 
 'his standard. " This is to acquaint you," so runs 
 the document, " that I intend to send the true believers 
 into Syria, to take it out of the hands of the infidels. And 
 ~I would have you to know, that the fighting for religion is 
 an act of obedience to God."* When his forces were assem- 
 bled, he gave them special directions for their conduct, which 
 are both interesting and important, as they cast a considerable 
 light upon the spirit and objects of the earlier Saracen 
 invasion. " AVhen you meet with your enemies, acquit your- 
 selves like men, and do not turn your backs ; and if you get 
 * Ockley, p. 93. 
 
SIEGE OF DAMASCUS. 605 
 
 the victory, kill no little children, nor old people, nor women ; 
 destroy no palm-trees, nor burn any fields of corn ; cut down 
 no fruit-trees, nor do any mischief to cattle, only such as you 
 kill to eat. When you make any covenant or article, stand 
 to it, and be as good as your word. As you go on, you will 
 find some religious persons that live retired in monasteries, 
 proposing to themselves to serve God that way : let them 
 alone, and neither kill them nor destroy their monasteries. 
 But you will also find another sort of people, who belong to 
 the synagogues of Satan, and have shaven crowns ; be sure 
 you cleave their skulls, and give them no quarter, till they 
 either turn Mohammedans or pay tribute."* 
 
 The first exploit of the armies thus sent forth to battle and 
 pillage was the capture of Bostra, the key of the Syrian pro- 
 vince. The Greek empire was in a pitiable state : overrun by 
 both the Goth and the Hun ; threatened by the proud and 
 powerful monarch of Persia, and lacerated by internal blood- 
 shed, it presented but a feeble image of the majestic authority 
 whose once awful name it had a,ssumed. After Phocas had 
 murdered his master, we are told by the historian, such la- 
 mentable havoc followed among the legions, that, in seven 
 years' time, only two soldiers remained who had witnessed the 
 inauguration of the usurper. Heraclius, an able prince and 
 a brave soldier, had done something towards a restoration of 
 the old traditionary glories of Home. But his attention was 
 absorbed by Persia ; his arms employed in re-conquering the 
 provinces which had been subjugated by that power. He 
 heeded not the dark cloud, about the bigness of a man's 
 hand, which was gathering in the southern horizon. Before 
 he became aware of its nature, it had covered the heavens 
 with blackness, and swept the earth with the fury of a 
 tornado. Bostra fell at once : the invaders dashed on, and 
 laid siege to Damascus. Heraclius sent an army of 70,000 
 men to its assistance. They were swept away by the 
 * Ockley, p. 94. 
 
606 THE SARACENS. 
 
 scimitar, and the Saracens poured into the town. Before 
 three days had elapsed, Khaled, who, more than any other 
 commander, ancient or modern, seems to merit the common 
 epithet of " thunderbolt of war," had left Damascus behind 
 him, and was on his way to fresh victories. The battle of 
 Yermouk, which lasted several days, laid open the way to 
 Palestine, and practically achieved its subjugation. Thrice 
 were the Saracens beaten back, and thrice were they com- 
 pelled to return to the charge, by the tears and entreaties, 
 the imprecations and blows of the women stationed in the 
 rear. *' Hell-fire is behind you," cried Abu-Sofian before the 
 fight Yet Abu-Sofian, forced to recoil with the rest, was 
 brought up, and compelled to renew the combat, by the 
 more mundane retribution of a hearty blow upon the head 
 with a tent-pole, inflicted by one of their viragos. Omar had 
 now succeeded Abou-beker, who, as we have said, died on 
 the day when Damascus feU. To Omar belongs the glory of 
 reducing Jerusalem. The city capitulated, upon terms which 
 Ockley has given at length, because they were the pattern 
 which Mohammedan princes have chiefly imitated.* They 
 mainly consisted in protection to the persons of the inhabi- 
 tants, and permission to retain the use of their churches. 
 The austere and ascetic Khalif made his entrance upon a 
 camel. Before him, on his saddle, he carried a bag of dates, 
 another of corn, and a leathern bottle of water. Of this 
 frugal repast he himself partook, and profiered a portion to 
 the bystanders. Ten days was the period of his stay in 
 Jerusalem. He next directed his march against Aleppo and 
 Antioch. They ofiered no real resistance ; and with the 
 fall of the latter city, the beautiful, wealthy, and voluptuous 
 capital of Syria, that province passed away for 
 ever from the Greek empire. But in the mean 
 time, the Persian kingdom had been rapidly approaching 
 the same fate. Of the armed bands who obeyed the sum- 
 * Ockley, p. 211. 
 
THE SASSANIDES. 60T 
 
 mons of Abou-beker, a considerable number, leaving to their 
 comrades the prosecution of the Syrian campaign, turned 
 their steps towards the Euphrates. The Persians collected 
 a large force to oppose their progress ; but the valour of 
 their armies had either been greatly overrated in former 
 times, or, in this terrible crisis, exhibited a marvellous de- 
 terioration. At the partition of the Macedonian conquests, 
 Seleucus had established a kingdom in those regions, which 
 subsisted under his descendants, the Seleucidse, until Arsaces 
 revolting, B.C. 256, installed the Arsacidse, or Parthian race, 
 upon the throne. These were in their turn overthrown by 
 .Ardschir, or Artaxerxes, the father of the famous Sapor, 
 with whom commenced the Persian dynasty of the Sassanides, 
 A.D. 226. The Sassanides proved themselves formidable 
 rivals of the Roman empire, whose armies they more than 
 once most signally defeated. But they were now themselves 
 to succumb to a handful of zealots, who wielded the scimitar 
 with irresistible fury and success. If we are to credit the 
 Arab chroniclers, thirty thousand of their countrymen 
 utterly routed one hundred and fifty thousand of their op- 
 ponents on the fatal field of Cadesia. The combat lasted 
 three days. The first was called that of " Concession ;" the 
 second that of " Succours," as the Arabs received a reinforce- 
 ment ; the third is known as the " Day of Cormorants," in 
 allusion to the frightful carnage which bestrewed the field. 
 We are even told that, after sunset, so obstinate was the 
 strife, the combatants hewed and hacked at each other by 
 torchlight ; and the discordant yells and screams of those 
 engaged on either side, have given to this memorable night 
 the name of the " Night of barking." On the morrow, the 
 sti-uggle was as fierce as ever ; but a whirlwind having swept 
 away the canopy which protected the Persian leader, Rus- 
 tam, from the blazing sun, he sought shelter behind his 
 baggage-mules. Here Rustam, meeting with an accident, 
 precipitated himself into a rivulet, and was slain. His gory 
 
608 THE SARACENS. 
 
 head, affixed to a lance, and placed upon his vacant throne, 
 inspired the Arabs with triumphant fury, and his own 
 followers with despair. The result was a rout of the Per- 
 sian army, complete and irremediable. The great banner 
 of the Sassanides, the blacksmith's apron of their heroic 
 founder, now expanded to an immense si^e, and, thickly 
 incrusted with gems of fabulous value, fell into the hands 
 of the victors. With the loss of this palladium of their 
 empire, the Sassanides lost all courage and hope 
 ^'^' ' of successful resistance. The Arabs went on 
 from victory to victory : they established colonies at 
 Bussorah and Kufa, in Irak; they fell furiously upon 
 Ctesiphon, which they captured without difficulty. The 
 Persians made one final effijrt, but they were utterly scat- 
 tered by the " victory of victories," a name which the Arabs 
 have given to the sanguinary battle at Nohavend, in con- 
 sideration of its importance. Ispahan was taken, Persepolis 
 sacked, and the Persian king himself nearly captured among 
 its falling palaces. He attempted to obtain assistance from 
 the emperor of China ; but the attempt was 
 ^'^' ' vain : he perished by assassination, on the banks 
 of the Oxus, and all Khorassan was added to the Saracen 
 empire. 
 
 So rolled the tide of conquest to the East. But during 
 the same time, an equally important movement occurred in 
 the opposite direction. Amrou acquired Egypt from the 
 Greek empire. Here treachery and religious dis- 
 sension materially assisted the Arab arms. The 
 Monophysite heretics, so called from their assertion of a 
 single nature only in the Son of God, were cruelly perse- 
 cuted by the orthodox Greeks, and, as a natural consequence, 
 bitterly exasperated against them. Perhaps by their as- 
 sistance, certainly without their opposition, the Khalif, after 
 a siege of fourteen months, obtained possession of Alexandria, 
 in many respects the second city in the world ; so far as the 
 
THE FALL OF ALEXANDKIA. 609 
 
 traditions of ancient learning and of the philosophical 
 schools were concerned, undoubtedly the first. Two attempts 
 were made by the Empire to recover the great prize ; twice 
 their fleet and army occupied the bay and the fortifications, 
 but twice they were repulsed by the valour of Amrou. 
 Gibbon has laboured, and not without success, to relieve the 
 memory of the victor from the odious stain of having 
 wantonly destroyed the wisdom and knowledge of the elder 
 world, so far, at least, as it was contained in the written 
 letter, by firing the library of Alexandria. What seems 
 certain is, that during the tumultuous days of the siege and 
 capture of the city, immense numbers of volumes, the most 
 precious relics of antiquity, were consumed as fuel, or made 
 away with for other purposes. The well-known tradition 
 shifts the responsibility of the act upon Omar himself, to 
 whom Amrou had applied for instructions. " If the Greek 
 writings," said the fanatic and logical Khalif, " agree with 
 the Book of God, they are useless, and need not be pre- 
 served ; if they do not agree with it, they are mischievous, 
 and ought to be destroyed." But the story is suspicious in 
 its origin, and from the channel through which it reaches 
 us. The wise administration of Amrou, his regulation of 
 the local imposts and taxation, and the important public 
 works undertaken under his auspices, prove him to have 
 been a man very difierent from the ignorant and malignant 
 barbarian which his Greek enemies represented him to be. 
 One of his projects is connected with a subject of deep 
 interest at the present day. He revived an idea, which has 
 often amused the rulers of Egypt, — the connection of the 
 Mediterranean and the Ked Sea by means of a canal. 
 M. Lesseps very probably, as a projector, considers himself 
 the successor of the Pharaohs, the Greek Ptolemies, the 
 Boman Caesars, and the Arabian Khalifs. All undoubt- 
 edly looked with some favour on the scheme, for the success 
 of which he seems inclined to involve half Europe in con- 
 
 2 R 
 
610 THE SARACENS. 
 
 tention ; yet all in turn abandoned it, convinced that it either 
 could not or ought not to be carried out. The objection of 
 Amrou was, that it would open to the unbelievers a path 
 to the holy cities. It is not impossible that the same objec- 
 tion may still have some weight with the Mussulman mind. 
 Be these things as they may, the conquest of Alexandria 
 brought with it the subjection of the greater part 
 ^' ' * of the Greek seaboard of North Africa, and by 
 the year 648 a.d., the Saracens were masters of a large 
 portion of territory, and of the city of Tripoli. ^~-~^._ 
 
 And now occurred a pause in this succession of marvels. 
 The intestine discords which followed upon the Khalifate of 
 Ali found ample employment for the Arab energies and 
 arms. Ali established himself in Irak, one of the Persian 
 conquests of the faith of Islam, a country which acquired 
 the name of " Little Arabia," from the fact that it so closely 
 reproduced the physical features of the Arab peninsula. 
 Moawiyah, his rival, ruled in Syria, where the Koreishite 
 party were predominant. We have seen the success of their 
 machinations, and their triumph, in the Ommiad dynasty. 
 The Ommiades struck for a great prize, — nothing less than 
 Constantinople itself, the capital of their enemies, the cen- 
 tral seat of the only power which made it impossible for 
 them to feel that they were as yet masters of the world. 
 So far had they advanced in the art of warfare, and so 
 entu'ely had they risen above their original instincts and 
 habits, that in 668 A.D., we find them in possession of a fleet 
 which landed their army almost beneath the walls of Con- 
 stantinople. But those walls were of portentous height 
 and thickness ; they were defended by desperate men and 
 the unknown terrors of the Greek fire. This formidable 
 combustible played such havoc with the besiegers, that on 
 six several occasions, for six successive years, they 
 were driven back, scathed and dismayed, from their 
 prey. A similar result followed the still more formidable 
 
CONQUESTS IN AFEICA. 611 
 
 attempt of the Khalif Soliman, in 718. The admirable appli- 
 cation of a new art saved the city of the Caesars for a thousand 
 years. For these disappointments on the European shore, 
 the Saracens were more than compensated in Asia. The 
 countries lying beyond the Caspian Sea, between the Oxus 
 and the Jaxartes, were reduced by the governors of Kho- 
 rassan. The new empire reached the utmost limits of that 
 established by the great Macedonian conqueror. 
 Its outlying provinces, under the name of king- 
 doms, retained a Greek civilization, the character and for- 
 tunes of which form one of the most curious and interesting 
 problems of history. For a time, at any rate, the new 
 masters of the country revived this civilization by their 
 presence, and perpetuated its traditions, until all were swept 
 away by the terrible inundations of barbaric Avar which 
 devastated the whole Asiatic continent. 
 
 In Africa, the onward course of Saracen conquest was, 
 for a brief time, arrested at Tripoli. But the Greek em- 
 perors held the whole seaboard with a very feeble grasp. 
 The subject population, exhausted by oppressive taxes, were 
 in a condition to welcome any foreign master j and the 
 Khalifs were not long in answering to a wish which, it is 
 believed, found actual expression in an invitation to the 
 Arab arms. Akbah traversed the whole strip of territory 
 which abuts on the Mediterranean with a victorious expedi- 
 tionary force j he even reached the great mystic Ocean, 
 which was deemed the ultimate boundary of the earth, and, 
 like the Lombard chief of the Abruzzi, spurred his charger 
 into the waves. A still more practical demonstration of 
 his power, was the foundation of Kairoan, south of Tunis, 
 " to curb the levity of the barbarian, and to serve 
 as a place of refuge against the accidents of war." 
 This barbarian was the Berber, or Moor, perhaps a Semitic 
 congener of the Arab himself; at any rate, a wild man 
 and a warrior, admirably adapted for assimilation with the 
 2 R 2 
 
612 THE SARACENS. 
 
 conquering race. Domestic dissension, however, for a time, 
 prevented the complete conquest of Africa. Akbah him- 
 self fell in the rude warfare waged against the Moors. The 
 Greeks still maintained a precarious hold of the coast. It 
 was not till the time of the Khalif Abd-el-Melek, 
 that Hassan, his lieutenant, asserted the Saracen 
 supremacy in North Africa, by the conflagration of Car- 
 thage, its ancient queen, and the last remaining 
 relic of what had once been the absolute dominion 
 of Home on the southern littoral of the Mediterranean, 
 The Moors gave some trouble, but not much. A final rising, 
 under their queen Kahina, was put down in 
 709 A.D. Henceforward, they were so thoroughly 
 amalgamated with their Saracen masters, that, to European 
 imagination, the two became identical. To the semi-bar- 
 barous hunters of the Atlas were ascribed the graceful 
 civilization, the accomplished arts, the learning, the poetry, 
 the chivalric spirit, the gorgeous palaces of Grenada, Cor- 
 dova, and Seville. 
 
 We have now brought down the story of the Saracen 
 successes to the period of their advent into Europe. In the 
 last lecture we detailed the circumstances of their 
 introduction into Spain, and the causes which 
 rendered possible, or at the least facilitated, their conquest 
 of the Peninsula, and that temporary triumph of their arms 
 beyond the Pyrenees, which rendered, as has been said, the 
 rulers of Samarcand and Damascus lords of the vineyards 
 of Gascony and the city of Bordeaux. We have also ex- 
 plained the reason why the dynasty of the Ommiades, after its 
 deposition in the East, revived with new splendour in the 
 West, and made Cordova more than the rival of Bagdad. 
 The flight of Abderaman from the persecuting sword of 
 the Abassides, and the fact that he sought shelter as a 
 hunted fugitive in the fastnesses of Mount Atlas, and was 
 from thence invited by the partisans of the white banner 
 
EFFECTS OF AEAB CIVILIZATION. 013 
 
 across the straits, has been ah-eady recorded in the present 
 lecture. The power of the Khalifate of Cordova, checked 
 by Charles Martel upon the field of Tours, never was ena- 
 bled to develop itself in proportions sufficiently formidable 
 to rival or seriously embarrass the great empire administered 
 from Aix-la-Chapelle ; nor, on the other hand, was the 
 precarious authority exercised by Charlemagne in the 
 Spanish marches, any real counterpoise to Saracen domina- 
 tion south of tlie Pyrenees. The day of Roncesval might 
 be set agaJr>at the day of Tours. It was long ere the guerilla 
 chieftaincies of the Asturian mountains expanded into the 
 powerful kingdoms of Aragon and Castile ; but in the mean 
 time, beside the beautiful Vega of Grenada, and in the 
 gorgeously-adorned palaces of Cordova, Toledo, and Seville, 
 the arts of peace had succeeded to the aspirations of war, 
 and a luxury, the most elaborate, brilliant, and voluptuous, 
 supplanted the iron-hilted scimitars, the banquets of dates 
 and water, the leathern clothing, of the first fanatic followers 
 of the Prophet. While Northern Europe Avas still painfully 
 emerging from the gloom of its indigenous barbarism, a 
 flood of light was poured by arts, science, philosophy, litera- 
 ture, and industrial accomplishments, over all the central 
 seats of the Saracen power, — from Samarcand to Bagdad, 
 from Bagdad to Damascus, Cairo, Fez, Cordova, and the 
 beautiful city whose gardens and palaces of world-wide fame 
 caught the cool breezes of the Sierra Nevada as they swept 
 downward to the Andalusian plains. Saracen civilization has 
 disappeared, but not like the other great Semitic civilization 
 of the ancient world. The ruins of Carthage, and the still 
 stately halls of the Alhambra, are types of their two des- 
 tinies. Of the fall of Carthage, Michelet could write Avith 
 truth : " Then was seen a thing that is found nowhere else 
 in history — an entire civilization passing away at a blow, 
 like a falling star. The periplus of Hanno, a few medals, a 
 score of verses in Plautus, and there is all that remains of 
 
614 THE SARACENS. 
 
 the Carthaginian world." But the dominion of the Khalifate 
 has done a nobler work in the world's history, and exercised 
 a larger and more permanent influence upon the minds of 
 men. The reviver, almost the creator, of the science of 
 the starry heavens, and of the analysis of those material 
 substances and forces which the genius of our own age 
 has made " the vassals of our will," the Saracen mind may 
 boast of having transmitted to the modern world the most im- 
 portant, because the earliest, elements of all that is splendid 
 or useful in human speculation. The daily study of the revived 
 philosophy of Aristotle ; the daily use of the most subtle 
 instrument of mathematical investigation, may serve to 
 aemind the two most illustrious universities of Europe, of 
 their obligations to the countrymen of Almanzor and 
 Averroes, and to keep alive, beside the Isis and the Cam, 
 traditions which have travelled from Bagdad and Samarcand. 
 Yet, perhaps, this very force and brilliancy of intellectual 
 power contained a peril for us which it was well should pass 
 away. It was well for European Christendom that the re- 
 presentative of Islamism, with whom she has mainly had to 
 deal, should have brought with him the rudeness of the 
 Asiatic steppes, rather than the fire of Arabia and the 
 refinement of Spain ; that the gallant and courteous Saracen 
 should have been replaced upon her borders by the savage 
 herdsman of the Oxus, the barbarian scion of the Turco- 
 Tatar stock, living upon mare's milk, and clad in the un- 
 dressed skins of sheep. But these are matters which belong 
 to the history of another age. We have followed the great 
 movement inaugurated by Mohammed up to the era of 
 Charlemagne. There is a pause for a moment in the story 
 of Saracen domination in Spain, soon to be broken by the 
 clash of the first onset between the chivalry of Grenada and 
 Castile. 
 
LECTURE XII. 
 
 THE CHEISTIAN CHURCH IN ITS RELATION TO 
 THE OLD SOCIETY. 
 
 IlyXai "ASov ov Kariffx^ffovffiv avrrfQ. — St. Matthew, xvi. 18. 
 
 " Quoties hoc patrum avorumque aetate negotium est magistratibus 
 datum, ut sacra externa fieri vetarent ; sacrificulos vatesque foro, circo, 
 urbe prohiberent ; vaticinos libros conquirerent comburerentque, omnem 
 disciplinam sacrificandi prseterqi;ain more Romano abolerent ? Judica- 
 bant enim prudentissimi viri omnis divini humanique juris, nihil sequ^ 
 dissolvendse religionis esse, quam ubi non patrio, sed externo ritu sacri- 
 ficaretur." — Liv. lib. xxxix. c. 16. 
 
 Synopsis. — Contemporaneous appearance of the Church and the 
 Empire in the world. — The latter possessed all the external indications 
 of permanence, yet the former survived it. — The reason why the Church 
 succeeded. — Gibbon's secondary causes delusive. — The Church unpopular 
 with the Court and Government ; with the Philosophers ; with the Popu- 
 lace. — The effect of the Church upon the old Society in several special 
 ways : in reference to marriage and thefamily life ; to celibacy; tothespec- 
 tacles ; to slavery ; to charitable institutions, — The gradual growth of the 
 political influence of the Church. — She was at first a reformer of morals, 
 rather than of laws. — Effects of the edicts of Galerius and Constantine. — 
 Action of Christianity upon the criminal and civil law. — Its effect with 
 regard to slavery ; gladiatorial games ; the observance of Sunday. — The 
 final struggle and fall of Heathenism, — All this not accomplished without 
 certain ill effects upon the character of the Church : — (1.) An infusion 
 of the secular spirit, owing to its connection with affairs of state, and 
 its practical subordination to the emperors. — (2.) An approximation to 
 the practices of Heathenism, from a spirit of accommodation. — (3.) Con- 
 fusion with the Greco-oriental Gnosis of Alexandria. 
 
 It would be something worse than a mere platitude to say, 
 that any view of the connection between Ancient and Mo- 
 dern History would be incomplete which omitted from 
 consideration the character and progress of the Chiistian 
 
616 THE CHURCH AND THE OLD SOCIETY. 
 
 Church. "We have maintained the principle, that Life is 
 the characteristic and test of what belongs to the modern 
 world, in other words, to ourselves ; and that Death con- 
 signs peoples, their annals and their institutions, to the 
 domain of ancient history. Whatever lives, and gives us 
 assurance that it exercises the functions of life, by acting 
 upon that with which it is brought into contact and relation 
 in the world around, must be regarded as connected with 
 the existing era, with our own interests, and "our own 
 age," as we are fond of calling it, however widely its present 
 may differ from its original form, or however remote may 
 be the period which beheld its birth. " The form decays, 
 the function never dies." In cases where this is true, the 
 abiding influence, as it passes onward from one generation to 
 another, links them together in£o a unity of its own, which 
 refuses to be severed by mere logical conceptions, or the 
 dramatic necessities of historical narrative. Even upon 
 principles much less wide than these, the Christian Church 
 of the first eight centuries might claim a living connection 
 with the political interests of the nineteenth, and vindicate 
 its right to be regarded as one of the great formative powers 
 which have determined the existing aspects of European 
 society, and moulded our modern life. In a sense more true 
 and deep than we can venture to develop here, a new and 
 divine life was born for the world with the birth of the 
 Divine Founder of the Church, and in that life we and all 
 men live and move and have our being.* But dismissing, 
 as we must do, what relates to the spiritual nature, and 
 purely theological history of the Christian society, we still 
 shall be compelled to recognize its political importance as 
 chief among the many subtle links which unite the old- 
 world order of things to the new. Alone, it rendered 
 
 * I may venture to refer, for illustration, to the exceedingly beau- 
 tiful chapter which concludes the second volume of Mr. Gladstone's 
 "Homer and the Homeric Age." 
 
THE CHUKCH AND THE EMPIRE. 617 
 
 possible the transition from the Empire to the barbarian 
 nationalities, and even in the very shock of their conflict, so 
 far succeeded in fusing the antagonist elements, that neither 
 entirely absorbed the other, or was itself eliminated from 
 that very complex civilization which was the result of their 
 meeting. To the Church we owe the fact, that human 
 history is still a whole ; that the chain of its continuity has 
 never been entirely severed, and that we are " heirs of all 
 the ages," though our place is in " the foremost files of time.'* 
 To the Church, therefore, and to the part it played in this 
 " cardinal and critical " period of the world's history, the 
 modern historian must direct his eyes, even though he be 
 determined, in the coldest and most dispassionate spirit, to 
 confine his regards to its purely secular aspects. Something 
 indeed of this sort must, for many reasons, be our own 
 method. We cannot trespass upon the province of religious 
 belief or theological science, hardly upon that of ecclesiastical 
 history. Happily, the late labours of distinguished men 
 have rendered the task superfluous. It will be our duty to 
 consider, very briefly, the relations of the Church to the old 
 Social Order into which she was born, and to the new one 
 which she so materially helped to form, as well as the reflex 
 influences exercised by both upon her own character and 
 constitution. " Founded on the same day," says M. de Broglie, 
 "as the Christian Church, and thereby associated, though 
 with a very difierent title, in the promotion of the same 
 work, the imperial monarchy of Rome was not called to the 
 same destiny. Their point of departure alone was common 
 to the two. While, despite the severest trials, the Church 
 took root, grew, and expanded over all the earth, the Ro- 
 man monarchy, in the full brilliance of its prosperity, at first 
 became enfeebled, was then rent piecemeal by discord, and 
 was finally dissolved. The progress of the one, and the 
 decline of the other, were in almost exact correspondence."'"' 
 * L'Eghse et I'Empire Romain, au IV. Siecle, ch. i. 
 
618 THE CHURCH AND THE OLD SOCIETY. 
 
 Aod yet, between these two powers, born into the world at 
 the same ep6ch, there could not have seemed, according to 
 the common rules of human judgment, the smallest room for 
 serious rivalry. On the side of the Empire were arrayed all 
 the material appliances, as well as all those more subtle 
 moral agencies, which seem to confer strength and stability 
 upon human institutions, — the great fact of existence and 
 assured success ; the moral vis inertice which, except under 
 very special conditions, is so great a source of strength 
 to established governments ; an admirable executive, so 
 formed as to embrace the most minute concerns of the 
 Empire, and manipulate them with exquisite skill; the 
 physical force of veteran armies ; the prestige of an almost 
 unbroken series of military triumphs; world-wide dominion ; 
 the glittering presence of imperialism ; the processions, 
 the pageants, the mysteries, the oracles, the temples, the 
 priests of an ancient and sensuously-attractive faith, — a faith 
 which penetrated and pervaded all the existing literature, 
 all public, and even private life ; and when this faith had 
 begun to fade from the thoughts and affections of the mul- 
 titude, the new Caesar-worship which supplied its place, — 
 that undefinable awe which still lingered round the name of 
 " Rome ;" — in a word, all the thousand direct and indirect in- 
 fluences which an existing domination and an established reli- 
 gion, the magic of a glorious Past, and a great, present, visible, 
 tangible power of the Sword, always have exercised, and always 
 will exercise, over the minds of men. To all this the Church 
 — speaking from the stand-y>oint of that generation — could 
 only oppose a doctrine contemptible in its antecedents, in its 
 teachers, and in itself ; a doctrine repulsive to the unregene- 
 rate instincts of the human heart, but doubly hateful to the 
 debased habits into which these instincts had been developed 
 among the imperial people. The Gospel of Christ, the mes- 
 sage of glad tidings, was no acceptable message to a gene- 
 ration which sat in darkness, and hated the light, because its 
 
EVENTUAL TRIUMPH OF THE CHURCH. 619 
 
 deeds were evil. And, therefore, among them it was not 
 proclaimed upon the housetop, or in the market-place, but 
 in the obscure dwellings of the artisan, the gladiator, and 
 the slave ; by stealth, and in the darkness of night, in 
 subterranean hiding-places, in crypts, in catacombs and 
 cemeteries ; in the stealthy haunts of the outcasts whom the 
 seething vice of a great city cast forth as from a caldron of 
 iniquity. Nor, again, did the doctrine derive strength from 
 the social influence of those who proclaimed it to the world. 
 It rested not upon the favour of the great, on the sword of 
 the soldier, or the rhetoric of the schools. Its teachers were 
 ineii who were despised, as their Master was ; men who had 
 trials of "mockings and scourgings, of bonds and imprison- 
 ment j who were tempted, who were sawn asunder, who 
 were slain with the sword ; men clad in sheepskins and 
 goatskins, destitute, afflicted, tormented ; who wandered in 
 deserts and in mountains, and in dens and in caves of the 
 earth." And yet they conquered. Neither prejudice, nor 
 persecution, nor the full exercise of imperial vengeance and 
 popular hatred, nor the established interests of Paganism, 
 nor the sophisms of philosophy, availed to arrest the progress 
 of the new faith. The strangeness of the phenomenon 
 needs no rhetorical exaggeration to move our wonder. It 
 can never be stated with the most strict adherence to naked 
 fact, and in the simplest form, without inspiring the con- 
 viction, that it is a problem whose solution transcends the 
 limits of human experience, and implies the existence of an 
 element supernatural and divine. If the Church triumphed, 
 it was not by the ordinary means, or under the usual circum- 
 stances, which produce success. It was, as has been graphi- 
 cally said by one whose genius has thoroughly grasped this 
 strange age, "in spite of the contaminating atmosphere of 
 sin which surrounded her, in spite of having to form her- 
 self, not out of a race of pure and separate creatures, but, by 
 a most literal ' new birth,' out of those very fallen masses 
 
«20 THE CHURCH AND THE OLD SOCIETY. 
 
 who insulted and persecuted her; in spite of having to 
 endure within herself continual outbursts of the evil passions 
 in which her members had once indulged without a check ; 
 in spite of a thousand counterfeits, which sprung up around 
 her and within her, claiming to be parts of her, and alluring 
 men to themselves by that very exclusiveness and party 
 arrogance which disproved their claim ; in spite of all, she 
 conquered. The very emperors arrayed themselves upon 
 her side." * 
 
 But if Christianity at last sat upon the seat of the 
 Csesars, it was only because she succeeded in doing what 
 the Csesai's had never been enabled to do ; because she 
 revived once more, in a form infinitely more pure, and with 
 an authority more awful, those great principles which had 
 been the very groundwork of Koman strength and power. 
 She brought home to the hearts of men the belief in a Di- 
 vine King, — an actual Ruler of the universe, — and of their 
 own lives in the fatherhood of God, and that sanctity of 
 human relationships which flows from and depends upon it. 
 Thus, only amid the festering corruption of a dying world, 
 was it possible that there should spring up again the old 
 reverence for the family, and its natural corollary, the con- 
 sciousness of a national life, which had given its greatness 
 and vitality to republican Rome, and which was yet to in- 
 form the tumultuous chaos of the barbarian ages with a spirit 
 of life, order, and nationality. So it came to pass that the 
 weak things of the world confounded the strong ; the Thought 
 approved itself a mightier victor than the Sword j spiritual 
 force triumphed over material force, not from the accident 
 of a favourable opportunity, but from the necessity of the case. 
 The Empire presented to the eye the external framework 
 of a political body, but the framework inclosed no living 
 soul. The Church was not as yet clothed with the palpable 
 form of a polity, but she was animated by that vigorous 
 * Kingsley's Hypatia, Preface. 
 
GIBBON'S DOGMA. 621 
 
 principle of life from which all polities derive their perma- 
 nence and strength. Of this the illustrious author of the 
 Decline and Fall appears to have been altogether insensible. 
 The relative vitality of the two societies depended upon 
 principles which he could not appreciate, or did not perhaps 
 understand. Hence his famous theory of concurrent causes. 
 When the great work of the elder Mr. Caxton, the " His- 
 tory of Human Error," is at last given to the public, it will 
 assuredly contain a long chapter upon the delusions which a 
 dogma, embodied in an epigram, has palmed off upon the 
 unreflecting world. 
 
 With this may be contrasted the language of a later his- 
 torian, who has approached the study of the same period in 
 a very different spirit : — " Perfectly independent of Chris- 
 tianity, this Roman civilization might have been expected 
 to be very decidedly hostile to it. It did not fail to be so. 
 Abandoning, so far as she was concerned, its usual habits of 
 politic toleration, the Roman society lavished upon Chris- 
 tianity contempt, outrage, and persecution. During three 
 centuries, the Christian religion grew and expanded amid 
 ignominy and penal tortures. Philosophers scoffed at, and 
 politicians punished it ; the populace pursued it with fero- 
 cious yells and homicidal clamour. The blood of martyrs 
 stained the basements of the most beautiful buildings in 
 Rome ; the smoke from their funeral pyres begrimed the 
 roofs." * Which statement is most in accordance with the 
 facts ? Let us examine the matter a little more closely. 
 
 It was the wise toleration, we are told, of the Roman 
 religion which gave strength to the infancy of the new 
 religion, and facilitated its diffusion. Now much has been 
 idly said in praise of this Roman toleration by those who 
 ought to have been better informed. It is one of those 
 half-truths which are more pernicious than any positive 
 fiilsehood. In a certain sense, Rome was tolerant, in another 
 * De Broglie, Introduction. 
 
€22 THE CHURCH AND THE OLD SOCIETY. 
 
 she was not ; and her relations to Christianity illustrate the 
 second disposition, not the first. Roman religion was a 
 conglomerate, made up of compromises ; her Pantheon a 
 Republic of federate Divinities. It admitted any new cult 
 which would coalesce with the recognized cults, and extend 
 to them the indulgence which it had itself received. So far as 
 the new candidate for favour was willing to share the honours 
 bestowed upon its predecessors, reciprocate concessions, and 
 accept a position of equality, so far would the religious pojicy 
 of Rome regard it with indulgence. But a stern, unbending 
 religious system, which would allow no compromise, and 
 endure no amalgamation with existing systems, Rome alto- 
 gether repudiated, and set herself resolutely to put down. 
 That this was the religious policy even of the Republic, is 
 plain from the passage of Livy prefixed to the present 
 lecture. It was under the inspirations of this policy 
 that she cruelly trampled out Judaism in Palestine, and 
 Druidism in Gaul. Yet Judaism merited, and for a time 
 obtained, more merciful consideration than the new faith ; 
 for Judaism, as even Voltaire has remarked, would not 
 have the statue of Jove in the Temple of Jerusalem, but 
 Chnstianity would have removed it from the Capitol 
 of Rome. As soon, therefore, as Rome understood the true 
 character of the Christian's belief, she turned upon him 
 with greater ferocity than she had shown to either Jew or 
 Celt. The story of the proposal of a Roman emperor to admit 
 a statue of Christ into the Pantheon, whether true or not, 
 marks the period when imperial authority was as yet uncer- 
 tain about the nature of the new religion, and deemed that 
 it might be dealt with like the numerous other superstitions 
 which had passed into Italy from the East. The error was 
 not of long continuance. Christianity was neither to be 
 caressed nor coerced. Her bold proclamation of equality of 
 rank and indifference of race, in the relations of man to God, 
 was entirely opposed to that spirit of imperial absolutism 
 
EOMAN GOVERNMENT NOT TOLERANT. 623 
 
 which had succeeded to the more constitutional government 
 of Augustus. It was opposed alike to the instinct of the 
 Roman and the policy of the statesman, to regard the bar- 
 barian and slave populations as in any way homogeneous 
 with the real citizens of the capital. The proclamation to 
 " barbarian, Scythian, bond and free," of universal fraternity, 
 of liberty in Christ, and equality in the sight of a common 
 Father, was certain to be misinterpreted by the narrow- 
 minded men who directed the destinies of the Empire. All 
 that intense and jealous dread of the slave population, which 
 we have described in a previous lecture, was augmented 
 and inflamed by the public assertion of such a principle, and 
 its authors were visited with every penalty at the disposal 
 of the government. The moral equality of the slave and 
 the free man, in their perceptions, not unnaturally involved 
 an equality in political rights ; -and the complete organization 
 of the Christian society, extending from Syria to Spain, 
 which their own persecutions developed and brought promi- 
 nently into light, terrified the Roman officials with a dim, 
 uneasy sense of a power around them, altogether alien from 
 the imperial system, and capable of being employed to sub- 
 vert it. Eor the Christian society, therefore, toleration was, 
 for these reasons, impossible. It was impossible also, for 
 another reason. What little religious sentiment and reve- 
 rential observance still lingered in the heathenism of the 
 Decadence, was directed, in a degree unintelligible to the 
 modern mind, towards the person of the Emperor. " The 
 political spirit of the ancient religions," says Professor 
 Ranke, " displayed itself once again under a new aspect. 
 All those self-governing powers that had once filled the 
 world, had become absorbed in one concentrated whole. 
 There remained but one sole power that could be called self- 
 dependent. Religion acknowledged this when she decreed 
 divine worship to the emperor. To him temjDles were built 
 and sacrifices offered ; vows were made in his name, and 
 
624 THE CHUECH AND THE OLD SOCIETY. 
 
 festivals were solemnized in his honour ; his statues gave 
 the sacredness of a sanctuary to the place where they stood. 
 The worship men paid to the genius of the emperor was, 
 perhaps, the only one common to the whole Empire : all idol- 
 atries accommodated themselves to this, for to all it offered 
 countenance and support."* 
 
 Now, between Christianity and Caesar-worship there could 
 be no compromise. To burn incense upon the altar of the 
 emperor was a direct abnegation of the divinity of Christ. 
 Nay, even to swear by the emperor's fortune, was repugnant 
 to the feelings of the Christians, and they refused to do it, 
 fearing lest they might recognize thereby some demon or 
 profane divinity. The Church was ready to render unto 
 Caesar the things that were Caesar's, for such had been the 
 express injunction of her Divine Lord. But now Caesar 
 had come to claim the things that were God's, and the 
 Church resisted to the death. It is a notorious fact, and 
 one which casts a flood of light upon the whole question, 
 that it was for the insult to the emperor's divinity, implied 
 by his refusal to make an offering on the emperor's altar, 
 that the Christian of the early centuries suffered the pains 
 and wore the crown of martyrdom. Long before this, the 
 cunning of the Pharisee, sharpened by hatred, had foreseen 
 the necessary antagonism between the " King of the Jews" at 
 Jerusalem and the emperor on the Palatine. The insidious 
 warning, " If thou lettest this man go, thou art not Caesar's 
 friend," was prompted by the certainty that the co-existence 
 of the two powers was impossible, and that the Eoman 
 government must soon become cognizant of the fact. 
 
 If the new religion was unpopular in the court, it was 
 also not likely to be received with complacency in the 
 schools. Philosophy was as much its enemy as imperialism ; 
 for it was a protest, and a most offensive protest, against the 
 very notions which philosophy held most dear. We cannot, 
 * History of the Popes ; Preface. 
 
THE CHURCH AND THE PHILOSOPHIES. 625 
 
 indeed, include in a single class the ancient philosopliies, and 
 speak of them, as some have done, in terms of common and 
 comprehensive condemnation, without exhibiting a very 
 ridiculous and ignorant presumption. But it would scarcely 
 be incorrect to say that they had one element in common, 
 to which the doctrines of Christianity must have been sin- 
 gularly repulsive. All regarded the human will and intel- 
 lect as competent, by their own action upon themselves, to 
 work out the results of their several systems. Of a will 
 radically depraved, of an intellect limited in the sphere of 
 its action, they had almost no idea. To the conviction that 
 neither will nor intellect could be directed to any good 
 end without the overruling influence of a higher power, 
 operating by a personal and individual communication of 
 itself, they were altogether strangers. It may be doubted 
 whether the doctrine of "grace" ever penetrated into a heathen 
 intellect. It must certainly have been entirely repugnant to 
 the feeling, and alien from the habit of thought, existing among 
 those philosophers whom the Gospel encountered within 
 the precincts of the Empire. As at Athens, so elsewhere. 
 Philosophy, wdth few exceptions, had settled down into 
 a Stoic or Epicurean type, with perhaps, in some cases, a 
 leaning to Academic doctrines. But if a man was a Stoic, 
 Christianity mercilessly humiliated his pride ; if he was an 
 Epicurean, it no less mercilessly stripped him of his plea- 
 sures. If, again, he was a Platonist, it plainly asserted the 
 foolishness of his wisdom, and cast down the great idol ot 
 his imagination, — an ideal perfection only to be reached by 
 a mystic abstraction from all those human relations which 
 were now, for the first time, receiving their true interpreta- 
 tion and value in the Kingdom of God. The Stoic and 
 Epicurean conceptions of God, and moral duty, and human 
 life, were still more at enmity with the spirit of the Gospel. 
 The God of the Stoic was the great " mundane Soul," into 
 which the souls of men, if their purification had been suc- 
 
 2 s 
 
626 THE CHURCH AND THE OLD SOCIETY. 
 
 cessful and complete, were re-absorbed, to the annihilation 
 of their individual essence. He could not, therefore, regard, 
 without abhorrence, the doctrine of a personal God, the 
 Father and Ruler of men, revealing himself in His Son, 
 and winning to himself the individual soul by actual opera- 
 tion of His Spirit upon the spirit of man. The conduct 
 enjoined by the Stoic theory of life and duty, rendered 
 needful the annihilation of those very affections and prin- 
 ciples of action which the Christian was to cherish and bring 
 to perfection. The unreality, the want of living and prac- 
 tical truth, which lay hidden beneath the majestic garb of 
 the Philosophy, was at once exposed, when brought into 
 contact with the vivid reality, the actual visible power, 
 which was seen of all men in the Religion ; and the idea of any 
 agi'eement, compromise, or truce between the two, is absurd. 
 By a strange mockery of fortune, it fell to the lot of Stoicism 
 to speak its last word from a throne. Nothing could have 
 more strongly exhibited its impotence, when brought face to 
 face with that otber word, which, from caves, and catacombs, 
 and the despised places of the earth, was about to assert a 
 dominion over the hearts and lives of all men. 
 
 The relations of Christianity to the theoretic Epicureanism 
 of the schools were at least equally antagonistic. Far as 
 this was removed from the vulgar sensualism which assumed, 
 and has retained, the name, it was still further removed 
 from the doctrine of Christ and His apostles. The indif- 
 ferent gods of Epicurus were as thoroughly opposed to the 
 God of the Gospel revelation, as the impersonal God of the 
 Stoics 3 and the cosmogony of the system, as we have it in 
 the brilliant pages of Lucretius, results in a pure atheism. 
 And although the perfection of the moral life was not made 
 to consist in an apathy or annihilation of the moral nature, 
 the philosophic votaries of the Garden sought it in a com- 
 placent and self-satisfied frame of mind, undisturbed by any 
 such agitations as must attend upon erring creatures in a 
 
THE CHUECH AND THE POPULACE. 627 
 
 probationary state. There is, also, no reason to believe that 
 they held the immortality of the soul, or the possibility of 
 its separation from the body. It is, therefore, needless to 
 point out that a philosophy which rested on these grounds, 
 cannot have been tolerant of a religion which taught the 
 creation of matter, the special Providence of God, the regu- 
 lation of the aflfections by moral discipline, and the doctrine 
 of a future life. In a word, it argues but a superficial 
 acquaintance with the temper of ancient philosophy, to 
 imagine that it could have heard with any feelings but those . 
 of extreme irritation and impatience, the uncompromising 
 proclamation of the Gospel, " If any man among you seemeth 
 to be wise in this world, let him become a fool, that he may 
 be wise : for the wisdom of this world is foolishness v/ith 
 God."* " I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring 
 to nothingthe understanding of the prudent." " Inthewisdom 
 of God, the world by wisdom knew not God. Hath not 
 God made foolish the wisdom of the world ? "t Nor was it 
 long before the hostility of the philosophers practically dis- 
 played itself in scornful and malignant criticism. Celsus, 
 the semi-Platonist, and Lucian, the Epicurean, may be taken 
 as types of the class. They possess the involuntary merit 
 of having elicited the earliest efibrts of Christian literature, 
 — the " Apologies." When, therefore, Gibbon spoke of the 
 philosophers' indifference to all religions, he was thinking of 
 himself, and judging antiquity by the standard of his own 
 sentiments. No process could be more unphilosophical or 
 incorrect. 
 
 But were the hatred and contempt of the powerful and 
 of the wise compensated by the affection of the vulgar 1 
 Certainly not j and for the plainest reasons. The theoretical 
 Epicureanism of the schools was, after all, less bitterly adverse 
 to Christianity than the practical Epicureanism of common 
 life. The masses were eminently sensual ; the Church set 
 
 * 1 Cor. iii. 18, 19. t 1 Cor. i. 19. 
 
 9 a *> 
 
628 THE CHUECH AND THE OLD SOCIETY. 
 
 herself sternly against sensuality in every shape. Lust^ 
 gluttony, drunkenness, and all the abominable debasements 
 in which heathenism wallowed and revelled, were branded 
 by her as accursed things, and forbidden under penalty of 
 the eternal tire. The masses were eminently idle, not living 
 by the labour of their own hands, but by the indulgence of 
 a government which pandered to their worst passionSj 
 because it could not check them, and deemed it a political 
 necessity to demoralize those classes which it must otherwise 
 have been compelled to fear. And the masses were demo- 
 ralized, sunk, says the Roman poet, so far as to have no 
 thought save for the wants of the body and the lust of the 
 eye, — " Panem et Circenses," — the daily largess of bread, and 
 the bloody spectacles of the circus. The Church told them 
 that idleness was crime, that he who would not work was 
 not fit to live, and that the pleasures for which they sold 
 their liberty and their manhood, were cruel and guilty 
 pleasures, an abomination in the eyes of the righteous God, 
 who is Judge of all the earth. Lastly, the masses were 
 eminently under the influence of certain classes of men, 
 who obtained a livelihood by pandering to their sensual 
 tastes and superstitious fears. Against all such, — priests, 
 idol-makers, magicians, astrologers, soothsayers, votaries of 
 foreign mystic rites, fortune-tellers, slave- mongers, gladiators, 
 and courtesans, the Church declared open and irreconcilable 
 war. Yet not with impunity. The tumultuous scene at 
 Ephesus was repeated all over the Empire. Calumny of the 
 most atrocious kind inflamed the popular exasperation against 
 the Christian community. Truly, the sect " was everywhere 
 spoken against." Its most innocent practices and its most 
 holy things were traduced by the vilest misrepresentations. 
 The ordinary expressions of Christian affection among a 
 brotherhood whose bond was love, were branded with an 
 ignominy which Paganism could only derive from its own 
 polluted conceptions ; the commemorative feast of the 
 
THE CHURCH AND MARRIAGE. 629 
 
 Eucharist, where bread and wine represented the flesh and 
 blood of Christ, was believed by the excited imagination ot 
 the vulgar to be a real cannibal banquet, in which the body 
 of a freshly-murdered child was devoured by the votaries of 
 this " new and horrible superstition." Even Gibbon him- 
 self, speaking of the Christians, admits " the impatient 
 clamours of the multitude demanded, with irresistible vehe- 
 mence, that they should be instantly apprehended." This, 
 then, was their true position with respect to the great mass 
 of the population among whom they moved ; and the savage 
 shout of " Christianos ad leones," " the Christians to the 
 lions," again and again repeated with horrible unanimity, 
 seems to corroborate the statement of a contemporary his- 
 torian, that " they were held in hatred and abhorrence by the 
 human race." "" 
 
 In thus briefly describing the position of Christianity 
 with reference to the court, the schools, and the populace, 
 we have partly fulfilled the proposed design of considering 
 its relations to the old society into which it was born. There 
 are, however, some particulars, not contained in this enume- 
 ration, which nevertheless deserve our notice. These we 
 shall make no attempt to exhaust. One or two must serve 
 as specimens of the rest. We have already said, and it 
 cannot be too often repeated, that the germ and formal type 
 of the national life is to be found in the family. In the 
 purity, therefore, the inviolability, and the dignity of the 
 institution upon which the family depends, is involved the 
 character of the national life itself. From a polluted foun- 
 tain none but polluted waters flow. A wrong conception of 
 the nature of the marriage tie, and the relations which arise 
 from it, vitiates the whole outgrowth of the society, and 
 iinally dissolves its coherence, by poisoning the very flesh 
 and fibres of the body politic. This is precisely what 
 occurred in Roman society. It is true that, in the earlier 
 * Tacitus. 
 
630 THE CHUECH AND THE OLD SOCIETY. 
 
 ages of the Republic, marriage Avas botli more elevated in 
 conception, and more pure in practice, than anywhere else 
 in the ancient world. Still it involved a principle which 
 was sure, in a more licentious age, to bring about its own 
 corruption and the demoralization of the State — the prin- 
 ciple of inequality between the contracting parties, as 
 evinced in the entire subordination of the wife to the autho- 
 rity of the husband. The master of the family exercised 
 a despotic and irresponsible power over his children and his 
 slaves ; nor was his wife in this respect more favourably 
 situated than a slave or child. Her natural instincts, there- 
 fore, towards freedom of action could only be indulged by 
 the assumption of an illegal license, which being, under the 
 circumstances, immoral, soon led the way to real immorality ; 
 an immorality which became most frightful licentiousness, 
 when the timid handmaid of the republican household 
 became the pampered and intriguing matron of the Empire. 
 Against this view of wedlock, and the relations flowing from 
 it, Christianity entered the strongest possible protest, not 
 only in her theoretical teaching upon the subject, but in the 
 actual examples openly exhibited to the world by the 
 constitution of the Christian family. There, the wife, placed 
 upon a moral equality with the husband, and sharing in the 
 paternal authority over the children, offered a strange spec- 
 tacle to Roman eyes, which were inclined to misinterpret her 
 freedom of action and to be offended by her personal inde- 
 pendence. The result was, indignation mingled with some 
 degree of disquiet at the nature of the new doctrines. 
 '■ Christianity," they scornfully said, " is a religion for 
 women." 
 
 If the pagan mind could not rise to the Christian concep- 
 tion of marriage, still less was it able to understand the 
 merit which the Christian society had by this time begun to 
 attach to a condition of celibacy. The qualified and con- 
 ditional praise of St. Paul had been exaggerated to a degree 
 
THE CHURCH AND CELIBACY. 631 
 
 which inflamed the imagination of enthusiastic persons of 
 either sex. A life consecrated to God, and so divested of the 
 cares, and, in some part, of the perils which waited upon 
 common life, became the favourite aspiration of multitudes 
 in the Christian community. The veiled Virgin, the de- 
 sert Anchorite, and the priest, vowed to a closed heart and 
 single life, were objects of the most profound respect, almost 
 of adoration. Their examples were highly extolled and 
 widely imitated. Of this the Eoman could understand 
 nothing. It contradicted all his instincts, all his traditions, 
 his most firmly-fixed notions of right and wrong, his whole 
 theory of the duties of citizenship. The first duty of a 
 Roman was to supply sons to Rome. This was a principle 
 which long survived the decay of many cognate patriotic 
 principles in an unpatriotic age. It was asserted in the 
 " Jus trium liberoruni ;" it was revived by imperial legis- 
 lation : the contrary principle appeared, not only to legists, 
 but to common men, mere insanity in the individual and 
 treachery to the State. And yet this contrary principle 
 entered very deeply into the Christianity of the age. Its 
 developments were then, as now, most important in deter- 
 mining the relations of the Church to^he world, and securing 
 its influence over the vulgar, by separating itself from the 
 sphere of their ordinary habits and ideas. 
 
 It is scarcely conceivable to a modern mind, how large 
 a portion of the life of the heathen was absorbed by 
 the dramatic representations of the theatre, and the more 
 repulsive exhibitions of the circus. Springing originally 
 from their religious instincts, these observances became a 
 large part of their religious system, and from theii* accord- 
 ance with the most active appetites and passions of human 
 nature, eventually engrossed the greater part of their ordi- 
 nary existence. But in the process, as often happens, the 
 meaning and purpose of the institution were forgotten, or 
 very dimly remembered, by the masses, while its external 
 
632 THE CHURCH AND THE OLD SOCIETY. 
 
 splendours held their senses in subjection. The character of 
 such institutions is ever a faithful reflex of their age. They 
 act upon popular tastes and opinions, and are, in turn, reacted 
 upon themselves. The drama of Elizabeth and that of 
 Charles II. reflect, as in a glass, the " very form and body" 
 of the Elizabethan age and the great anti-Puritan reaction. 
 The licentiousness and cruelty of what was by courtesy 
 called the Roman people of imperial Rome, called forth the 
 butcheries of the circus and the debauchery of its precincts, 
 and these daily scenes of lust and blood fostered and fed 
 high the horrible instincts from which they sprang. It is 
 quite needless to pursue a revolting subject on which we 
 have already enlarged ; but we cannot understand the posi- 
 tion of the Christian, in respect of the society beside him, 
 unless we fully realize the absorption of this society in that 
 which was an abomination to his eyes. Nor, again, can we 
 estimate, without the same conviction, the strength of the 
 antagonism with which the Church had to contend, or the 
 almost utter hopelessness of any attempt, upon her part, to 
 repress the evil. It was not until she mounted the imperial 
 throne with Constantine, that she succeeded in obtaining 
 any authoritative prohibition of the most ofiensive parts of 
 these celebrations ; and even then, the timid and hesitating 
 tone of the imperial rescript shows that the resolute soul of 
 Constantine himself quailed before the possible effects of 
 this interference with pursuits to which the multitude were 
 so passionately devoted. The feelings of the Christian, upon 
 a matter so repugnant to the spirit of his religion, may 
 easily be conjectured. Yet we are not left to the guidance 
 of mere conjecture. A very singular document, which still 
 remains to us, — " Tertullian de Spectaculis," embodies the 
 sentiments of at least the stricter teachers of the Church 
 with respect to a practice which was so firmly established 
 among the institutions of the Empire, and constituted so 
 large an element of heathen life. The " spectacles," in the 
 
THE CHURCH AND THE SPECTACLES. 633 
 
 judgment of the " fervid African," originated in the worship 
 of devils, and were maintained in the interest of devils. 
 They were the nursery of every crime, the direct contra- 
 diction of every Gospel precept which Christians were 
 bound to observe. " Si saevitiam, si impietatem, si feritateni 
 permissam nobis contendere possumus, eamus in amphithea- 
 truni.""" He closes a passionate denunciation of the guilt 
 and cruelty daily displayed in the theatre and circus, by a 
 picture of the spectacle hereafter to be disclosed by the 
 great and terrible Assize, when those who on earth had 
 exulted in the blood of martyrs, should be seen writhing in 
 the penal torments of eternal fire. This is painful language, 
 and would doubtless excite among the men of the nineteenth 
 century, according to their personal religious sentiments, 
 repugnance or contempt ; and we are not prepared to deny 
 the legitimacy of these feelings in a modified form. But if 
 we ourselves possess that charity, the want of which excites 
 such natural indignation, we must distinguish between the 
 trials of the Christian, whose religion sits in high places 
 and hears soft words, and the persecutions of the convert, 
 who had seen brethren, children, or wife, rent piecemeal by 
 beasts of prey, and lived himself in the perpetual presence of 
 the axe, the torture, and the fire. Be our judgment, how- 
 ever, of these things what it may, we shall scarcely fail to 
 see that, in " the Spectacles," as they are generically called, of 
 the old Boman regime, lay one of its strongest contrasts 
 and antagonisms to the new faith. 
 
 Another Boman, or, more correctly speaking, heathen 
 institution, brought out this contrast in an equal degree ; the 
 practice, that is to say, of jjersonal slavery. It would be 
 altogether untrue to assert, that during the earlier centuries 
 there was any direct interference, upon the part of the 
 Church, with the institution , as it legally subsisted. The 
 touching letter of St. Baul to the master of Onesimus, and 
 * TertulUan de Spectaculis, cap. 19. 
 
634 THE CHURCH AND THE OLD SOCIETY. 
 
 indeed, the wliole tenor of the Apostolic Epistles, where 
 they approach the topic, contradict any such supposition. 
 What is still more decisive of the question, is the undoubted 
 fact, that Christian proprietors of slaves did not emancipate 
 them, even when examples of emancipation were very com- 
 mon and very popular. It is no less true, however, that the 
 spirit of Christianity is directly opposed to slavery, and that 
 by the subtle but sure operation of indirect influences, the 
 Church eventually accomplished its abolition. The moral 
 equality established by its laws between those who had 
 hitherto been separated by an impassable gulf, in the daily 
 relations of life, paved the way towards that social equality, 
 which, however imperfectly realized, is, after all, the main 
 distinction between the ancient and the modern world. 
 Once a week at least, if not more often, the slave sat beside 
 his master, joining in a common worship, sharing in common 
 privileges, and sensible that he, too, was heir to that liberty 
 with which Christ had made his people free. Thus the 
 most ignominious stain of his hard condition was wiped 
 away. He was no longer a mere chattel, a thing, without a 
 place in the social scale, and without civil rights ; he became 
 a man, with the responsibilities and the duties of a man, — a 
 citizen, not indeed of an earthly city, but of one eternal in 
 the heavens. Here, then, was a vast social revolution, slowly 
 fermenting beneath the mass of moral and material confusion 
 into which ancient society had collapsed. But it was a revo- 
 lution which struck at the very root of the whole system, 
 upon which "the cause of order and religion," in the im- 
 perial sense of the words, had been for centuries rendered 
 sacred and maintained. It was very unlikely, therefore, that 
 the relations of the Christians to their slaves, and the logical 
 consequences of these relations, should long escape the scru- 
 tiny of eyes whose sight was sharpened by jealousy and fear. 
 We have already described the almost ridiculous alarm with 
 which every association of the proletarian classes, and more 
 
CHURCH AND CHARITABLE INSTITUTIONS. 635 
 
 particularly of the slaves, was regarded by the function- 
 aries of the imperial government. Even Trajan,* one of the 
 wisest and calmest politicians of the Decadence, carried this 
 alarm so far as to regard with suspicion all guilds (collegia), 
 or societies of workmen, though for such an innocent pur- 
 pose as the extinction of fires. He is said, moreover, to have 
 repressed wedding-banquets, and other meetings for domestic 
 festivity. Not only, tl^erefore, was the liberal theory of 
 Christianity, in respect of the poor man and the slave, 
 regarded as revolutionary and socialist in the sense with 
 which we are familiar with that much misused term, but 
 Christianity itself, to the eyes of a jealous despotism, pre- 
 sented the aspect of one vast secret society, whose ramifica- 
 tions extended from the most distant frontier post to the 
 metropolis, and from the Catacombs to the waiting-chambers 
 of the imperial palace. 
 
 The same conclusion must also have been drawn from 
 one other very remarkable social aspect of the time, which 
 owed its origin and development to the presence of Chris- 
 tianity. We are all probably familiar with the remark of 
 Paley respecting the institution of hospitals and similar 
 charitable foundations by the piety of the early members of 
 the Christian Church, and we are all, perhaps, not indisposed 
 to admit the inferences which he has di'awn from the fact. 
 But the subject has scarcely as yet received its full con- 
 sideration, as a political phenomenon, with a very important 
 bearing upon the question before us, the relations of the 
 Church to the Empire and the age. In truth, charity, as 
 taught and practised by the Church, was not only an un- 
 known conception, but also a very difficult and disagreeable 
 problem to the rulers of the old regime, who had to deal with 
 its first positive developments. An accurate investigation of 
 ancient literature, particularly that of Greece, might tend to 
 
 * See the correspondence between Pliny and Trajan,— Plin. Ep, 
 lib. X. 
 
636 THE CHURCH AND THE OLD SOCIETY. 
 
 show, that the practice of public and private charity, so 
 far as it related to the relief of poverty and pain, was not 
 utterly unknown among the best of heathen societies. But 
 heathen society, as we have to deal with it in imperial 
 Rome, had greatly degenerated from its highest type. If we 
 except some vague declamation of the Stoics, which was pro- 
 bably itself derived second-hand from Christian sources, we 
 shall find nothing in the literature, the state policy, or the 
 state religion of the Decadence, which exhibits the slightest 
 recognition of charity as a social duty, or the most trifling 
 provision for its practice. The spectator who gazed upon 
 the magnificent assemblage of buildings which clothed the 
 sides and filled up the intervals of the Seven Hills, beheld 
 temples and triumphal arches, porticos, theatres, libraries, 
 and baths, — all the splendid appliances of an old civilization, 
 crowding one after another upon his eyes ; but of those 
 other buildings, which in our modern cities, to use the 
 beautiful language of Edmund Burke, " tower to heaven like 
 electric conductors, to avert the Avi*ath of God," — of hospitals, 
 infirmaries, asylums, penitentiaries, he would discover no 
 trace. One edifice he might indeed descry, crowded with 
 the sick and maimed, — the Temple of ^sculapius, upon an 
 island in the Tiber; but no mission of mercy had conveyed its 
 occupants to the spot. Exposed by their relatives or friends, 
 who had become weary and hopeless of their cure — " tsedio 
 raedeudi," calmly observes the historian, they were left in 
 solitude to struggle with the pangs of death. It would be 
 €asy to show, at some length, were this our special subject, 
 that the practice of the Christian Church exhibited a con- 
 trast to this inhumanity, which soon most powerfully affected 
 the public mind. The warning addressed by its Divine 
 Founder to the unmerciful, evidently bore fruit from the 
 earliest times. " Depart from me, ye cursed : for I was 
 hungered, and ye gave me no meat ; I was thirsty, and ye 
 gave me no drink ; I was a stranger, and ye took me not in ; 
 
THE CHUKCH AT FIRST PASSIVE. 637 
 
 naked, and ye clothed me not ; sick, and in prison, and ye 
 visited me not : for inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the 
 least of these, ye did it not unto me." Accordingly, we find 
 the heathen recording with surprise, the zeal, the activity, 
 the self-denial, exhibited by the Christians in their charitable 
 efforts to relieve distress. " Incredible," says even the scoffing 
 Lucian, in that curious narrative of the fortunes of one who 
 was once a Christian convert,'"' — " incredible is the haste which 
 they exhibit when anything of the kind occurs. They spare 
 nothing that they have." But perhaps the most remark- 
 able testimony to their cliarity is that afforded by their 
 bitterest enemy, Julian the Apostate.t " Build," he writer 
 to a pagan priest, " numerous places of refuge and entertain- 
 ment for strangers, in every city ; for it is a disgrace that 
 these impious Galileans, besides their own people, should 
 support ours also, while ours are seen of all men to perish, 
 without any assistance from us." The injunction of the 
 emperor was very politic, and very well justified by the 
 facts. The Church fed the starving populace in crowds, 
 whether members of her own society or not. We hear of a 
 Christian bishopj who, in the third century, supported from 
 fifteen hundred to two thousand poor. Such a man must 
 have been a dangerous subject for a despotism ; indeed, a 
 despotism like that of the later Caesars, alarmed as it was by 
 much less startling demonstrations, must have regarded the 
 whole system as one great intrigue, maintained with secret 
 and most sinister designs. 
 
 Despite, however, these grave and radical grounds of op- 
 position between the Christian Church and the old society, 
 it was long before the latter, by any overt act, or open re- 
 monstrance, placed itself in a position of direct hostility to 
 the former. No attempt was made to interfere with poli- 
 
 * Lucian de Morte Peregrini, torn. iii. p. 336. 
 + Julian, Ep. 49, ad Arsacium Pontificem. 
 ± Euseb. Hist. Ecc. vi. 43. 
 
638 THE CHUECH AND THE OLD SOCIETY. 
 
 tical measures, to alter existing institutions, or even to 
 resist secular tyranny. The mission of Christianity was 
 understood to be a reformation of morals, not a reformation 
 of laws. A considerable time elapsed before the intimate 
 connection between the two questions was positively as- 
 serted, or, indeed, could be made the ground of any practical 
 efforts. A patient submission to existing authority charac- 
 terized the Christian in the midst of his severest trials, 
 under whatever shape they assailed him. The apostolic 
 injunction seems to have sunk deeply into his heart, and 
 regulated his relations with the civil power : — " Let every 
 soul be subject unto the higher powers : for there is no 
 power but of God : the powers that be, are ordained of God. 
 Whosoever, therefore, resisteth the power, resisteth the ordi- 
 nance of God ; and they that resist shall receive to them- 
 selves damnation." * No soldier fought more faithfully than 
 the Christian for the honour of the imperial eagles, by the 
 Euphrates or the Khine ; no subject more honestly contri- 
 buted his substance to the oppressive taxation which went 
 to swell the imperial exchequer. The fact was well known, 
 and was not without its results. It modified the measures 
 directed against the new faith, and obtained for it a tolera- 
 tion, partial and fitful it is true, but still a toleration which 
 was of the utmost importance to its welfiare, or rather to its 
 existence. If a persecution is to be successful, its motto 
 must be " Thorough !" It is a mistake to believe that reli- 
 gious truth can never be trampled out : we have melancholy 
 evidence to the contrary in the sanguinary triumph of Simon 
 de Montfort and the Catholic barons in Languedoc ; in the 
 massacres of the Cevennes and the dragonnades of Louis 
 XIV. ; in the action of the Spanish Inquisition ; in the 
 relentless persecutions of Protestantism by the house of 
 Austria, not even as yet fully revealed upon the page of 
 history. But the imperial persecutions of the two first cen- 
 * Eomans, xiii. 1, 2. 
 
THE FAILUEE OF HEATHENISM. 639 
 
 turies were by no means " thorough." They were irregular 
 and intermittent. After the severest blows, the jDersecuted 
 society had time to draw breath and recover itself, though 
 in catacombs and caves of the earth. The great Csesars of 
 the second century seem to have been affected by a singular 
 hesitation ^and wavering of purpose when they had to deal 
 with the strange phenomenon which Christianity presented 
 to their eyes. When it appeared as a political difficulty, 
 their irritation was excessive, and their edicts stern and 
 sanguinary enough ; yet, in the execution of these edicts, a 
 remarkable tolerance was shown, which sometimes assumed 
 almost an official character. The often-quoted correspond- 
 ence between Trajan and Pliny is an illustration of this. 
 The calamities of the age had themselves given strength and 
 development to the Christian Church, by showing the hol- 
 lowness of the rival system. A period of distress, humilia- 
 tion, and defeat, found but little solace in a religion which 
 seemed to have been made for the pride of empire and of 
 war. The woes of the present life naturally sought their 
 recompense in a faith which promised another and a 
 better life ; and thus the Church attracted to herself the 
 degraded, the suffering, and the wronged. But it was of 
 these that society in the main consisted. They became Chris- 
 tians, or not unfavourable to the Christians, for Christi- 
 anity alone brought comfort to their afflictions and hope to 
 their despair. In the mean time, it had lived down ca- 
 lumny and vindicated its claim to wisdom ; for the course 
 of events was daily verifying the prophetic warnings it had 
 given. In the correspondence to which we have referred, 
 this gradually increasing weight of public opinion in favour 
 of the Christian doctrines seems to have oppressed the 
 emperor's mind, and to have embarrassed his policy. He has 
 recourse to those half-measures which assert no principle, 
 and never bring any success. The rescripts of Adrian and 
 the Antonines are conceived in precisely the same spirit. 
 
640 THE CHURCH AND THE OLD SOCIETY. 
 
 Marcus Aurelius showed greater severity ; but it was a 
 severity limited by existing laws. Upon the observance o 
 these he resolutely insisted ; but he did not go out of his 
 way to devise new and ingenious expedients for extermi- 
 nating the obnoxious sect. "With the third century came 
 real persecution, sweeping, sanguinary, and relentless. But 
 it was too late. The Church had by this time acquired 
 powers, both active and passive, which no machinery that 
 could be now devised had the least chance of extinguishing. 
 Rome was at last aroused to a sense of her failing strength 
 and her coming peril. The astute politicians and soldiers 
 who were called in rapid succession to administer the affairs 
 of the Empire, saw no hope of its regeneration, except by a 
 revival of the old spirit ; and this they idly thought could 
 be done by reviving the old religious traditions. Of these 
 traditions Christianity was the avowed and victorious enemy. 
 Against Christianity, therefore, they directed their efforts, 
 not in a spirit of mere casual animosity, or even of fanatic 
 rage, but with a steady and inexorable purpose of extermi- 
 nation ; and yet they failed. Christians were to be found 
 everywhere : they were marched in troops to the human 
 shambles, from the legions, from the provincial cities, from 
 the offices of the imperial executive, from places of trust 
 and dignity in Rome itself, from the very chambers of the 
 imperial palace, and still their number was inexhaustible. 
 And, what was yet more important, a regular system of 
 Church organization and government had sprung up upon 
 the basis of that world-wide civil administration which the 
 Empire had so elaborately framed. 
 
 This was particularly the case in those localities 
 menaced, or already invaded, by the barbarians j for in 
 these it was the only organization, social or political, which 
 survived the disintegration of the old society. Here, 
 then, and generally in all places remote from the central 
 power, that state of things began to obtain, which after- 
 
THE PERSECUTIONS. 641 
 
 wards universally prevailed. The officers of the Church 
 acquired the sympathy and respect of the people, and gra- 
 dually a predominant influence over their minds, because in 
 most places these officers had sprung from and belonged to 
 their own body ; because they were ready to aid and console 
 them under the fiscal tyranny of the government ; because, 
 when the ministers of this tyranny gradually disappeared, 
 from positive incapacity to exercise their functions, or from 
 fear of the barbarian sword, they alone stood in the breach 
 to represent the name and glory of Kome, or to perish in 
 an heroic defence of their people. This state of things, it is 
 true, was but beginning when the old Roman party, under 
 Decius, obtained the supreme direction of affairs ; but it pro- 
 foundly irritated their instincts, and impeded their efforts 
 to restore the old pagan spirit, to which alone they looked 
 for the salvation of society. This is the secret of the vio- 
 lence exhibited by Decius and the colleagues of Diocletian. 
 The emperors of oriental extraction, as Philip and Alexan- 
 der Severus, may have had — indeed there are not wanting 
 facts which induce us to believe they really had — some sym- 
 pathies with a faith whose birthplace was in the East. At 
 any rate, they were inspired with no fanaticism for the old 
 gods and the old worship of Italy. It was not so with the 
 men who succeeded them. They hated the Christian as a 
 traitor and an enemy ; and could the sword or the axe have 
 slain the religion, as it slew thousands upon thousands of 
 its professors, Christianity would not have survived the crisis. 
 Their opposition was not confined to the sword ; they at- 
 tempted a counter-revolution of a spiritual sort. They set 
 up impostors, as in the case of Apollonius of Tyana, to rival 
 the Divine Founder and Teacher of the Church. They 
 even imitated its external organization, and established a 
 species of parochial Paganism, with priests and pontiffs, in 
 the remote districts of the Empire. Their propagandism 
 was as unsuccessful as their persecution. Diocletian, wearied 
 
 2 T 
 
642 THE CHURCH AND THE OLD SOCIETY. 
 
 and disgusted by the fruitless results of a cruel policy, to 
 which he had been, from the first, personally disinclined, 
 quitted Rome for ever as a royal residence, and thus, by 
 abandoning the field to the Christians and their bishop, was, 
 perhaps, the first to lay the foundations of that new power 
 which eventually overshadowed the world. Galerius, his col- 
 league, the real author of the greater part of the evil wrought 
 in his reign, attacked by a horrible and mysterious disease, 
 quailed before what he believed to be the vengeance of the 
 Christian's God, and penned, in language half-insolent, half- 
 deprecatory, that celebrated edict which may be regarded as 
 the practical admission of Paganism that it was powerless 
 against the rival which it had so long endeavoured to crush. 
 The accession of Constantino inverted the relative position 
 of the parties. Henceforward we contemplate the pro- 
 tracted struggles of Heathenism to arrest its own downfall, 
 as we have hitherto been contemplating the struggles of 
 Christianity to rise and emerge to light. Yet there is one 
 misconception a^nst which we must carefully guard. It 
 has been the object of Gibbon and others of his school to re- 
 present Constantino as the founder, almost as the creator, of 
 the Christian Church. They would have us believe that the 
 imperial favour called the institution into existence, gave to 
 it, for the first time, the solidity and cohesion of an establish- 
 ment, and by this means propagated its rites and doctrines 
 throughout the Empire. No hypothesis could be more con- 
 tradictory to the general analogies of history, or more incon- 
 sistent with the ascertained facts of the case. This is a state- 
 ment which is, of course, valueless as an assertion : it can 
 only be sustained by a careful examination of the records from 
 which we derive our knowledge of the era. Let me, therefore, 
 quote the conclusions of one who has made such an examina- 
 tion with care, and given us the means of satisfying ourselves 
 as to its exactness : — " It would seem, from a review of the 
 details we have ey.hibited, that before the accession of Con- 
 
THE CHURCH NOT CREATED BY CONSTANTINE. 643 
 
 Stan tine, or at any rate before the favour he manifested for 
 the Gospel could have produced any effect on the dispersion of 
 it over the world, it had established itself in Spain, France, 
 Britain, Germany, Scythia, Dacia, Sarmatia, Italy, Greece, 
 the islands of the Mediterranean, the whole of Asia, from 
 the Ionian Sea to the Euxine, Palestine, and the bordering 
 countries eastward, Mesopotamia and the Elamites, the 
 whole of the northern part of the continent of Africa, 
 stretching far inland, — the testimony of one or other of the 
 Fathers prior to Constantine bearing witness to these facts, 
 — its possession of these regions being, no doubt, in some 
 instances more, in some less complete ; but the whole of 
 them covering a surface which would bear no unfavourable 
 comparison with that occupied by Christianity even at this 
 moment, America being left out of the reckoning, and 
 several of those regions even far more effectually occupied 
 by it then than at present." * 
 
 Constantine, therefore, in no sense created the organization 
 of the Christian Church ; in no sense is he to be regarded 
 as the inventor of its polity, or even as the great human 
 cause of its establishment in the old Roman world. What 
 he did was to supply opportunity ; and the material assist- 
 ance afforded by the protection of the imperial name, for the 
 further development of an institution already existing, — of 
 a " Christian corporation," — " Corporis Christian orum," as he 
 himself expressed it in the edict of Milan. Probably, also, 
 though the story of his "dotation" — "the fatal dower of 
 Constantine" — ^is now abandoned even by Roman controver- 
 sialists, he considerably increased the temporal resources of 
 the Church, by gifts of lands, houses, and moneys, in a form 
 more correspondent to other modern benefactions of the 
 same sort ; and it is an undoubted fact, that the actual 
 framework of the imperial executive government served as 
 the framework upon which the ecclesiastical government 
 
 * Blunt's Church in the Three First Centuries, ch. x. ad finem. 
 2 T 2 
 
644 THE CHURCH AND THE OLD SOCIETY. 
 
 was conducted; nor could tliis have been made valid and 
 operative without the consent of the supreme authority. 
 The existing civil divisions of the Empire were admirably 
 adapted to the purposes of a spiritual society anxious to 
 avail itself of the readiest means of intercommunication, 
 and the best method of locally classifying its people. They 
 were, therefore, at once adopted by the rulers of the Church. 
 The seven dioceses of the old regime not only gave their 
 name to the new ecclesiastical divisions, but the limits of 
 both exactly coincided. These seven dioceses included 
 some hundred and eighteen provinces, and these were made 
 similarly available. Each province of course contained 
 several cities of importance, with the lands attaching to 
 them. These were called TrapoiKiai, or parishes, a Greek 
 name properly applicable to those who dwelt in proximity to 
 one another. The Church system accepted the arrangement, 
 and has perpetuated the use of the term. The English rustic 
 little dreams that in the use of this familiar word, he is re- 
 calling the territorial arrangements of that forgotten Empire 
 which once ruled the world. Yet so it is, and the same asso- 
 ciations are connected with all the great officers of the Church. 
 To the parochial cities were attached bishops, to the pro- 
 vinces metropolitans, to the dioceses patriarchs. But the real 
 nature of the change introduced by Constantine, and of its 
 results, may best be estimated — perhaps can only be estimated 
 — by a careful comparison of the edict of Galerius, just 
 mentioned, and the famous edict of Milan. In the first, 
 Christianity was barely tolerated as a sectarian superstition, 
 and that toleration was so evidently the result of terror, 
 that a change in the emperor's temper or circumstances 
 would inevitably have restored the old persecution. In the 
 second, it was placed on a par with the old religion of the 
 state, — not substituted for it, according to a very common 
 impression. Christians and "all others" were to be per- 
 mitted, in all liberty, to follow the religion they preferred ; 
 
THE EDICT OF MILAN. 645 
 
 " it appertained to the tranquillity of the times, that all 
 should adopt the religion they liked best" (in colendo quod 
 quisque diligeret, liberam haberet facultateni"). It is 
 true that special favour was shown to the Christians. But 
 this had reference to past persecution and injustice : their 
 confiscated property was to be restored, or made good by 
 the imperial treasury. If the actual holders desired in- 
 demnity, they were to apply to the prefect of their province, 
 and their case would graciously be taken into consideration. 
 Christian places of worship were to be rebuilt, and all apper- 
 taining to them guaranteed for the future against spoliation. 
 The effect of the edict was immense. A cry of joy went up 
 from every corner of the Empire. Emerging from the cata- 
 combs, from the cemeteries, and the desert places, whither 
 they had fled from the murderous violence of the populace^ 
 or the more systematic butcheries of the law, multitudes of 
 every age and sex crowded the towns and cities, filling 
 them with the praises of the God who had wrought this 
 signal deliverance of his elect. Upon the ruins of their 
 humble chapels arose edifices of great magnificence and size. 
 Everywhere assemblages of bishops were to be seen congra- 
 tulating the Church upon her escape from past perils, and 
 deliberating about her future fortunes; everywhere the sounds 
 of the celebration of the divine service were to be heard; 
 everywhere the people crowded to participate in the divine 
 mysteries.* Nor was this great external change in the social 
 aspect of the Empire unaccompanied by modifications in the 
 character of its policy and administration. The governing 
 power of the civil society found itself brought into the 
 closest relations with the governing power of the religious 
 society, as questions arose which required their common 
 action. The bishops of necessity became a kind of privy 
 council to the emperor. The troubles in the African 
 Church, and the prominent part taken by Constantine in the 
 * Eusebius, x. 1, 3. 
 
646 THE CHURCH AND THE OLD SOCIETY. 
 
 suppression of the Donatist heresy, drew the bonds of this 
 connection closer still, and definitively committed the State 
 to a line of policy determined by the circumstances of the 
 Church. The great Arian schism, and the council of Nice, 
 completed what the African controversy had begun. It 
 would be an interesting subject of inquiry to ascertain the 
 exact nature of the influence which this fact exercised upon 
 the spirit of Roman legislation and government. Unfor- 
 tunately, it is not a matter which can be treated in a paren- 
 thesis. Indeed, it requires a more enlarged and special 
 examination than it has as yet, at least in English literature, 
 received. One thing is certain ; it must have acted as a 
 stimulant upon the imperial mind ; for how, otherwise, can 
 we account for the prodigious activity with which Constantine 
 pursued the task of legislation, even while hurrying through 
 Europe from Constantinople to Treves. No less than eighty 
 " imperial constitutions" mark the five years (315 — 321) 
 which followed the final overthrow of Licinius ; and doubt- 
 less the majority of these were tinctured with the .new 
 ideas. 
 
 How did these operate 1 Generally, we may say, in two 
 ways — ^by mollifying the sanguinary spirit of the old laws, as 
 manifested in their penalties and pains, and again, by visiting 
 with retribution a class of offences which the purer judge- 
 ment of Christian morality found itself compelled to classify 
 as crimes. "The civil law," says M. de Broglie, ''following 
 in the footsteps of the Gospel, became less rigorous, but 
 more severe. It condemned -more frequently, but punished 
 more mercifully. We see it, alternately, as one or other of 
 these dispositions predominated, assuming greater strictness 
 or greater leniency."* He goes on to give several illustrations 
 of the fact. We will content ourselves with one or two. 
 Capital punishment might not be inflicted without the con- 
 fession of the accused, or without entire uniformity in the 
 
 * L'Eglise et I'Empire Romain, vol. i. p. 297. 
 
THE CHUECH AND THE CIVIL LAW. 647 
 
 evidence of the accusers.* The condemned were not to be 
 branded upon the forehead ; for in the image of God was man 
 created, and to destroy this image is a crime, t A special 
 rescript was directed against the horrible practice of infanti- 
 cide, then common, as we learn from the terms of the law, 
 in all the cities of Italy.;}: The imperial officers were even 
 further enjoined to see that parents did not cause the death 
 of their children by neglect, or sell them under the pressure 
 of poverty. § Prison regulations of a humanity hitherto 
 unknown, were to be adopted in all the provinces ; dark and 
 unwholesome dungeons, bad enough for the guilty, were in- 
 tolerable for the innocent. But, on the other hand, a new, 
 and, as it must have seemed to the multitude, an incompre- 
 hensible severity, regulated the relations of the sexes. It 
 was not enough to forbid altogether the common custom of 
 concubinage in the married state. " It was not enough" — 
 it is M. de Broglie who speaks — " to condemn to capital 
 punishment the woman of free birth, who disgraced herself 
 with a slave, and to send her accomplice to the stake. A 
 law of the 19th of March, a.d. 320, passed with special 
 reference to abduction, enters into details of severity which 
 make one shudder. The seducer and his victim suffered the 
 same penalty. If a domestic or nurse had acted as accom- 
 plice, molten lead was poured down her throat, to close that 
 member which had given utterance to the evil counsel. The 
 virgin who had resisted, was disinherited, as a punishment 
 for the levity, or the want of resolution, which, it was thought, 
 she must of necessity have exhibited. No compromise among 
 the parents or the guilty parties could disarm the severity 
 of the law." These were important changes in the spirit of 
 the penal code. The revolution in the civil law was naturally 
 more slow of accomplishment. In this, perhaps, more cer- 
 tainly than in most things, it is not possible to destroy the 
 
 * Cod. Theod. ix. tit. 40, LI. t Ibid. 1. 2. 
 
 t im. ii. tit. 27, 1. 1, 2. § Ibid. ix. tit. 4, 1. 1. 
 
648 THE CHUECH AND THE OLD SOCIETY. 
 
 work of a thousand years in a single day. Yet Constantine, 
 in repealing tlie extravagant rights assigned to the male 
 parent, and in conferring upon the junior members of the 
 family the goods and chattels derived from the mother, not 
 only struck a fatal blow at the fundamental principle of the 
 Roman law of property, but he did so under the inspiration 
 of Christian ideas, which based the unity of the family upon 
 the natural affections and the innate sense of equity 
 among its members. This remarkable change in law, 
 respecting the family, was followed by another, which 
 affected no less the social relation of the sexes. Celibacy 
 had been regarded as disgraceful in the old society, because 
 there it implied a contemptuous neglect of the first duties of 
 a citizen, or a life of epicurean luxury, almost of the oriental 
 type. Celibacy, therefore, had been visited with disabilities 
 and fines. But among the professors of the new faith, the 
 same estate was regarded, as we have said, with especial 
 honour and affection. Accordingly, by a " constitution" dated 
 in the early part of the year 319 A.D., all the penalties 
 inflicted upon a single life were unconditionally repealed. 
 These instances are of small relative importance, in compa- 
 rison with that which follows. Slavery, the great plague- 
 spot of ancient society, was too deeply rooted in its constitu- 
 tion, to be eradicated by any sudden remedy. It may be 
 safely said, that all the notions, habits, existing institutions, 
 cherished recollections and prejudices of heathen life, were 
 inextricably mixed up with the existence of slavery, as a 
 political necessity and a social practice. With all these, the 
 spirit of the gospel now placed itself in open opposition. 
 Constantine could only commence the struggle by indirect 
 efforts to limit the evil itself, and mitigate its worst features.* 
 In the first place, he made liberty imprescriptible. Not even 
 sixty years of servitude were to abrogate the rights of free 
 birth.t This was in the year 314 a.d. Two years after- 
 * Cod. Jus. tit. 22, 1. 3. f Ibid. i. tit. 13, 1. 1. 
 
THE CHURCH AND SLAVERY : THE SPECTACLES. 649 
 
 wards, by a rescript to a Christian bisliop, he conferred upon 
 the Church the right to liberate its slaves, in the presence of 
 the whole congregation, — a fact which indisputably proves, 
 that, hitherto, the practice of holding slaves had subsisted in 
 the Church itself; and in a correspondence with the bishop 
 of Cordova, every encouragement is given to churchmen to 
 adopt this public emancipation. In another four years, 
 enactments were passed still more favourable to those who 
 asserted their freedom. Every assistance was legally afforded 
 to the claimant, and no lapse of time, even after sentence 
 passed, was allowed to operate as a bar against his claim, 
 should the means of attaining fresh evidence be discovered. 
 
 It was not, however, until the battle of Adrianople had dis- 
 posed of all his political difficulties, and the council of Nice, 
 at which he presided, had thoroughly identified him with 
 ecclesiastical legislation, that Constantine ventured to wipe 
 away that other great stain upon the life of heathendom 
 — the gladiatorial games. Indeed, this statement is too 
 strong. The timid and hesitating tone of the imperial 
 decree cannot, as we have already hinted, be regarded as the 
 language of authoritative abolition. It prohibited the prac- 
 tice of condemning criminals to a profession which it inci- 
 dentally stigmatized as incompatible with the new form of 
 social life, rather than in formal terms forbade the practice 
 altogether. Still it was an immense step in advance, more 
 particularly as it was made by a man who had himself, some 
 twenty years before, indulged the populace with an exhibi- 
 tion of gladiators in the circus. 
 
 One more social revolution of immense importance dates 
 from the first alliance, or union, whichever it is to be called, 
 of the Church and the civil power — the observance of the 
 Sabbath as a political institution. Its observance, as the 
 result of a religious dogma, is a different question, which it is 
 beyond our province to discuss. But in the year 321 a.d. two 
 imperial laws appeared, which prohibited, on " the revered 
 
650 THE CHURCH AND THE OLD SOCIETY. 
 
 day of the Sun,"'"" all manual labour, and even the performance 
 of any civil action whatsoever, except the manumission of a 
 slave. The sole exception in favour of the necessary works 
 of the agriculturist was probably suggested and justified by 
 similar exemption accorded in the Gospel to him whose ass 
 or whose ox had fallen into a pit on the sabbath day. 
 
 " So began," eloquently writes M. de Broglie, " that long 
 struggle, doomed to endure for centuries, between the in- 
 veterate slavery of the Old World and the liberating spirit 
 of the Gospel. By the two constitutions of Constantine (in 
 favour of the emancipation of slaves), the Church was esta- 
 blished, in a sort of official patronage, for the emancipation 
 of the human race. . . . The sudden abolition of slavery 
 would have starved the ancient world, which only subsisted 
 on the products of its labour. It would have thrown upon 
 the soil whole populations, without guides, without resources, 
 and without the power of governing themselves, — multitudes 
 of human beings equally destitute of the instincts of the 
 animal and the intelligence of man. More than a single 
 day was required to create and bring to maturity that prin- 
 ciple of respect for self and for others, those sentiments of 
 personal independence and dignity, which enable societies to 
 exist by the free activity of its members. At this solemn 
 moment the Church accepted from God and the hand of 
 Constantine, the task of emancipating the world, without 
 entirely subverting it. It is for modern society to say 
 whether it has succeeded in the attempt." 
 
 Such, then, are some of the modifications which Christi- 
 anity, upon its first connection with the imperial power, 
 introduced into legislation and manners. Paganism had 
 received its death-blow j but such was its tenacity of life, 
 
 * " Venerabili die Solis." It is, I think, quite impossible now to 
 determine how far the epithet is -a proof of the sanctity attached by 
 Christians to the day, and how far it was the result of older heathen 
 traditions and associations ; or, again, how far the confusion may have 
 been intentional on the part of the legislator. 
 
PAGANISM NOT DEAD. 651 
 
 that many a convulsive struggle on its part, and once an 
 entire revival, was witnessed by the world. ' Constantino 
 certainly never overcame it. His attempts to put down some 
 of its most obnoxious practices were unsuccessful. Augury, 
 divination, and similar rites, were too deeply rooted in the 
 popular mind to be eradicated during his lifetime, more 
 especially in the rural districts, or among the Pagani, whose 
 name became identified with the old superstitions. Con- 
 stantine was, therefore, compelled to repeal some of the 
 more stringent regulations which he had passed, in the zeal 
 of a neophyte, against them. Still, when the legionaries 
 hailed him as Caesar, they implored the protection of the 
 immortal gods upon his head ; still, upon some special occa- 
 sions, the augurs observed the entrails of the victims, and 
 affected to inform him of the will of Heaven ; and what is 
 even yet more extraordinary, he still himself assumed the 
 title, and in part discharged the function, of Pontifex 
 Maximus, or high priest. This was, on his part, and on that 
 of some among his successors, a bowing of the knee in the 
 house of Nisroch, a concession to the powerful senatorial 
 interest, not unlike the conversion of Henry IV. As the 
 great Bearnais believed that Paris was worth a mass, 
 Constantino, in all probability, thought that Rome excused 
 a sacrifice. Hence, at Rome, his language towards Polytheism 
 was considerate, and even courteous. He did not forbid the 
 old ceremonials ; indeed, he dared not. Once only he rose 
 above this timid and compromising policy, and refused to 
 assist at the secular games. For this he was never forgiven 
 by the Conscript Fathers and the still powerful faction which 
 adhered to them. Zosimus, the pagan historian, a fair repre- 
 sentative of the spirit of his party, heaps the bitterest 
 reproaches on his head, and ascribes to this single act all the 
 subsequent disasters of the Empire. Hence, we may form 
 some slight idea of the difl&culties with which he and the 
 Christian Church had yet to deal. They had to contend 
 
652 THE CHURCH AND THE OLD SOCIETY. 
 
 with an old aristocracy, rich, influential, and selfish, who 
 derived a large proportion of their wealth and power from 
 their official connection with the old religious system, its 
 priesthoods, its dotations, its territorial possessions, its lavish 
 and costly decorations, its vast array of subordinate ministers, 
 clients, and slaves. Against all these things, Constantine 
 appears to have despaired of fighting with success in their 
 ancient stronghold upon Italian soil. He determined, there- 
 fore, that Byzantium should be the new capital of Christi- 
 anity, while Kome remained, as heretofore, the central home 
 and metropolis of the ancient faith. The '-'whirligig of 
 time" has brought about few stranger revolutions than 
 the result which this determination eventually produced. 
 The abandonment of the imperial city to Paganism made it 
 the birthplace of a power by which Paganism was annihilated, 
 and the fortunes themselves of the Byzantine Church and 
 Empire overshadowed and depressed. But neither in 
 Rome nor in the East was the definite suppression of the 
 old faith effected as yet. Two clauses of tlie Theodosian 
 Code, which enforce the abolition of sacrifices and all similar 
 superstitious rites, have been assigned to the son of Constan- 
 tine. This is, however, now generally admitted to be a 
 mistake, — a sort of pious fraud, prompted by the zeal of 
 Christian copyists, who were anxious to antedate the triumph 
 of the Church. Facts and inscriptions prove that no such 
 edict could have been in force at this period. In the mean 
 time, the proclamation of Julian as emperor at Paris, — a 
 city doomed to be the birthplace of more than one apostasy, 
 — resulted in a counter-revolution, which for a time undid 
 the labours of his uncle, and threatened to arrest the poli- 
 tical advance of Christianity. It was the ambition of this 
 singular but able man to rehabilitate the faith of his fathers, 
 in order to restore the glory of his country. But he was 
 too acute not to perceive that the old Paganism was dead. 
 He sought to revive it by breathing into the lifeless form 
 
COUNTER-REVOLUTION OF JULIAN. 653 
 
 the spirit of a living philosophy. He only produced an 
 unnatural monster, whose members must of themselves 
 have collapsed, from the want of cohesion, had not his 
 early death precipitated the catastrophe. Yalentinian and 
 Valens, who succeeded him, attempted at first to hold the 
 balance between the rival religions with an even hand. Yet 
 Valentinian, notwithstanding his professed liberality, tore 
 up one of the most tenacious roots of the ancient faith, by 
 prohibiting, as Constantino had tried to do, some of its 
 superstitious accompaniments, — the arts of sorcery and divi- 
 nation, the interpretation of dreams, and other practices of 
 the sort. This was to inflict a fatal blow upon Paganism, 
 which now only subsisted upon the support received from 
 augury. Paganism, therefore, resisted to the death, and 
 had, though the fact is often denied, its martyrs as well 
 as Christianity — an indication, truly, of a marvellous change 
 in both the spirit and the fortunes of the new faith, when 
 the Church stretched forth her hand to grasp the sword 
 which had so often been wielded against herself There was 
 still material upon which to exercise her antagonism. Two 
 barbarous authors of the time, Publius Victor and Rufus 
 Festus, have left us a topographical catalogue of the build- 
 ings then found in Rome. She still possessed one hundred 
 and fifty-two pagan temples, and one hundred and eighty- 
 three chapels dedicated to different gods. Among them 
 were the venerable shrines of Mars, Yesta, Romulus, Caesar, 
 and Yictory. But their days were numbered. Gratian and 
 Theodosius advanced far beyond the policy of their prede- 
 cessors. To them may be ascribed the definite abrogation 
 of the last privileges of Paganism, the confiscation of its pro- 
 perty, and the denunciation of its symbols. The greater part of 
 the work was undoubtedly wrought by the illustrious Ambrose 
 of Milan, who exercised an unbounded influence over the 
 youthful Gratian and the warlike Theodosius. Thirty-eight 
 years aj^ter the death of Constantino, the whole edifice was 
 
654 THE CHUECH AND THE OLD SOCIETY. 
 
 visibly crumbling to destruction ; the altars were overthrown, 
 the temples closed, the sacrifices abolished. These two men, 
 of a thoroughly Roman type — Ambrose and Theodosius, — 
 vigorous, energetic, and resolute men unlike any produced 
 by the Eastern Church, with all its vast intellectual power 
 and local advantages, were the real victors in the long 
 struggle against the genius of ancient Rome. The expiring 
 cry of the old cause was raised in language not entirely un- 
 worthy of its proud traditions, by Yettius Prsetextatus, 
 consul, pontiff, curial, and priest of Bacchus, with a dozen 
 titles besides, upon the steps of the Capitol. It 
 was in vain. The last grand man of Paganism 
 disappeared. The world-renowned statue of Victory which 
 adorned the Forum, the symbol of Rome's victorious fortunes, 
 was displaced ; nor could the eloquent pleadings of Symma- 
 chus, nearly the last man of letters, as Vettius was the last 
 statesman of the old world, effect its restoration. The 
 privileges and the property of the Vestals were swept away ; 
 a paltry provision for such of the pagan ceremonies as were 
 still permitted to exist, was dealt out by imperial indulgence 
 as an alms ; and even this was not fated to be of long dura- 
 tion. For one brief moment, the expiring flame blazed up 
 before the eyes of men. The semi-pagan " Protector " of the 
 Empire, Arbogastes the Gaul, placed Eugenius, a wretched 
 rhetorician of the old type, upon the throne. Once 
 more the images of Hercules and Jupiter appeared 
 on the ensigns of war ; the temples opened their gates ; the 
 discrowned Divinities resumed their place ; the blood of the 
 victims gushed forth beneath the augur's axe ; and Victory 
 herself arose in the Roman Forum. Open menaces were heard 
 that all ancient privileges were to be revived, all confiscations 
 made good, and the Christian churches converted into stables. 
 But it was an idle vaunt. Theodosius was already on his way 
 from Asia, trampling beneath the feet of his victorious armies 
 the idols and shrines of the expiring faith. Eugenius^and his 
 
PAGANISM LINGERS IN RURAL LIFE. 655 
 
 people were not the men to resist that weighty sword. 
 With them Paganism, for all practical purposes, fell com- 
 pletely, and for ever. We are assured by Prudentius that 
 the Senate itself was converted. The conversion is most 
 improbable ; the outward and constrained pretence of it is 
 not. When we speak of the entire downfall of Heathenism, 
 we, of course, must only be understood to mean its public 
 and official recognition. In the dark background of that sin- 
 gular age, in old senatorial houses, in retired rural districts, 
 among the ignorant and turbulent proletarian masses of the 
 Capital, the old traditions still lingered, with the old tastes 
 and the old feelings, sometimes with the old practices, and, 
 as might be expected, in a still mere deeply degraded form. 
 From the literature, Polytheism never entirely died out. 
 Indeed, it may be said to have retained possession of men's 
 minds until the birth of the existing century. With the 
 last great poet of the Decadence the accepted mythology ceased 
 to be a religion and a reality, and became a species of poetical 
 machinery, a repertory of ornament, which was ransacked 
 at the revival of letters, and still displays before us its gaudy 
 pictorial beauties in the salons of Versailles. Despite his 
 obvious efforts, Claudian, the most pagan of poets, who may 
 be said to be " plus Arabe, qu'en Arabic," has been unable to 
 cast an air of truthfulness around his divinities and their 
 dealings with mankind ; his most sonorous periods fall as 
 unmeaningly upon the ear as the mythologic conceits which 
 were the fashion at the court of the grand " Monarque." 
 The patient yet surely not obscure diligence of Niebuhr has 
 rescued from forgetfulness one strain of sterner protest 
 against the dethronement of all that constituted the glory 
 and power of the past. Bat the voice which raised it did 
 not belong to the degenerate race. The words of Maro- 
 boduns (Mehr-bode) have all the vigour of the free Teutonic 
 forests from which he sprung. It is thus that he makes 
 Discord address Bellona, while she urges the goddess of 
 
656 THE CHURCH AND THE OLD SOCIETY. 
 
 Havoc to assail the apostate city, which had surrendered its 
 ancient traditions to a mean and upstart superstition. 
 
 " Let fear her sons and senators appal. 
 
 When thou, dread Goddess, thund'rest at the wall, 
 
 Far from each temple's hospitable dome 
 
 And sheltering shrine, drive forth the Gods of Rome ; 
 
 No more let holy Vesta's virgin choir 
 
 Feed on the altar-hearth th' eternal fire : 
 
 Myself, with treacherous wiles, afar will chase 
 
 The ancient manners of the ancient race, 
 
 Till in one undistinguish'd ruin lie 
 
 Faith, valour, truth, and Roman probity ; 
 
 And thou, great God of Song, no more dispense. 
 
 From lips that scorn thee, Attic eloquence : 
 
 By blundering hazard, not by virtue great, 
 
 Let fools and knaves assume the reins of state ; 
 
 Let each wild passion of the gloomy breast, 
 
 With lust of lucre in its fierce unrest, 
 
 Rage in those hearts where every vice has reign 'd, 
 
 By thee, Sovereign Jove, abandon'd and disdain'd."* 
 
 Constantine, therefore, we may say, elevated Christianity 
 to an equality with the old religion ; Gratian and Theodosius 
 established its supremacy, and destroyed the possibility of 
 all rivalry for the future on the part of that Paganism which 
 they degraded and oppressed. Honorius withdrew even the 
 small eleemosynary support which these emperors conceded 
 
 * This Maroboduns was a military commander of some eminence, 
 and was honoured by a statue in Trajan's Forum. As I do not feel 
 altogether assured of having caught the meaning of his obscurj lines, 
 I append the original, first published by Niebuhr : — 
 
 " Moenia nulla tuos valeant arcere furores ; 
 Roma ipsique tremant furialia murmura reges : 
 Turn superos terris atque hospita numina pelle ; 
 Roraanos populare deos, et nullus in aris 
 
 Vestae exoratae palleat ignis. 
 
 His instructa dolis palatia celsa subibo. 
 
 Majorum mores, et pectora prisca fugabo 
 
 Funditus ; atque simul, nullo discrimine rerum, 
 
 Spernantur fortes, nee sit reverentia justis, 
 
 Attica neglecto pereat facundia Phcebo : 
 
 Indignis contingat honos et pondera rerum 
 
 Non virtus sed casus agat, tristisque cupido ; 
 
 Pectoribus ssevi demens furor oestuet auri : 
 
 Omniaque haec sine mente Jovis, sine numine summo ! " 
 
ALilEIC DESTKOYS PAGANISM IN EOME. 657 
 
 to the professors of the old faith, and punished by heavy 
 penalties any officials who neglected to carry out his edicts 
 against them. The arrival of Alaric completed the actual, as 
 Honorius had completed the official obliteration of Paganism, 
 from the old capital of the Empire, destined henceforward to 
 become the new capital of the Church. The scourge of the 
 Gothic occupation swept Rome not only of its wealth and 
 splendour, but, in a great measure, of its people. The remnant 
 of the old families whom the sword had spared 
 hurried forth in a precipitate flight, which they 
 were never again to retrace. The Christians alone had the 
 courage to revisit the scene of havoc, and establish them- 
 selves among those bloodstained and desolated streets. They 
 alone had faith enough to believe in a possible resuscitation ; 
 in a new and greater destiny for the ancient Mistress of the 
 World. Henceforward, Rome became entirely and unmis- 
 takably, as she had long practically been, a Christian city, and 
 the central seat of a Christian power which was soon to 
 dominate over the whole west of Europe. 
 
 So far as was possible in so limited a space, we have now 
 passed in review some of the principal phenomena presented 
 by Christianity in its contact with the old society and the 
 imperial government. Nor can we, even after the lapse of 
 so many centuries, feel indifferent to such a contemplation. 
 " Heirs of all the ages," it is impossible for us to forget that 
 we, too, share in the glories of that long struggle from igno- 
 miny up to empire ; we cannot but sympathize with the 
 men who, despite the overwhelming physical force, and the 
 subtle influence of religious sentiment arrayed against them, 
 brought out the obscure under-world life of the first cen- 
 tury, victorious over the tumult of pride and pageantry 
 which resounded above its head in the streets of Rome, and 
 led up the persecuted faith from the catacombs step by 
 step to the imperial palace on the Palatine, and the great 
 national temple of Capitolian Jove. Nor again, speaking as 
 
 2 u 
 
658 THE CHURCH AND THE OLD SOCIETY. 
 
 mere cold political observers, can we ever sufficiently admire 
 that marvellous organization which bound, and firmly bound, 
 into one society and one discipline, populations difiering 
 so widely in race, locality, and culture, and combined into no 
 artificial unity the men who worshipped in the splendid 
 shrines of Byzantium, Antioch, and Alexandria, with the 
 rude and distant barbarians who saw the setting sun go 
 down into the great ocean of the West. Yet we should fail 
 in that truthfulness which is the soul of history, were we to 
 assert that the Church of God came forth from the long 
 conflict without scath or stain ; with no dent upon her 
 armour, no spot upon her escutcheon, in all the rigid purity 
 and simplicity of her principles as they were first proclaimed 
 by the shores of the Sea of Galilee and in the streets of 
 Jerusalem. On such a subject, the prejudices, the interests, 
 the passions of men, render anything like a dispassionate 
 judgment impossible. Yet the difficulty must be accepted 
 as the necessary condition of an attempt like the present. 
 I shall merely record in general terms my own impressions, 
 derived from such study as I have been able to bestow upon 
 the age and upon the men. These, it is needless to say, 
 affect no more authority than belongs to a very imperfect 
 acquaintance with the subject. The Church, then, appears 
 at this early period of her history, and so far as her relations 
 with the old society are concerned, to have suffered some- 
 what, in three several ways, from immediate contact with the 
 world around her. In the first place, the union of the Church 
 authority with the imperial government to a certain degree 
 secularized the character of the first, and removed it very 
 far from the original ideal, such, for instance, as we see set 
 forth in that striking monument of genius and piety, the 
 " Civitas Dei" of St. Augustine. Secondly, while engaged 
 in the difficult task of converting the rural and proletarian 
 population of the Empire, she was compelled to accept a 
 certain amount of heathen sentiment, and even some heathen 
 
THE CHURCH AFFECTED BY THE CIVIL POWER. 659 
 
 traditions, institutions, and practices. These, it is true, she 
 modified by her own spirit, and disguised under her own 
 forms. Still they existed, and, to a certain extent, con- 
 tinue to exist in some parts of her system. Thirdly, the 
 fusion, so far as it went, of her doctrinal theology with the 
 new Greco-oriental philosophy of Alexandria, which may 
 be said to have originated in an attempt to rival and imitate 
 the growing intellectual influence of Christianity, cornipted, 
 for a time at any rate, the simplicity of the Gospel, and 
 stifled its development by a parasitical growth of erroneous 
 and fantastic interpretation. 
 
 The first topic is not one which we need pursue at length. 
 It has occupied so prominent a place in the work of Gibbon, 
 that the world is in no danger of forgetting the errors and 
 internal convulsions of the Christian society and its gover- 
 nors, when they emerged from a state of oppression into one 
 of authority and exalted place. Independent of his natural 
 inclinations and his internal conviction of the truth of the 
 religion which he had adopted, which I believe to have been 
 sincere, Constantine was compelled, by the strongest motives 
 of policy, to advance the social interests of the Christians, and 
 to give to them an actual share in his imperial power. 
 They were pre-eminently his own party ; and while Paganism 
 was still prevalent and powerful in the senatorial order, in 
 the capital, among the rural populations, and in the army, 
 without a strong political as well as moral support from 
 this party, his throne was not secure even for an hour. But 
 to give them political influence, he was compelled to admit 
 their leaders to his councils, to act very frequently upon 
 their suggestion, to throw himself into their interests, and 
 allow them to participate in his administrative measures, as 
 he himself participated in the measures by which they regu- 
 lated the internal affairs of the religious society. Hence, 
 the long controversies and troubles beginning with the 
 Donatist schism in Africa, and continuing, despite of the 
 2 u 2 
 
660 THE CHURCH AND THE OLD SOCIETY. 
 
 council of Nice, up to the very hour of the emperor's death, 
 brought such men as the two Eusebius', Arius, and Athana- 
 sius into prominent relief before the eyes of the world, and 
 secured for them a position in what we call " politics," which 
 their aspiring genius knew well how to improve. The con- 
 siderations which influenced Constantino in his treatment 
 of the Church, no doubt affected his successors, though in a 
 less degree. But by this time the leading bishops were 
 firmly established, as the leading statesmen also of the Em- 
 pire, and the history of Ambrose of Milan may show, with- 
 out further inquiry, that they became the leading influence 
 of their times. " The ' rapports ' of the episcopate with the 
 successors of Constantine," says a very able and trustworthy 
 author, " were almost always friendly and peaceable. The 
 Empire never dreamt of interfering with the liberty of the 
 Church, and only demanded occasionally the right of confirm- 
 ing the election of bishops, and of sanctioning the convoca- 
 tion of councils : sometimes, also, that of presiding in them." '^ 
 The main result of this policy was assuredly a service both 
 to society and to the Church itself. It saved society from 
 perishing, by implanting within it the seeds of a new and 
 regenerated life, which it could have obtained from no other 
 source. It aided and strengthened the Church, by furnishing it 
 with a platform for its organization, and all the material appli- 
 ances for extending and perfecting the machinery required 
 for its development. It did more. It gave to Christian 
 society the invaluable heritage of the Roman law, with all 
 its strength, solidity, and authority ; an authority based 
 upon the most assured principles of equity and the practice- 
 of a thousand years. Few nations are without a deep debt 
 of gratitude to this wonderful work of ancient wisdom, under- 
 lying, as it does, so much of their respective codes. But, in 
 the mean time, how was it with the Church itself ? 
 
 " There are," says M, Capefigue, the Romanist Historian of 
 * Lerminier, Philosophie du Droit, liv. iii. cli. 3. 
 
THE CKUECH TRIED BY PROSPERITY. 661 
 
 the Church, — and if we quote his work, it is not from any 
 preference for his rhetorical, and often inaccurate language, 
 but because no one can doubt his extremely ultramontane 
 sympathies — " there are, in the history of all parties, two 
 periods, two situations, entirely distinct, — that of opposition 
 and that of accession to authority; and of the two, the latter 
 probation is frequently the more severe. It frequently 
 happens, that a party, v/hose capacity for attack and des- 
 truction is admirable, hesitates, trembles, and is lost when 
 called to the direction of affairs. In this respect, Christianity 
 itself seemed more suited for patience, suffering, and 
 martyrdom, than for the duties of government." "When the 
 Church, under the early Christian emperors, was placed in 
 that political situation which M. Capefigue has justly de- 
 scribed as a more crucial test of character than injustice 
 and oppression, did she, or did she not, suffer deterioration, 
 from what the great mediaeval poet of Italy has significantly 
 called '' the fatal dower of Constantine" ? Doubtless much 
 exaggeration has been employed in maintaining the affirma- 
 tive, yet truth constrains us to confess, that the language of 
 Dante is not without a certain melancholy justification. 
 
 The sunshine of prosperity and power called forth pro- 
 fusely, in the soil of the Church, those noxious weeds of pride, 
 luxury, and wrath, which had been unable to germinate in the 
 " winter of its discontent." It was ill when the martyr's crown 
 was exchanged for the mitre, and when the hands which had 
 been clasped in prayer alone, now closed upon the persecuting 
 sword. The introduction of physical force into matters 
 which had hitherto remained in the province of faith ; the 
 furious contests into which doctrinal controversy had deve- 
 loped; the spectacle of worldly, intriguing, and cringing 
 courtiers in the high places of the Church ; the general 
 degeneracy of life among the lower clergy, and the numerous 
 concessions to Pagan feeling, and even to Pagan practices, 
 among the more ignorant converts, as well as the corrupting 
 
662 THE CHURCH AND THE OLD SOCIETY. 
 
 taint of " vain philosophy," too evident in the leading 
 teachers of the time — all these things must have led earnest 
 men to doubt whether it was really well for Christianity 
 that it had been raised from a dungeon to sit beside a 
 throne. 
 
 " The change in the seat of empire," writes M. Capefigue, 
 " forms a revolution of immense importance in the history of 
 Christianity. It would have taken a long time at Rome for 
 a man to purify himself from Paganism, and assume the robe 
 of the neophyte ; at Constantinople, a city entirely new, not a 
 trace of Paganism remained. It was no longer the martyr's 
 tomb which served to sustain the sacred mysteries, but vast 
 altars of porphyry or marble. Gold glittered everywhere, and 
 Constantine took as his model the biblical splendours of the 
 Temple of Solomon. The bishops, priests, and deacons were 
 no longer dressed in the simple garment of linen or coarse 
 stuff which belonged to the epoch of persecution and mar- 
 tyrdom ; they were clothed as the magistrates of Greece and 
 the satraps of Sjrria or Persia. The bishop bore on his head 
 the mitre adorned with precious stones ; in his hand he 
 grasped the pastoral staff, in the form of a sceptre ; his finger 
 was ornamented by an amethyst of large size ; the dalmatic 
 and chasuble were of silk. The priests and deacons adopted 
 splendid ornaments, rich girdles, robes, and tunics. To the 
 change, then, in the seat of empire may be ascribed the 
 origin of ecclesiastical luxury and Catholic magnificence. 
 The idea of the power of God revealed itself with such 
 grandeur, that it was natural to crave after its manifestation 
 by the pageantries of worship ; the splendour of the altar is 
 another homage to its Lord."* This gorgeous array of the 
 external symbols which indicate temporal majesty and power 
 must have had for its accompaniment somewhat of the self- 
 reliant pride which waits upon authority. Nor will it now 
 
 * Les quatre Premiers Sifecles de I'Eglise Chr^tienne, vol. ii. 
 p. 186. 
 
THE EMPEROR APPOINTS CHURCH OFFICERS. 663 
 
 be difficult to understand what we meant by asserting that 
 the new position of the Church exposed it to temptations 
 from the secular and political spirit, which were not always 
 resisted, and corrupted its primitive purity by a mixture of 
 luxury and magnificence, which scarcely befitted a society 
 whose kingdom was not of this world, whose real polity was 
 in heaven, and whose rule of life had been to " look not at 
 the things which are seen, but at the things which are not 
 seen ; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the 
 things which are not seen are eternal." 
 
 To these facts we must add another, which will be very 
 differently regarded by persons of opposite opinion, but 
 which, whether unavoidable or not, certainly contributed to 
 introduce the secular element into church affairs, and to 
 place them in a certain degree of subordination to the civil 
 government. The civil governor assumed an amount of 
 authority in ecclesiastical arrangements, even in the deter- 
 mination of doctrine, which seriously affected the character 
 of church institutions, and even the personal conduct of 
 churchmen. Perhaps the expression " assumed " is an incor- 
 rect one j for this authority was, in a great measure, forced 
 upon the temporal ruler by the battles and disastrous con- 
 troversies of the age. These could be appeased by councils 
 only, and with the emperor rested the right to summon 
 councils ; and with him also rested the responsibility of pre- 
 siding in them, for imder no other presidency could they 
 have been conducted, in difficult cases, with any rational 
 hope of success. Independently of the actual influence con- 
 ferred on the special occasion by this office of arbiter in 
 theological debate, there was created also another general 
 influence in the public mind, which continued to invest the 
 emperor with those attributes which he had only accepted 
 or assumed for a particular purpose. The world, wearied 
 with religious controversy, and confused with the noisy 
 strife of sectarian champions, accepted only too gladly the 
 
6Gi THE CHURCH AND THE OLD SOCIETY. 
 
 practical solution of the metaphysical difficulties which an 
 imperial order prescribed. This was not, of course, the case 
 with the leaders of party, — those energetic or turbulent cha- 
 racters, who force themselves to the surface in the stream of 
 historic narrative, and by the commotion which they excite 
 divert notice from the strong under-current of popular 
 opinion by which they are eventually borne along. But 
 with the masses it was not so. A strong sentiment of the 
 supremacy of the civil ruler, or, if the word be too strong, of 
 his dominant influence, grew up in the Roman world which 
 obeyed the sceptre of Constantine and his successors, and 
 perpetuated itself, as we shall see, down to the era of the 
 barbarian nationalities. This result was greatly assisted, if 
 not mainly produced, by the relations of the reigning em- 
 peror with the Episcopate, and through it with the inferior 
 clergy. Originally, the right of election to the office of 
 bishop rested " cum clero et populo " (with the clergy them- 
 selves and with the people) ; but in process of time, by a 
 turn of policy familiar in ancient, and not altogether un- 
 known in modern days, the emperor claimed to wield his 
 authority as representative and delegate of the people. The 
 logical inference from this theory was that the emperor 
 should succeed to those rights in ecclesiastical appointments 
 which originally were vested in the persons whom he now 
 represented. These rights were at first, it is most probable, 
 only exercised, and that not systematically, in the case of 
 the great patriarchal sees at Constantinople, Antioch, Alex- 
 andria, and Kome, — those splendid prizes with which the 
 civil ruler was enabled to stimulate the afiection or reward 
 the fidelity of aspiring churchmen. Even this interference 
 was not recognized at first as legal. Gibbon has asserted, 
 and Hallam indorses the statement, that no fewer than 
 eighteen thousand posts were filled by popular election ; but, 
 virtually, the emperor appointed the patriarch, the patriarcii 
 the metropolitan, the metropolitan the bishop, and the 
 
THE EMPEROR'S INFLUENCE INCREASES. 665 
 
 bishop the subordinate clergy. And further still, what the 
 emperor did at the seat of government, the imperial prefect 
 imitated, on a smaller scale, in his province ; so that, upon 
 the whole, it cannot be denied that, practically speaking, 
 ecclesiastical appointments were, from very early times, 
 tinder political influence. Whether the practice was evil or 
 beneficial for the Church, it soon acquired strength, and 
 assumed a legalized form. We find the emperor, as we have 
 said, almost of necessity constituting himself a judge in spi- 
 ritual matters, or, at the least, appointing those who were 
 to judge them. And we find society acquiescing in the 
 position without reluctance, because, in an age when spi- 
 ritual questions forced themselves, with all the power of 
 novelty, upon the conscience, men were eager to accept 
 from any source which seemed authoritative, that standard 
 of faith and those fixed rules of practice, which the spiritual 
 body by its dissensions seemed only to display for a moment 
 before their eyes, for the purpose of changing or withdraw- 
 ing them altogether. Yery soon, then, the temporal ruler 
 assumed the management of church legislation, and the 
 right of enforcing its enactments by pains and penalties 
 of his own ; and with the management of church legisla- 
 tion he widely extended his own prerogative with respect to 
 the appointment of church officers. We see him modifying 
 at his pleasure the arrangements made for the localization oi 
 the Church, subdividing dioceses, translating bishops, and 
 raising or depressing in importance, as suited the interests 
 of temporal policy, the cities which were seats of episcopal 
 government. Another advance was soon made by a claim to 
 the right of investiture, — fruitful source of strife for future 
 ages, — the right, that is to say, of placing the consecrated 
 " pallium " on the persons of the bishops at the time of their 
 election, — a significant action, involving the claim of tem- 
 poral jurisdiction over themselves and their dioceses. Under 
 plea of the tumultous sfcenes and the mischievous disorders 
 
666 THE CHURCH AND THE OLD SOCIETY. 
 
 which accompanied popular elections, — a plea only too 
 abundantly justified by the facts, — the emperor next claimed 
 the right of nominating the candidate for the vacant see, 
 which was, of course, equivalent to appointing him. CoTiges 
 d'elire are a time-honoured invention : they wear the aspect 
 of inconsistency : upon abstract principles, there is some 
 difficulty in defending them ; but then, as now, the Church 
 and society accepted them as practical safeguards against 
 evils worse than themselves. 
 
 That which we have called the second secular tendency 
 of the Church, is intimately connected with the first. This 
 was exhibited in a disposition, we will not say to imitate 
 the observances of Paganism for purposes of policy, but, at 
 any rate, to concede something to the old prejudices and 
 habits, to accommodate to a Christian standard, practices 
 with which the heathen would not willingly part, and to 
 retain for the services of the Church, what had proved so 
 attractive in the worship of the ancient divinities. " There 
 is a tendency in divine things " — we are again influenced 
 by the same reasons to use the language of M. Capefigue 
 rather than our own — " to an admixture with humanity. No 
 sooner had the Christian worship obtained the favour of 
 imperial toleration, than it appropriated to itself several of the 
 external forms of Paganism. Disdaining pomp upon princi- 
 ple, it was, nevertheless, well aware, that to triumph over the 
 old cult in the imagination of the multitude, it must of neces- 
 sity concede something to the senses and to art. Already, 
 during its subterranean life in the catacombs, it had 
 adorned its altars, reared upon the tombs of the martyrs, 
 with figures or rude sculptures which represented the Cross, 
 the mysterious symbols of the Faith, the countenance 
 of the Saviour, that of St. Peter or St. Paul, or cer- 
 tain subjects selected from the Old or New Testament. 
 The Christians next adorned the altars themselves with 
 natural flowers ; they lighted them up with wax candles 
 
THE CHURCH ADOPTS SOME PAGAN PRACTICES. 667 
 
 night and day, either because the custom takes its origin 
 from the darkness of the catacombs, or because the lighted 
 candles present a symbolic image of the Eternal Light, 
 lighting the living and the dead. Christianity purified for 
 herself the pomps and processions so frequent in the mys- 
 teries, especially those of Isis, in which were carried vases and 
 consecrated baskets, as one still sees them in the Egyptian 
 monuments. If, then, the new Faith kept herself austere 
 and divine in principle, she popularized herself in form, and 
 penetrated among the masses by the use of that external 
 pageantry of which she had already made experiment in 
 the violent persecution of the unrelenting Diocletian."* 
 These judicious and candid remarks might be confirmed by 
 illustrations, which the eloquent historian has perhaps not 
 unwillingly omitted. It seems clear that the Church with 
 difficulty possessed herself of the affections, and subdued 
 the imagination of a populace accustomed to the sensuous 
 beauty of Greek art, and to the splendour of Roman ritual. 
 She felt that her own poor and simple externals contrasted in 
 the common mind most unfavourably with the magnificence 
 of the Pagan ceremonials, and the pomp, processions, fes- 
 tivity and lavish feasting which accompanied them. And 
 she also felt, that the doctrines which she had to proclaim, 
 were little likely to find entrance into intellects entirely 
 absorbed in a superstition which was fostered by the sight 
 of all familiar things, and had become ingrained into the very 
 nature of the masses. The wrench which was to tear them 
 away from all the ancient objects of their affection, and all 
 the constituents, so to speak, of their moral and intellectual 
 being, was so violent, as to threaten fatal consequences. 
 Expedients, therefore, of all kinds were sought, by the able 
 rulers of the newly-victorious Church, to lessen this evil, and 
 modify its most mischievous results. And, if in their new 
 
 * Les quatre Premiers Slides de I'Eglise Chretienne, vol. ii. 
 p. 195. 
 
C63 THE CHURCH AND THE OLD SOCIETY. 
 
 position, as associates of the civic power, tliey descended 
 somewhat from the exalted spiritualism of their oiiginal 
 principles and i:)rimitive constitution ; if they adopted what 
 may be called a temporizing policy, and submitted to compro- 
 mise in what they considered matters of practice rather 
 than matters of faith, they undoubtedly deserve condemna- 
 tion from impartial justice. But what generation, what society 
 among their successors in Church administration, is entitled 
 to sit in judgment upon their errors, and cast the first stone 
 of indignant reprobation at their heads ? We shall not 
 pause to argue the question; we have now only to deal 
 with facts. Let us again seek the testimony of a distin- 
 guished member of another Church, where the language of 
 our own might be regarded with suspicion. " At Rome," 
 says M. Ph. Chasles, '* the old superstition was now attached 
 only to empty forms, to the indestructible usages of lan- 
 guage, to effete traditions, which still feebly dragged on 
 a languishing existence, and which men did not only make 
 no attempt to destroy, but most carefully assimilated to 
 Christianity. The Temple became a Church : the Pagan in 
 adoring Christ thought he was adoring Apollo. The 
 worship of the Virgin Mary, which now began to spread, 
 was one of the principal expedients emjDloyed by the con- 
 quering religion, and one of the most successful. In the 
 eyes of all, this new idol was worthy of respect. A woman 
 bore an infant in her arms : mother at once and maid, a 
 symbol touching and full of fascination. Before the Virgin 
 Mary, the whole of idolatrous Sicily laid aside its pagan 
 prejudices ; — we still find in Greece and Russia the Panagia 
 more venerated than the Trinity itself. In Spain and in 
 Italy, the Virgin without stain is an object of profound and 
 almost pagan veneration. The Apollo on Mount Casino 
 was not overthrown from his altar until it was done by 
 St. Benedict, in the year 529 a.d. The worship of Diana 
 was absolutely maintained in the neighbourhood of Treves 
 
CHRISTIAN ART AND ICONOCLASM. 6Q^ 
 
 even up to the eighteenth century." The same writer goes 
 on to speak in similar terms of the northern gods worshipped 
 by the barbarous races who overthrew the Empire. The 
 effect produced by their mythology more properly belongs 
 to the second part of this inquiry. But we may, in passing, 
 assent to the observation that the gods of the Scandinavian 
 Pantheon were absorbed and lost in the confusion of practice 
 arising from the contact of Christianity with the old-world 
 Paganism. Thor was confounded with Jupiter, Woden 
 with Mercury 3 and in all the primitive literature of 
 Germany there is a singular mixture of the old Teutonic 
 heathenism with the gentler inspirations of the new faith. 
 But to return for a moment to the previous question ; there 
 can be no doubt but that much of the splendid ceremonial 
 by which the Church of Rome knows so well how to fascinate 
 the impressionable races of southern Europe, owes its origin 
 to an amalgamation, or an imitation of the most familiar 
 forms of the Pagan Pitual. The marvellous masterpieces of 
 ancient sculpture and painting ; the purple robes, gleaming 
 with gold and jewels, worn by the officiating priests ; the 
 long triumphal trains, winding their way through festive 
 streets to the temples of the immortal Gods ; the varied 
 pageantry which age after age had charmed the more refined 
 votaries of a sensuous faith, and subdued the superstitious 
 imaginations of the vulgar, naturally suggested, or, as some 
 say, necessitated, the pomp of Catholic worship and the 
 beautiful creations of Christian Art ; while these, by a not 
 unnatural reaction, produced the Iconoclasm of the Isaurian 
 Leo, of German Anabaptists, and English Puritans. Yet 
 undoubtedly the feeling in the mind of those before whom 
 the question was first practically brought must have been 
 one which it is very easy to understand. Shall Heathenism 
 offer beauty to the eye, and enchantment to the senses, 
 derived from the material world, and shall not Christianity, 
 which is the worship of Him who is the Creator and the 
 
670 THE CHUECH AND THE OLD SOCIETY. 
 
 Lord of Nature, be enabled under due modification to do the 
 same ? The principle is perhaps indisputable, yet its actual 
 application is accompanied by so many risks and difficulties 
 that it has seldom entirely succeeded. It cannot be said to 
 have done so in the early Church. Among the many curious 
 details of observances adopted from Heathenism, many must 
 strike us, who have the means of applying the test of ex- 
 perience, as involving a perilous approximation to idolatry 
 and superstition. The religious processions, to which we 
 have already referred, were a reproduction of the pageants 
 witnessed every day in the streets of the capital, when some 
 native god, or newly-imported divinity from the East, was 
 to receive especial honours, and the populace a pleasing dis- 
 traction. The celebration of the Christian festivals was 
 frequently determined by the period at which some popular 
 pagan festival had been held, in order to reconcile the imper- 
 fectly-established converts to the loss of their cherished 
 amusements; thus the great Feast of Christmas was un- 
 doubtedly made coincident with the Saturnalia, that the 
 Libertas Decembri, as Horace calls it, " the license of the 
 season," might still be preserved for the neophyte, prole- 
 tarian, or slave. The decorations of the priesthood and the 
 churches were in many instances suggested by those of the 
 Heathen Temple. The Basilica, or earliest building in 
 which the worship of God was conducted, was in the first 
 instance a Roman court of law, and subsequently an 
 imitation of it ; the mitre is supposed to have been a heathen 
 ornament ; the surplice is from Egypt ; the altar derived its 
 name and shape from a pagan antetype ; its lighted candles, 
 even if they originated in the darkness of the Catacombs, 
 had a similar precedent, for individuals were in the habit of 
 offering lamps to their gods, just as the taper burning in 
 honour of Saints or the Virgin may be perpetually seen in 
 Italy, France, and Spain ; holy water was compounded from 
 a heathen receipt, in certain proportions of the pure element 
 
DEDICATORY OFFERINGS : RELIGIOUS ORDERS. 671 
 
 and salt, and the means employed in sprinkling it were the 
 same ; in ancient bas-relievos, is seen the boy swinging the 
 box of incense before the officiating priest of Jupiter, just 
 as it is swung in the perfumed atmosphere which suiTOunds 
 the high altar of the Madeleine or St. Peter s ; if a nimbus 
 or circle of golden light encircles the head of Christian 
 saints, the colossal statue of Nero wore a crown of rays 
 imitating the glory of the sun, and this was itself in imita- 
 tion of an ornament very commonly affixed to the ancient 
 divinities ; if the faithful attest their humility and allegiance 
 by saluting the toe of St. Peter's successor, a similar act of 
 obeisance was performed long before, to a very different 
 potentate, in the same place ; for Caligula accepted the 
 ceremony from the servility of his courtiers. Classical 
 literature is full of allusions to the practice of offering up 
 votive tablets, or imitations of members of the body, exe- 
 cuted in wax, as a thanksgiving for an escape from peril or 
 disease, and the prejudices of Protestants are continually 
 shocked upon the Continent by witnessing these strange 
 accessories upon the walls of Roman Catholic cathedrals. 
 The right of sanctuary, claimed by the Christian for 
 the interior of the church, had been already extended 
 to the fugitive criminal by Pallas and Apollo ; the shrines 
 which, by the side of the roads, and at the crossways in 
 Continental Europe, display to the wonder of the stranger, 
 and the adoration of the peasant, a tawdrily attired Saint or 
 Virgin, exactly resemble the viales, semitales, and compitales 
 of the heathen. The great variety of religious societies and 
 orders which sprang up in the Church has been ascribed to 
 the precedent afforded by the colleges of Augurs, Pontifices, 
 Salii, Fratres Avernales, and others, with which the old 
 mythological system had rendered her familiar. Monasticism 
 was doubtless in many respects a peculiar institution of 
 Egyptian origin and semi-oriental character ; yet it had 
 many precedents among the worshippers of heathen divinities, 
 
672 THE CHUECH AND THE OLD SOCIETY. 
 
 as is clear from what is recorded concerning the Salii, or 
 priests of Dodonean Jupiter ; the Galli, or priests of Cjbele, 
 and others. Paganism had its flagellants and its wandering 
 friars, as well as the Papacy, nor was the moral difference 
 between the practitioners of any very great importance. One 
 example is at any rate conspicuous and familiar. The beau- 
 tiful little shrine which crowns the height of Tivoli, and looks 
 down upon the waters of the Arno, as they dash from that 
 picturesque cliff into the plain below, was destined to have 
 its counterpart in many a lovely and unlovely spot in 
 Christianized Europe, where the life-long sacrifice of those 
 who fed the eternal lire was to be imitated by the daughters 
 of a more enlightened faith. This list might largely be 
 increased, were such our object. But we only profess to 
 indicate, generally, sources of information and reflection for 
 those who have the opportunity of dealing thoughtfullj'^ 
 with the question. Our narrow limits comj^el us to turn, in 
 conclusion, to the third great influence which we believe to 
 have operated unfavourably on the early Church. 
 
 The apostolic warning against vain Philosophy, her seduc- 
 tions and perversions of the faith, was effectual enough while 
 Christianity dwelt in places which Philosophy did not care 
 to enter, and while it was confined to persons whom Philo- 
 sophy regarded as a profane and vulgar herd, inaccessible to 
 the illumination of reason, and incapable of apprehending 
 speculative truth. But when men of higher intellectual 
 culture had accepted the new doctrine, the relations of the 
 two parties underwent a change. It was no longer possible 
 to pour contempt upon its professors, as Galileans, atheists, 
 sorcerers, impostors, impure, child-murderers, the very dregs 
 and offscouring of humanity. The witness of men's senses 
 proved to them, that a great and living power had come into 
 being amongst them ; a power which, according to the beau- 
 tiful illustration of Hume, had found the fulcrum which 
 Archimedes wanted, and which was enabled to stir this 
 
THE CHUECH AND THE PHILOSOPHERS. 673 
 
 world to its very base, because the local origin of its motive 
 force was situated in another. On the one hand, therefore, 
 the strength and greatness of the new faith ; its immense 
 capacities for endurance, activity and expansion ; the patent 
 fact of its success, could no longer be disputed or ignored; 
 while on the other, the old faith was now beginning to be 
 tried in the furnace of affliction, and was found unavailing to 
 furnish consolation or support, amid the immense evils and 
 frightful suffering which had come upon the world. Philo- 
 sophy therefore was compelled to condescension ; it was 
 compelled to notice the great moral phenomenon which had' 
 grown up beside it in the Empire ; nay, it might naturally 
 hope to penetrate the secret of its wonderful social strength, and 
 avail itself of the knowledge thus acquired. But on the other 
 part, it is certain that the more cultivated Christian minds 
 felt keenly the reproach of entire estrangement from the 
 whole commonwealth of letters. They could not bear to be 
 described as ignorant of that old Hellenic world of thought 
 and that wealth of creative genius which had civilized man- 
 kind. Conscious of the beauty, the sublimity, and the purity 
 of a faith which surpassed, in these qualities, the highest 
 flights of heathen intellect, they were naturally impatient of 
 the language which described it as a blind and stupid super- 
 stition. It was easy to prove the negative, and perhaps 
 the leading minds of the Christian Church were precipi- 
 tate in their attempt to do so. At any rate these causes 
 brought about a rajyprochement between the two parties 
 which was very singular in its character, and very singular 
 in its effects. In those interesting and ably written lec- 
 tures of Mr. Kingsley, " Alexandria and her Schools," this 
 double movement is very clearly and graphically described. 
 He has also discerned, with his usual felicity, the sub- 
 stance of eternal truth which, despite of its extravagances, 
 was underlying the philosophy that became the rival of 
 Christianity, and gave to it whatever force and vitality it 
 
674 THE CHURCH AND THE OLD SOCIETY. 
 
 possessed. The whole question is one of the highest in- 
 terest and importance, nor has it, in this country at any 
 rates, received that popular attention which it merits, and, 
 indeed, if we are to have an historical Christian literature, 
 imperatively demands. The little work of Mr. Kingsley 
 will give the student an opportunity of correcting some of 
 the misconceptions and vague ideas which he has probably 
 derived from Gibbon. The latter does not seem to have 
 understood that two schools, one of pagan and one of 
 Christian origin, simultaneously subsisted in the Egyptian 
 capital, and that although a common tendency to the spirit 
 Greek Platonism gave a common aspect to them both, 
 they were \^ery different in their genesis, in their funda- 
 mental principle, and in the practical result of their attempt 
 to develop it. This Mr. Kingsley has very satisfactorily 
 shown, yet, perhaps, he says too much, when he declares 
 that " during the whole period of their existence, they were 
 in internecine struggle with each other;" and he certainly 
 undervalues, or understates, the influence of the East upon 
 what they had in common. The conquests of Alexander 
 had brought into contact the doctrines of Greece, Persia, 
 India, and Egypt. Greek philosophy had become, since the 
 death of Aristotle, gradually more powerless and effete, and 
 the Megaric, Pyrrhonist, and Cyrenaic schools had done little 
 to bring it down from the region of words, into that of prac- 
 tical life, and bestow upon it a working faith. The Greek 
 mind, therefore, threw itself with a degree of eagerness into 
 the mystic teaching of the East, from a desire to refresh its 
 energies with the traditionary knowledge derived from the 
 ancient home and birthplace of wisdom ; nor, again, were the 
 Eastern sages slow in their turn to borrow the clearly-elabo- 
 rated reasoning, and logical forms, devised by the genius of 
 the Greeks. But Alexandria, from the circumstances of its 
 situation, was almost of necessity the spot where all these 
 cults, philosophies, and faiths flowed together and combined j 
 
ALEXANDRIA THE INTELLECTUAL CENTRE. 675 
 
 where professors of Athens, Syrians, Jews, Brahmins from 
 the banks of the Ganges, Chaklee astrologers, and Christians 
 of Rome, encountered one another in a strange and varied 
 intellectual life. It was an epoch of eclecticism, for eclecti- 
 cism was now the only thing which was left for philosophy 
 to try ; and in this great eclectic effort, Christianity became, 
 to a certain extent, involved. Of the immense number and 
 variety of its sources, some idea may be formed from the 
 careful classification of M. Matter, who has devoted three 
 interesting volumes to the subject. He indicates an original 
 source purely Greek, another Indo-Greek, another Indo- 
 Egyptian, another Persian and Chaldee, another Buddhist 
 and Chinese, another purely Jewish, another Syro-Phcenician, 
 another, and most important one, he finds in the Christian 
 doctrine of the contemporary Church. 
 
 The point of contact where these systems met, — the one 
 principle which gave them anything of a common nature or 
 name, — was the Gnosis, or " divine illumination," a transcen- 
 dental knowledge, or rather " process of knowing" the truth, 
 shared among the fortunate participants in the faculty, and 
 denied to the multitude. "The belief," says M. Matter, that the 
 Divinity had manifested himself in the religious institutions of 
 all nations, authorized the borrowing from all quarters ; but 
 the persuasion that this manifestation had not been anywhere 
 complete, and had not revealed the supreme God, gave, with 
 respect to all systems, an equal liberty of dealing with them. 
 That which is always and everywhere at the base of Gnosti- 
 cism, is the great apparition of a ' Pevealer' of this supreme 
 God, i.e, the fundamental dogma of Christianity. But this 
 dogma received among the Gnostics all the modifications 
 which were suggested to them by the other systems from 
 which they drew their ideas ; and so variously did they do 
 this, that it was sometimes the Judaism of Alexandria or 
 Jerusalem, sometimes the Oriental theogonies, sometimes 
 those of Egypt or Greece, which were mingled with a 
 
 9 Y «? 
 
676 THE CHURCH AND THE OLD SOCIETY. 
 
 Christian basis." Gaosticisra, therefore, in its most transcen- 
 dentally eclectic form, affected to place itself above all those 
 systems, and, speaking from its own sublime elevation, it ex- 
 plained to the Jew, that his God was but a subaltern divinity, 
 revealing himself to the favoured nation in an imperfect 
 reli^^ious law ; to the old pagan Polytheists, that their mytho- 
 logy was a very rude and inchoate revelation of the Divine ; 
 to the philosophers, that their philosophy was devoid of the 
 mystic illuminism which alone lights the souls of men to 
 the truth. To the Christian, its language was, " You do not 
 comprehend the true force, the inner import of your own doc- 
 trine j for your teachers, blinded by ignorance or the narrov/ 
 national prejudices of Judaism, have been unable to compre- 
 hend it themselves, or disclose it to their disciples." Such 
 was, so to speak, the high ideal and typical form of Gnosti- 
 cism ; but, as we have implied, its theory and nature varied 
 as it was approached from different points of view, and with 
 different antecedents. The common notion entertained about 
 Gnosticism is, that it was more or less a deflection from 
 the orthodox Christian belief ; a debased type of Christianity, 
 to be classified among the primitive heresies. Nothing can 
 be more inexact. It was an immense collection of philosophical 
 systems gathered from all parts of the world, and containing, 
 no doubt, Christian elements among the rest ; but these 
 were overlain and smothered by the incumbent mass of 
 mysticism and elaborate speculation which its all-embracing 
 eclecticism comprised. 
 
 To separate these elements, distinguish, and classify 
 them, would require a separate work, — a work which the 
 labours of Mosheim have by no means rendered unneces- 
 sary. Our own notice of the subject must be brief indeed. 
 With Oriental speculation, its schools and disciples, we have 
 here nothing to do. But it may not be foreign to our 
 purpose if we make a few remarks as to the effect of the 
 Gnostic spirit and teaching upon the established religion and 
 
OLD ROMAN RELIGION EXTINGUISHED. 677 
 
 philosophy of the Eoman empire aj the time when Christi- 
 anity became a recognized fact, and also as to its effect upon 
 Christianity itself. 
 
 The real religion of old Rome, in its mythological 
 form, had perished beneath a series of assaults more or 
 less avowedly hostile. First came its syncretism with the 
 Greek systems ; a syncretism fatal to the Italian Divinities, 
 so different in their rural simplicity from the more bril- 
 liant and artificial creations of the Hellenic mind. The 
 next inroad was that of the Greek philosophical schools, 
 which had naturally the effect of a strong rationalizing 
 movement ; and this was brought to a disastrous climax by 
 the widely-welcomed introduction of the Epicurean physical 
 system, and its practical action upon social life, so deeply 
 lamented by Cicerp. There was, however, yet " a lower 
 deep," already noticed in these pages ; a polluted tide of 
 Oriental superstitions poured into Rome, and thoroughly 
 infected her moral being. The result, among rational and 
 inquiring men, was an era of scepticism, like that which pre- 
 ceded the French revolution, and of which we have a repre- 
 sentative in the scoffing Lucian, who has been not inaptly 
 called the Voltaire of the Decadence. Between the two 
 abysses of Atheism on the one hand, and an utterly debased 
 and debasing Superstition on the other. Gnosticism for the 
 time being offered to the ancient Heathenism a ground upon 
 which it might repose. In the effort to maintain itself under 
 this altered aspect, it abandoned much of its original cha- 
 racter, and accepted much that was alien from it. Heathenism, 
 I say, casting aside the slough of the old sensualism, appeared 
 before the world in a new and glittering guise, as philosophic, 
 super-sensuous, and mystical. It discarded the more gross 
 attributes of its earlier form, and elaborated a species of re- 
 fined Pantheism, replete with mystic meanings, and dependent 
 upon the allegorical interpretation of its primitive traditions. 
 The vague shadow of a Supreme Being replaced the Zeus of 
 
678 THE CHUECH AND THE OLD SOCIETY. 
 
 Homer, father of Gods ^nd men, and Capitolian Jove, the 
 tutelary guardian of the children and fortunes of Kome. A 
 crowd of subordinate powers arose instead of the legendary- 
 gods of Greece and Italj. Allegory supplied the place of 
 the accepted traditionary accounts of their birth, nature, 
 and functions. Demonology superseded Polytheism, though 
 it must be admitted without any very material advantage to 
 the recipients ; and a meaning hitherto latent was detected 
 in the ancient faith and its religious rites. Upon the dis- 
 covery was built up an ingenious symbolism, which employed, 
 if it did not satisfy the intellect, and made shift to exhibit 
 the outward form, though it could not engender the working 
 qualities of a Faith. This it did not succeed in doing, and, 
 from the nature of the case, did not possess the means to do. 
 But on this failure and its causes we sh%ll have a few words 
 to say in conclusion. 
 
 In the mean time, what was the form and method 
 under which Christianity approached the same point ? 
 The more cultivated class of Christian minds, impatient, 
 as has been said, of their alienation from the whole world 
 of secular knowledge, and haunted by the conviction 
 that goodness, truth, and beauty, wherever found, must 
 have proceeded from the God of the Gospel, had by this 
 time come to regard the intellectual product of former 
 ages in a very different way from their unlettered predeces- 
 sors. The writings of the Christian Apologists, in what 
 may be termed the second stage of the Christian society, are 
 full of expressions which it is easy for a disingenuous mind 
 like that of Gibbon to abuse. The often-repeated expres- 
 sion of one of them may be taken as representing the spirit 
 of all. " What is Plato," asks Numenius, " but Moses talk- 
 ing Greek ? " " The source of all wisdom, they said, has ever 
 been the same. That which has hitherto existed in the 
 heathen world was either a pale reflex or faint anticipation 
 of the real intellectual illumination, the y vJifftc, or transcen- 
 
' CONNECTION OF CHURCH AND GNOSTICISM. 679 
 
 dental knowledge which we have at last received. Christi- 
 anity contains all the truth which philosophy ever contained, 
 and very much more beside. Wise men of old, of every land 
 and time, spoke by the spirit of God, but it was often with 
 an uncertain and stammering utterance. The intellectual 
 discoveries, the large conceptions of which you philosophers 
 boast, were partial revelations of the truth which we are now 
 commissioned to teach in its full revelation. Philosophy was 
 a very imperfect Christianity; Christianity is philosophy 
 in a perfect form, purified by the interference of God's own 
 personal agency, and completed by an entire unveiling of 
 His nature, of His relation to man, and of man's relation to 
 Him." 
 
 No system, such is the prodigious force of man's 
 mental activity, be it philosophical or religious, can entirely 
 stifle development from within, or entirely resist influences 
 from without. In the life of a religion, as in the life of a 
 nation, stagnation is death. Not only does it modify those 
 portions which may be regarded as strictly its own creation, 
 but even those truths revealed and received from a higher 
 source, are ever exhibiting new aspects of themselves, 
 entering into new combinations, and disclosing their adapta- 
 tion to new phases of intellectual and social life. It would, 
 therefore, be idle to believe that the Christianity of the 
 second century could, or ought to have been so crystallized 
 into a fixed form, that the immense and varied movement of 
 the human mind around it should have been entirely without 
 modifying influence upon its character. But the question 
 as to the influence of Gnosticism upon orthodox Chris- 
 tianity, must be reduced to more precision before it 
 can be answered. Is it meant that Christianity borrowed 
 any purely Gnostic doctrine, belonging to Gnosticism, and 
 not to herself, and, after the appropriation, adopted it into 
 her system 1 Or is it meant that Christianity and Gnosti- 
 cism severally derived anything from a third source, which 
 
680 THE CHUECH AND THE OLD SOCIETY. 
 
 was originally independent of both ? Or, finally, are these 
 questions to be generally answered in the negative ? and was 
 it a universal tendency towards mysticism and theological 
 speculation, born of the time, and affecting all forms of its 
 intellectual life, which acted upon both one and the other, 
 though in a manner conformable with their separate natures 
 and objects ? Upon a careful examination, the last supposi- 
 tion will appear to be the most correct. The Koman or 
 Latin school rejected Gnosticism altogether. The schools of 
 Africa were divided : those under Eoman influence followed 
 the Roman practice ; those more nearly connected with 
 Greece yielded in some degree to a tendency so eminently 
 Greek at all times, but now more than ever developed by 
 the contact of Oriental mysticism. Neither, as some may 
 suppose, was the language of Scripture such as clearly to 
 forbid and render impossible any infusion of the Gnostic 
 spirit. St. Paul undoubtedly condemns, in distinct terms, 
 the y vuio-tc, " falsely so called," yet sufficient commendation of 
 the real yvG)aLQ may be found in the apostolic epistles to en- 
 courage inclinations already directed towards it. Nor was 
 the Christianized adaptation of the Gnostic technology in 
 the Gospel of St. John without a similar influence. Clement of 
 Alexandria speaks more than once of the yvCJaiQ in a manner 
 open to misinterpretation by those whose interest it is to 
 misinterpret. He says there is a yvCjaic, though none but 
 Christians possess it. He recommends the yrivarrtKog (dloc, or 
 life of transcendental " knowing,'' as a fit model of the Chris- 
 tian life. But such expressions do not make him a Gnostic, 
 any more than the semi-Platonist expressions in the introduc- 
 tion to the Gospel of St. John make the Evangelist a Neo- 
 Platonist. Eusebius again, no less than Clement, recognizes 
 yvuxTLQ as the gift and characteristic of the Christian life. 
 Indeed, he represents it almost as equivalent to Divine revela- 
 tion, and declares that it was communicated to men by Jesus 
 Christ. But, perhaps, the most signal instance of the use 
 
PLATONIC LANGUAGE OF CHRISTIAN TEACHEES. 6S1 
 
 of Gnostic language is to be found in one whose name, a few 
 years ago, would have been strange to most English ears. 
 But the story of the maiden teacher and philosopher of 
 Alexandria, so gracefully told by Mr. Kingsley, has ren- 
 dered Synesius familiar to an English public as Hypatia's 
 friend. In his hymns he adopts language so thoroughly 
 Gnostic, that even M. Matter, who most strongly maintains 
 the purity of the Christian dogma, notwithstanding its occa- 
 sionally equivocal expression, is constrained to admit that 
 the reader, unacquainted with the name of the author, 
 would probably imagine the whole to be the work of a 
 Yalentinian heretic. Yet, he goes on to observe, that no 
 Gnostic would ever have accepted the words of Synesius 
 in the sense which he himself attached to them ; no Gnostic 
 would ever have accepted the worthy bishop of Ptolemais 
 as a co-disciple and brother of the philosophic guild. He 
 was a Platonist, and a friend of the great Platonist teacher 
 of the age, with whom he reciprocated good offices and ideas. 
 A tinge of Platonism, therefore, pervades his style and his 
 notions upon metaphysical subjects ; but he cannot, for this 
 reason, be accused of abandoning the fundamentals of the faith, 
 any more than St. John can be- accused of abandoning them 
 when he dwells on "the Life," "the Light," and "the Fulness,' 
 names of Gnostic emanations, and adopts the special phraseo- 
 logy of the Gnostic schools. The same pleas can hardly be used 
 in favourof Arnobius; for though zealously Christian accordiug 
 to his knowledge, he appears much more thoroughly imbued 
 with the results of a heathen education. But, be this as it may, 
 the moment we pass beyond what Catholic tradition recognizes 
 as orthodox doctrine, the more mischievous influences of 
 Gnosticism become fully apparent. It is only necessary to 
 cast our eyes over the long list of early heresies, to perceive 
 how important a part was played in their construction by 
 the Protean spirit of the Gnostic philosophy. Ebionites, 
 Nazarites, Docetse, and others of Judaizing tendencies, were 
 
682 THE CHURCH AND THE OLD SOCIETY. 
 
 members of that particular school which had grown up 
 among the scattered sons of Israel ; or, if not so directly 
 imbued with Gnostic principles as the Jewish and Sama- 
 ritan schools, properly so called, were largely aifected by 
 them. Other heretics, again, though free from this parti- 
 cular taint, had caught another, perhaps as strong and 
 malignant, from the Oriental and Hellenic Polytheism 
 which subsisted beside them. Those very remarkable mys- 
 tics, the Agapetse, exhibit features which strongly recall 
 the peculiarities of mediaeval pietism ; and there can be 
 no doubt that the speculative spirit of the yvwarig deeply 
 influenced, if it did not originate, the teaching of Mani- 
 chseans, Arians, and Sabellians. The history of the process 
 is the old, perhaps we might say the universal, one. Dissi- 
 dents from the orthodox doctrine, whose grounds of differ- 
 ence were at first most trifling, having reference, perhaps, 
 merely to some traditional observance, became irritated, 
 obstinate, and pugnacious by opposition, and, finding the 
 necessity for some external support, soon learnt to look 
 for it in the Gnostic schools. Yet this opposition was 
 not an unmixed evil. To the encroachment of these intel- 
 lectual errors we owe some among the most valuable works 
 of the primitive fathers. Irenseus, Theodoret, and Epipha- 
 nius appear before us principally as controversialists and 
 combatants in this warfare. From this originated the famous 
 discourse of Origen against Celsus. To the same cause we owe 
 much of the Alexandrian Clement, and many of the treatises 
 of TertuUian. What, then, is our general conclusion ? It 
 cannot be better stated than in the words of the painstaking 
 historian of the whole intellectual movement : " If we are 
 to inquire what has been the influence of the Gnostics and 
 their teaching upon the composition, the studies, and the 
 scientific development of the orthodox doctrine, we must 
 recognize an intellectual action of no little magnitude. It 
 is certain that theories projected into the bosom of Chris- 
 
PERMANENCE OF GNOSTIC OPINIONS. 683 
 
 tianity by the Gnostics drew the doctors of the Church into 
 a series of special studies, — studies of philosophy and theo- 
 gony, of philology and archaeology, Greek or Oriental, whose 
 influence over the Christian schools of Syria and Egypt, it 
 not of Rome and Carthage, is beyond calculation." * We 
 may add that this influence has been more long-lived than 
 is commonly imagined. Gnosticism, under one form or 
 another, lasted until the fourteenth century ; indeed, so 
 subtle and delusive are its shapes, that it may be living still. 
 Paulicianism, which had its origin in Armenia, was, no doubt, 
 a revival of Gnostic ideas and principles ; and the Paulician 
 doctrines were themselves revived in the West by the 
 "Cathari," or Puritans, and the Bogomites in the East, 
 concerning whose '^ suppression " by her father, the Greek 
 emperor, Anna Comnena expatiates in her tedious pages* 
 This was in the twelfth century. The religious doctrines 
 which provoked the bloody Albigensian crusade must be 
 admitted, even by fair Protestant criticism, to have been 
 connected intimately with these antecedents. And, lastly, 
 the cruel confiscations, tortures, and judicial murders which 
 exterminated the gallant order of the Templars, were called 
 forth by the strange heretical semi-Gnostic notions which 
 those warrior priests had imbibed in their contact with 
 Islamism, and from their residence in the East, 
 
 We must now close our brief and imperfect reference to 
 this most interesting era in the history of the Church and 
 the movement of the human mind. But, in conclusion, let 
 us endeavour to catch a brief glimpse of its inner nature, and 
 the causes of its contradictory development. All Gnosticism, 
 pure and impure, Greek, Oriental, and Christian, had one 
 great root-idea, from which countless ramifications sprang. 
 This idea was that of a Divine something in man, and a 
 Divine something in the Universe answering to it, and com- 
 municating with it by utterances of various sorts. This 
 * Matter, Histoire Critique du Gnosticism. 
 
684 THE CHURCH AND THE OLD SOCIETY. 
 
 Divine something received, even before the Christian use of 
 the term, the appellation of Aoyoc, the eternal Word, or 
 Keason ; the source of all human reason, and the origin of all 
 human knowledge. " The belief in this Aoyog was one which 
 neither Plutarch nor Marcus, neither JSTumenius nor Ammo- 
 nius, so far as we can see, learnt from the Christians ; it was 
 the common ground which they held, the common battle-field 
 which they disputed with them."* But how came this "com- 
 mon field " to be converted into a " common battle-field 1 " for 
 herein is the gist of the whole matter. It was from the 
 different aspects under which either party regarded the 
 Aoyoc, and their own relation to it. With the heathen phi- 
 losopher it was an impersonal, intellectual illumination, by 
 participation in which the individual soul acquired access to 
 the great Soul of the Universe, and assimilation to it. The 
 philosopher, according to Plotinus, sought to bring the God 
 within him into harmony with the God who is in the Uni- 
 vei'se ; and this, Mr. Kingsley says, expresses in one sentence 
 the whole object of Neo-Platonism. With the Christian, the 
 KoyoQ was a Person, with personal functions and sympathies. 
 The qualities of truth, wisdom, goodness, order, and law, 
 they argued, imply a Person in whom they are to inhere ; 
 and as the search after these is the object of all philosophy, 
 the object of philosophy is a Person. And, in contradiction 
 to Plotinus, they felt that his description of the process by 
 which the Divine and the human are amalgamated is. a direct 
 inversion of the true process. They knew that the origin of 
 the process must be with God, and not with their own soul ; 
 that He sti'ove to bring the souls of men into harmony with 
 Himself, and the personal Aoyoc, or Word, was the means 
 and channel whereby this was effected. From this radical 
 difference flowed others of equal importance. For, according 
 to the heathen view, the jvuxtlq was purely intellectual ; it 
 dealt with notions only, and abstractions, and, as such, was 
 * Schools of Alexandria, p. 97. 
 
THE HEATHEN AND THE CHRISTIAN GNOSIS. 685 
 
 practically barren of results. But with the Christian, the 
 yvCjatQ flowing from a Divine Person, and being interwoven 
 with personal relations and responsibilities, assumed a moral 
 character, and wrought upon actual life, and human will, and 
 the common duties of men. Hence followed another wide di- 
 vergence between the two when they came to deal with the 
 inevitable and all-important question, Who, then, are or can 
 be participants in this divine knowledge 1 Is it universal, 
 or is it partial 1 Is it the special privilege of a few, or is it 
 the inheritance of all the race ? " No," after many internal 
 struggles, Philosophy was constrained to reply ; " no ; this 
 illumination is not, and cannot be, the inheritance of the 
 herd ; with tlieir brute natures and gross conceptions, it 
 cannot co-exist ; they must be given up ; they are doomed 
 to eternal exclusion from the light." But the Christian was 
 compelled to answer, " Yes." He equally believed, on the- 
 authority of his inspired Teacher, in the illumination of an 
 in-dwelling Aoyoc, or Light ; but, on the same authority, he 
 was constrained to admit that it lighted " every man that 
 Cometh (or "on his coming") into the world." He knew, from 
 the declaration of the great apostle of the Gentiles, that this 
 AoyoQ was " in him, if he were not reprobate," and had lost 
 it : he knew that he, individually, was the actual " temple, 
 or dwelling-place," of this Divine Being, if his own cor- 
 ruptions had not polluted the temple and expelled the Divi- 
 nity ; but he also knew that the Divine Being was the real 
 ground of the constitution of the whole universe, including 
 all humanity ; and that His special action upon humanity 
 was expressed in dying for all men, and breaking down all 
 the false distinctions which men had created between bar- 
 barian, Scythian, bond, and free, — distinctions which made 
 up the very life of the heathen, but were impossible in the 
 Christian Gnosis. 
 
 It was impossible, therefore, for the Christian Church, if 
 she understood and maintained the ground of her own 
 
686 THE CHURCH AND THE OLD SOCIBTY. 
 
 being, and comprehended the source of her own illumina- 
 tion, to coalesce with any among the many Protean forms of 
 philosophic illumination which had their centre, if not their 
 birthplace, at Alexandria. They dealt with an impalpable, 
 and to the multitude unintelligible because undefinable, 
 illumination, derived from an impersonal source : she rested 
 entirely upon a Person, and drew all her life and light and 
 strength from the in-dwelling of this Person in herself. 
 Their design was to form a favoured and initiated few into 
 an exclusive School : her function was to embrace all men 
 under a Kingdom acknowledging allegiance to a living Ruler. 
 Their aim was to bring about an absorption of all human 
 feelings and affections into a state of intellectual exaltation, 
 the product of their special illuminism : it was her duty 
 to encourage and maintain all human feelings and affections, 
 by bringing them into right relations with their Author, as 
 members of the body are to be brought into fitting con- 
 nection with their Head. Finally, it was their professed 
 object to secure the desired state of super-sensuous and spi- 
 ritual elevation, by utterly ignoring or neglecting our lower 
 nature, — a process which might most easily result in its 
 entire corruption ; but it was the privilege of the Christian 
 Church, by teaching this veiy doctrine of the Head, the Body, 
 and its Members, to take up the lower nature into the 
 higher, and to dignify, purify, and sanctify it, by establishing 
 a real communion between the two. 
 
 If, then, the Christian Church and the Alexandrian 
 Gnosticism had their point of contact in the doctrine of a 
 Divine illumination, it is plain, that when they proceeded to 
 the practical application of the truth they held in common, the 
 divergence between them, if they held to their own principles, 
 was inexpressibly wide. The fact that the one evaporated 
 and passed away, while the other, through unnumbered perils 
 and difficulties, and, what is worse, through very many cor- 
 ruptions, and abandonments of its hold upon its own great 
 
THE CHRISTIAN GNOSIS OF A PERSON. 687 
 
 central truth, stood fast against "the gates of Hell," and st|ll 
 remains a great, visible, energizing social power in hiupin 
 society, must form an inexplicable problem to those^ho 
 think and talk of "Christianity" and " Neo-Platonism " as 
 two great rival systems, or two parts of a rival system, born 
 into the world about the same time, and fighting with the 
 same intellectual weapons for empire over the minds of men. 
 To those who do not think and speak of " Christianity," but 
 of the " Kingdom of God," who will not consent to regard 
 " the Church " as a system of any kind, but as a corporate 
 body, ruled by a living Euler, and united to a living Head, 
 the problem presents no difficulty of any kind ; indeed, it 
 ceases to be a problem at all, and presents itself to their 
 minds as the natural and unavoidable consequence of the 
 facts. Theories perish. Societies endure. It is vain to expect 
 that the dry bones of systems and speculations, notions, 
 tenets, and beliefs, shall live. Life is the attribute of per- 
 sonality, — without a Person, or corporate connection with a 
 Person, it cannot be. In the mysterious fact that it is bound 
 up indissolubly with a living Person, consists the vitality of 
 the Christian Church. 
 
LECTURE XIII. 
 
 THE CHUECH IN KELATION TO THE NEW SOCIETY. 
 
 " Vivitur omnigenis in partibus baud secus ac si 
 Gives congenitos includat racenibus unis 
 Urbs patria, atque omnes Lare conciliemur avito ; 
 nam sanguine mixto 
 Texitur alternis ex gentibus una propago." 
 
 Prudentius contra Symmachum, ii. 585, 
 "I do not think that I say more than the truth in affirming that, at 
 the end of the fourth and the commencement of the fifth centuries, it 
 was the Christian Church that saved Christianity ; it was the Church, 
 with its institutions, its magistrates, and its power, that vigorously 
 resisted the internal dissolution of the Empire and barbarism ; that 
 conquered the barbarians, and became the bond, the medium, and the 
 principle of civilization between the Eoman and barbarian worlds," — 
 GuizOT, History of Civilization in Europe, Lect. ii. 
 
 Synopsis. — The position of the Church according to Guizot's view : 
 it is too purely doctrinaire, and does not account for the facts. — The 
 questions involved in the subject. — Tlie first cause of the influence of 
 the Church on the new Society was the fact that it was based upon the 
 organization of the Empire, and that it took the place oi the Empire 
 in the eyes of the invaders. — The personal influence of its great bishops ; 
 of the Church Councils ; of the Monastic Orders, and more especiallj' 
 the Benedictine, — The Benedictines revive agriculture and urban in- 
 dustry ; they elevate labour in dignity ; perhaps originate free labour ; 
 are the preservers of literature, — Independent effect of the action of 
 the Church in proclaiming the principle of "equality:" its result on 
 the slave and serf class. — Education in the hands of the Church ; 
 proved by the regulations of Charlemagne. — The great missionary 
 action and influence of the Church. — All these admirable results had, 
 however, some drawbacks : — First, the connection of the Church with 
 the barbarian rulers necessitated its connivance at much violence and 
 crime, and gave a secular character to its rulers ; secondly, the same. 
 consequence flowed from the wealth and splendour which the Church 
 
THEORY OF M. GUIZOT. 689 
 
 acquired. — ^This was entirely vested in the rulers, who exercised their 
 power with great cruelty to their subordinates. — ^The increased learning 
 and refinement of the Monastic Orders estranged them from the 
 lower classes, and impaired their usefulness. — Two qualifications 
 of the above statements are needful : — (1.) Some amount of secular 
 power and secular action necessary to the very existence of the Church ; 
 (2.) Tlie great mass of its good men not prominent in history. — Church 
 life in the fifth century illustrated from Sidonius Apollinaris. 
 
 Contest of the Catholic Church with Arianism ; in Gaul ; in Spain ; 
 in Africa ; in Italy. — Contest with Paganism in Britain. — The last ques- 
 tion : Why did Church govei'nment determine in the Papacy ? — The 
 concurring causes pointed out. — General reflections. 
 
 The relation of the Christian Church to the new order of 
 things resulting from the slow fusion of the imperial and 
 barbarian societies, was so com23letely a consequence of its 
 existing position in respect of the first, and the conditions 
 under which the latter was evolved, that we should violate 
 not only the dramatic unity of composition, but the plain 
 truth of history, if we regarded the several subjects as inde- 
 pendent and distinct. The present lecture is, therefore, of 
 course, closely connected with those which precede it, and 
 may involve some repetition of what has been already said. 
 While, however, I hope to avoid all mere repetition, I shall 
 find it a far more difficult task to confine attention to one 
 or two salient points and important matters, in a field of 
 inquiry so large and so diversified. The confused and 
 stormy condition of human life, contemporaneous with the 
 fall of the Empire, has been well described by M. Guizot, 
 and most of us are more or less familiar with his specula- 
 tions. He sees in this moral chaos all the elements out of 
 which was subsequently compounded, by a process of pro- 
 gressive development, the very complex work of modern 
 civilization. "We have found, at this time," he says, 
 " throe wholly different societies : the municipal society, 
 the last remains of the E-oman empire, the Christian society, 
 and tlie Barbaric society. We find these societies very 
 variously organized, founded upon totally difierent prin- 
 
690 THE CHURCH AND THE NEW SOCIETY. 
 
 ciples, inspiring men with wholly different sentiments : we 
 find the craving after the most absolute independence side 
 by side with the most complete submission ; military patron- 
 age side by side with ecclesiastical dominion ; the spiritual 
 and temporal powers, everywhere present, the canons of 
 the Church, the learned legislation of the Romans ; the 
 almost unwritten customs of the barbarians, everywhere 
 the mixture, or rather the co-existence, of the most diverse 
 races, languages, social institutions, manners, ideas, and im- 
 pressions." The part played by the Christian Church in 
 reducing to harmony this immense discord, has been clearly 
 seen and candidly stated by the same great writer ; and 
 with his general conclusions as to matters of fact, there is 
 perhaps still more reason to be satisfied, because they are 
 deduced from premises not altogether identical with our 
 own. The purely doctrinaire mind of the illustrious French 
 statesman regards mainly the intellectual aspect of the great 
 social phenomena with which we are now concerned. It 
 is not that he ignores the political or the ethical importance 
 of the work of the Church in forming the character of 
 mediaeval society. Far from it ; no one has insisted upon 
 this with niore emphasis and clearness. But his view of the 
 whole is, as we have said, a " doctrinaire " view, and not a 
 spiritual view. He regards Christianity as a belief gradually 
 growing into a dogmei, and crystallizing, as it were, into an 
 institution, rather than as an actual kingdom of God, a 
 Society founded upon a Person, and depending for its life 
 upon perpetual union with that person as its Head, and 
 obedience to his will as its law. The Christian society, 
 according to this ^new, advanced through several stages to 
 its final form. First it was a mere aggregate of persons, an 
 association based upon a common belief, and held together 
 by the bond of common convictions, or, as we may add, 
 common hopes and fears, common trials, sufferings, and 
 dangers. The indeterminate character of its doctrines and 
 
THEORY OF M. GUIZOT. 691 
 
 institutions was soon changed when the circumstances 
 changed under which they had struggled into existence, 
 and the difficulties were removed which had. impeded their 
 development. The process of crystallization is quickly seen 
 in visible action : in a few years we have dogma, discipline, 
 formulas of belief employed as tests, a regular magistracy, 
 in a word, all the essentials of an organized society. These 
 dogmas, reduced to Creeds, remain for ever what they were, 
 but the exact nature of the discipline, and the exact 
 functions of the magistracy, were not, in primitive times, 
 very carefully defined, and therefore still continue open to 
 dispute. What remains certain is, that in the earliest stage 
 , of its existence, the Christian society was rather a congre- 
 gation of persons animated by a common sentiment, than a 
 clearly-defined body possessing the systematic organization, 
 or the functions and appliances, of regular government. 
 And when, again, this inchoate society began to assume form 
 and substance, when the laws of its earthly existence were 
 gradually working themselves out, it was long before that 
 sharp line of demarcation was drawn, which ultimately 
 separated the priesthood and the people. The weight of 
 actual authority, so far as there existed any defined authority 
 at all, reposed with the main body of the faithful. " It was 
 the body of the faithful," says Guizot, "which prevailed, 
 both as to the choice of functionaries and as to the adoption 
 of discipline, or even doctrine. The church government 
 and the Christian people were not as yet distinct." Before 
 the middle of the fifth century all this had been changed. 
 The Church had become a recognized institution, possessing 
 all the signs, external and internal, of an independent, self- 
 contained, and self-ruling society. It had its o^vn law^ 
 discipline, legislative authority, and duly subordinated func- 
 tionaries ; it had a very peculiar constitution, administered 
 on very exclusive principles ; it had, in short, become a new 
 sovereign society, with a regular system of government, 
 2 Y 2 
 
692 THE CHUKCH AND THE NEW SOCIETY. 
 
 subsisting by the side of that other sovereign society called 
 the State, and entering into relations with it upon terms of 
 equality. And what then, under the circumstances, did it 
 do for the strange, confused world which was gradually grow- 
 ing up around its gates 1 Very much indeed, is the reply 
 of M. Guizot, or rather, almost everything. 
 
 To this conclusion we cannot but assent, though his con- 
 ception of the character and growth of the Christian Church, 
 as we have just given it, is surely somewhat empty and 
 barren. We instinctively feel that it is incomplete ; that it 
 accounts neither for the strength of the primitive Church 
 nor for its weakness ; that it fails to grasp the secret prin- 
 ciple of life indwelling in its formal type, which gave it force 
 to grow up from the grain of mustard into the great tree, 
 whose branches overshadow the earth. Nothing is more 
 surprising than the fact that educated and intelligent men, 
 who regard " Christianity " as a set of right notions and 
 beliefs about divine verities and human duties, and other 
 difficult problems concerning the moral order of the universe, 
 should be satisfied that as such alone it could have passed 
 successfully through its terrible baptism of blood ; could 
 have lived down an existing and ancient order of things^ 
 supported by sensuality clothed with absolute power, and 
 could have rendered itself the actual master of a new order 
 of things, where the ultimate appeal was to the will of a 
 savage, and whose law was the sword. To those who regard 
 the Christian Church, not as any system of beliefs, however 
 true, or combination of sentiments, however right, and good, 
 and ennobling, but as a real Kingdom under a divine Head 
 and a divine Ruler, and expanding, after the law of its being, 
 through all the world, until it absorb the world, — these things 
 are not strange. They are the necessary outgrowth of a 
 spiritual seed, and they follow the analogy of those other 
 material growths which the Divine Author of the universe 
 visibly displays before the eyes of men. Nothing so in- 
 
THE CHURCH FOUNDED ON A PERSON. 693 
 
 tangible as an opinion could have survived the corrupting 
 poison of the old civilization, or the rude shock of the 
 barbarian arms. Truth, we hear perpetually, is ever trium- 
 phant : the Idea is ever victor over the Sword. But truth, 
 to be strong, must be clothed with personality, the Idea must 
 be embodied in the Man ; — the divine Idea in the divine 
 Man. Christ Himself, and not simply the truths taught by 
 Christ, is the real subject and substance of Christian revela- 
 tion ; and from this it follows, as a corollary, that if 
 " Christianity," as it is called, unveils to men not a system 
 but a Person, the method of its development must be analo- 
 gous to the development of a personal influence and power. 
 If, as M. Guizot asserts, in its origin it was indeterminate, 
 this indetermiaateness did not exist in its essence or in its 
 principles, but it appeared to attach to them, because, under 
 the pressure of adverse circumstances, it was impossible for 
 the actual form to be instantaneously developed in full 
 accordance with the type. Yet the Kingdom of Christ 
 ■existed potentially in the small society of Galilean fisher- 
 men, as truly and certainly as in the acorn exists the oak. 
 And there is nothing indeterminate — at least in the sense of 
 indefinite and vague — in the seed which contains a living 
 principle, destined to be developed in a predetermined form, 
 although that form in its fulness is as yet invisible to our 
 imperfect perceptions. I should not be justified in 
 assuming the province of the theologian or the religious 
 teacher, and nothing is further removed from my wishes or 
 intention ; but this much, perhaps, is rendered necessary by 
 apparent divergence from the authority of a great name. 
 Not indeed that M. Guizot falls into the delusion of believing 
 that a mere theory of religious belief is capable of maintain- 
 ing itself in stormy times simply in its own impalpable shape. 
 No one has seen the impossibility more clearly or stated it 
 with mor^ force. But while recording the fact, he seems to 
 lave failed in giving any sufificient reason for the fact. 
 
694 THE CHURCH AND THE NEW SOCIETY. 
 
 With this reservation we may adopt his language, remark- 
 able alike, as it is, for eloquence and truth. 
 
 "Had it not been a 'Church,' I cannot say what might 
 have happened to it amid the fall of the Roman empire. I 
 confine myself to simply human considerations ; I put aside 
 every element which is foreign to the natural consequences 
 of natural facts : had Christianity been, ,as in the earlier 
 times, no more than a belief, a sentiment, an individual 
 conviction, we may believe that it would have sunk amidst 
 the dissolution of the Empire and the invasion of the bar- 
 barians. In later times, in Asia and in all the north of 
 Africa, it sunk under an invasion of the same nature, — under 
 the invasion of the Moslem barbarians ; it sunk then, 
 although it subsisted in the form of an institution or con- 
 stituted Church. "With much more reason might the same 
 thing have happened at the moment of the fall of the 
 Roman empire. There existed, at that time, none of those 
 means by which, in the present day, moral influences 
 establish themselves, or offer resistance, independently of 
 institutions j none of those means whereby a pure truth, a 
 pure idea, obtains a great empire over minds, governs actions, 
 and determines events. Nothing of the kind existed in the 
 fourth century, to give a like authority to ideas and to 
 personal sentiments. It is clear that a society, strongly 
 organized and strongly governed, was indispensable to 
 struggle against such a disaster, and to issue victorious 
 from such a storm. I do not think that I say more than 
 the truth, in affirming, that at the end of the fourth and 
 the commencement of the fifth centuries, it was the Chris- 
 tian Church that saved Christianity ; it was the Church 
 with its institutions, its magistrates, and its power, that 
 vigorously resisted the internal dissolution of the Empire 
 and barbarism ; that conquered the barbarians, and became 
 the bond, the medium, and the principle of civilization, 
 between the Roman and barbarian worlds. 
 
QUESTIONS MAINLY SELF-SCTGGESTIVE. 695 
 
 " There was an immense advantage in the presence of a 
 moral influence, of a moral power, of a power which reposed 
 solely upon convictions, and upon moral creeds and senti- 
 ments, amidst the deluge of material power which at this 
 time inundated society. Had the Christian Church not 
 existed, the whole world must have been abandoned to 
 purely material force ; the Church alone exercised moral 
 power. It did more; it sustained, it spread abroad the 
 idea of a rule, of a law superior to all human laws. It pro- 
 posed, for the salvation of humanity, the fundamental belief, 
 that there exists, above all human laws, a law which is 
 denominated, according to periods and customs, sometimes 
 reason, sometimes the divine law, but which, everywhere 
 and always, is the same law under different names."* 
 
 The questions which naturally suggest themselves, in 
 reference to the facts which these words describe, are 
 numerous and important. But our purpose will be satisfied 
 if, in directing our attention to one or two of them, we 
 shall have enabled the student to understand the class of 
 questions upon the solution of which, a right conception of 
 the continuity of history depends. What were the external 
 circumstances which conferred upon the Church the power 
 and the opportunity of acting upon the barbarian nation- 
 alities, as strongly as she did? What were the means 
 she employed for the purpose 1 What were the results of 
 her influence during those centuries which preceded the 
 concentration of the civil power in the hands of Charle- 
 magne 1 What was the form which the Church, as wielder 
 of these great powers, finally assumed, and why did she 
 assume this form rather than any other 1 
 
 With respect to the first question, we must once more 
 
 repeat it was from the position acquired by the Church in 
 
 the Empire that she mainly derived her power of operating 
 
 upon the barbarian world. When the platform of the im- 
 
 * Guizot, History of Civilization in Europe, Lect. ii. 
 
696 THE CHURCH AND THE NEVv SOCIETY. 
 
 perial administration was adopted as the basis for ecclesias- 
 tical government, an immense step was taken towards identi- 
 fying the two in the eyes of men, or we should rather say, 
 towards preparing the world to accept the substitution of 
 the one for the other, when the mission of the Empire had 
 been fulfilled, and the mission of the Church was about to 
 begin. When it was discovered that the imperial system 
 could no longer support the framework which had once held 
 together the civilized world, it became clear that the Empire 
 itself had played out its part in the great drama of human 
 history, and that, as an institution, it must pass away. But 
 in the mean time another system had been incorporated with 
 it, which retained something of the ancient form, cropping 
 up, so to speak, in the well-known places, and presenting 
 the old familiar aspects. And, moreover, though the Em- 
 pire, as a government, could no longer maintain its stand, or 
 confront the new world of Teutonic birth as a living power, 
 yet it must not be imagined that its traditions, its civilizing in- 
 fluences, and the intellectual forces which it had once wielded 
 with such effect, perished utterly at the same time. They 
 were still there, but they clustered round a different centre. 
 That centre was the Church. Bnt how came it to pass that 
 a society professing only spiritual aims and objects acquired 
 political functions, and presented itself before the world as 
 a political power 1 The answer we have already given in 
 part, when we recounted the motives which induced Constau- 
 tine, or it would be more correct to say, the circumstances 
 which rendered it necessary for Constantine, to throw him- 
 self into the arms of the Christian party in the Empire, and 
 to avail himself of the social strength and administrative 
 ability which he found in that party, for the purpose of 
 firmly establishing his throne.'^ But it must also be under- 
 stood that, from the very nature and necessity of the case, the 
 chief officers of the newly-constituted Christian society had 
 * Lecture XII. 
 
OEIGIN OF THE CHURCH'S CIVIL POWERS. 697 
 
 long been exercising civil functions among their brethren, 
 and that when society in general became Christian, these 
 functions did not pass away. The well-known directions of 
 St. Paul to his Corinthian converts, though subject to some 
 variety of interpretation, without doubt inculcate the pro- 
 priety of referring all civil differences in a Christian com- 
 munity to the judgment of its own members, rather than to 
 the existing heathen authorities : and the principle seemed to 
 rest upon the distinct directions of Christ himself " St. Au- 
 gustine says, once and again, that it was the apostle who insti- 
 tuted ecclesiastical judges, and laid the burden of secular causes 
 upon them. By which he means, that the apostle gave a 
 general direction to Christians to choose abitrators, and that 
 custom determined this office particularly to the bishops, as 
 the best qualified, by their wisdom and probity, to discharge 
 it." * The force of the apostolic injunction seems to depend 
 upon the contrast between the believing arbitrator and the 
 unbelieving pagan functionary. But when, in process of 
 time, this contrast no longer existed, when the officer of the 
 State professed the Christian faith as well as the officer of 
 the Church, the most cogent reason for the jDractice may seem 
 to have passed away. Yet the practice continued, and that 
 too, not only in accordance with the claims of ecclesiastical 
 authority, but by the direct sanction of the imperial law. 
 " Constantine confirmed all such decisions of bishops in their 
 consistories, and ordained that no secular judges should have 
 any power to reverse or disannul them, forasmuch as the 
 priests of God were to be preferred before any judge. And 
 Sozomen adds that he gave leave to all litigants to refer 
 their causes to the determination of bishops, whose sentence 
 should stand good, and be as authentic as if it had been the 
 decision of the emperor himself, and that the governors of 
 every province and their officers should be obliged to put 
 their decrees into execution.t The clergy also possessed, 
 * Bingham, ii. 7, 2. t I^id. ii. 7, 3. 
 
698 THE CHURCH AND THE NEW SOCIETY. 
 
 and alone possessed, the privilege of being tried, even on 
 capital charges, by their peers, — a privilege which, when 
 extended to all classes, we rightly regard as one of the safe- 
 guards of liberty, but which, confined to a single class, is as 
 surely one of the worst abuses of despotism. To this privi- 
 lege was added the right of sanctuary and exemption from 
 civil offices and fiscal burdens. Now this was to concede to 
 the spiritual society a power of that sort which the common 
 experience of mankind has discovered to be always progres- 
 sive, always encroaching, always inspired with the will, and 
 generally supplied with means, to extend the sphere of its 
 action. Some of the limitations imposed upon it were im- 
 practicable, others were openly violated under the plea, and 
 often the well-founded plea, of necessity. Thus grew up an 
 " imperium in imperio," a power which, when the course of 
 events undermined the sovereign power, was ready to 
 take its place, not only in the discharge of some of its 
 important functions, but in the general estimation of 
 mankind. 
 
 That churchmen and bishops soon became the real states- 
 men, administrators, rulers, and even warriors of the age, — 
 the only " hommes de politique " of those stormy days, — will 
 readily be admitted by any one who has made himself 
 thoroughly acquainted with the position occupied by Cy- 
 prian at Carthage, Cyril at Alexandria, Jerome and Leo at 
 Kome, Ambrose at Milan, Augustine and Synesius in North 
 Africa, Epiphanus at Pavia, Severinus in the Danubian pro- 
 vinces, Leo of Narbonne at the court of the Yisigoth Euric, 
 Boniface at the court of the Austrasian Pepin, Sidonius in 
 Auvergne, Martin, Anianus, Remigius, Nicasius, and many 
 others, in difierent parts of Gaul. To this intellectual and 
 social influence, large as it was, must be added the influence 
 of immense wealth, acquired by the bounty of believing 
 emperors, or the confiscation of the lands and endowments 
 attached to heathen temples. 
 
CHURCH INHERITED PLACE OF EMPIRE. 699 
 
 We have already remarked upon the peculiar connection 
 of the Church with the civil society and its government, 
 which was produced by the conduct of Constantino and 
 his successors with respect to the decision of theological 
 questions, and the appointment to ecclesiastical offices. It 
 is easy to see, without entering into further detail, how the 
 authority of the Church and of churchmen had grown into a 
 substantive element of the later empire, and became part, 
 as it were, of its idea ; how inseparably it was mixed up 
 with imperial administration, and how it gradually as- 
 sumed greater prominence before the eyes of those who 
 were contemplating Roman society from without, when that 
 society was losing strength and dignity every day j when 
 the bonds of its cohesion were visibly dissolving, and its 
 external aspect ceased to strike the imagination of the 
 beholder with the accustomed awe. And so it came to pass, 
 that when Barbarism had forced the last defences of the 
 Empire, and was about to trample civilization in the dust, 
 there was found behind the shattered defences of imperialism, 
 a new power, ordained by the providence of God, to stay 
 the invader's steps, and arrest his uplifted sword. As the 
 two societies, Eoman and Teutonic, found themselves face to 
 face, they were surprised to discover a third, arising between 
 them, and preventing that utter and unconditional destruc- 
 tion which must have been the result of their own collision. 
 In every diocese, province, parish, and city of the Empire, 
 when the banner of the barbarian appeared on the horizon, 
 or his battle-axe thundered at the gates, there was found by 
 the side of the civil officer, the officer of the Spiritual Society, 
 often superior to his colleague in recognized authority, always 
 his superior in general intelligence, capacity for government, 
 and the affections of the people. But this was not all. 
 Universally the wretched Curial took to flight, and aban- 
 doned a duty which he deemed it impossible to fulfil ; even the 
 tax-gatherer disappeared from a scene in which, henceforth, 
 
700 THE CHURCH AND THE NEW SOCIETY. 
 
 his occupation was gone, and where all questions of property- 
 were awaiting the stern sohition of the barbarian sword. 
 But the Bishop stood fast with his people, and at his post ; 
 the Church remained erect, when the Empire fell. The 
 result was what might have been anticipated. The Teuton 
 or Slavic chief, who had at last crossed swords with E/Ome,' 
 as he passed across the shattered walls of the vanquished 
 town, found himself confronted by the Christian Church, 
 and in the Christian Church he not unnaturally saw the 
 image of that great mysterious Power which had over- 
 shadowed his youth with the grandeur of its traditions, and 
 filled his far-distant forests with the terrors of its name. 
 Instead of the imperial edifices, ensigns, troops, and officers, 
 he encountered the gorgeous pageantry of the Catholic 
 Church, beautiful temples dedicated to an unknown God, 
 and a venerable priest surrounded by his trembling peoj^le, 
 who, in the hour of their extreme peril, were looking to him 
 for aid, as to a being of supernatural power. Sometimes the 
 innate ferocity of the barbarian broke forth, and he dyed his 
 battle-axe in the blood of those who had so audaciously 
 crossed his path. Yet this very blood, when in after-years 
 he was brought into close relations with the Catholic faith, 
 became a terrible burden upon his conscience, and forced 
 him to works of repentance and reparation calculated to 
 magnify still more the power against which he had dared to 
 lift a sacrilegious hand. Generally, however, it fell out far 
 otherwise ; the weapon dropped from the victor's grasp, as it 
 dropped from the grasp of his ancestors, when they stood 
 before the grey fathers of the Republic, on the threshold of 
 the Senate-house. The calm dignity of the Christian priest, 
 the courage which sustained him when Koman official 
 and even Roman soldier had fled ; the mysterious bond 
 which united him, in the eyes of the barbarian, to a 
 Divinity whose unknown power assumed a more awful 
 aspect, because unknown — all these things naturally com- 
 
THE BISHOP AND THE BARBARIANS. 701 
 
 bined to create in the invader's mind a feeling of vague 
 resjiect, which the Churchman well knew how to mature 
 into reverence and adoration. The Christian Church, 
 therefore, in addition to the effect which it produced 
 upon the religious instinct of the new comers, — an effect 
 very powerful in its character, notwithstanding the wild 
 passions with which it had to deal, — became to them the 
 visible representative of the intelligence, order, and undefined 
 superiority which barbarism, however savage, always sees in 
 civilization, however corrupt. " In the midst of the dis- 
 organization produced by so many miseries," says M. Thierry, 
 speaking of the state of Gaul during the invasion of the- 
 Huns, " the civil and military magistrates were found 
 defaulters ; the curials deserted their post to escape the 
 outrageous fiscal exactions of the Government or the requi- 
 sitions of the enemy; but the bishop remained chained by a 
 spiritual bond to his flock. It was then the bishop, whom 
 the barbarians ever found before them as the sole func- 
 tionary representing the Roman hierarchy ; it was the 
 bishop alone whom the citizens could consult as their coun- 
 sellor and guide. Laws originating in the necessity of the 
 times conferred upon the bishop civil functions, which made 
 him little by little a veritable magistrate, the first in the 
 city ; but the force of circumstances conferred upon him 
 many other functions, and made of him, as the case might 
 be, a decemvir, a prefect, a commissioner, or a manager of 
 taxes, the general of an army. It was this state, but ill 
 understood in subsequent ages, which produced the immense 
 number of martyrdoms that figure in the legendary history 
 of the fifth century ; for every bishop put to death by the 
 barbarians was, in the eyes of his people, slain for his faith." 
 To recount examples would be to repeat a large portion of 
 the ecclesiastical history of these centuries, and of those very 
 apocryphal legends entitled the " Lives of the Saints." Yet 
 the student who wishes to gather from original sources the 
 
702 THE CHURCH AND THE NEW SOCIETY. 
 
 real character of the relations between the bishops and the 
 barbarian chiefs, should read the biography of St. Remi of 
 Eheims, whose influence over Clovis, the triumphant victor 
 of Tolbiac, may be said to have laid the foundation of 
 Catholic Christianity in France. Hincmar who, two cen- 
 turies later, was archbishop of the same See, has handed 
 down to us an elaborate account of the marvellous conversion 
 and splendid baptism of this veritable " eldest son of the 
 Church." It is a tale of singular interest, the history of an event 
 pregnant above any other in those centuries with great con- 
 sequences for the future of Christendom. We have already 
 seen St. Agnan at Orleans in the presence of the Huns. 
 St. Germain plays a similar part during the sanguinary 
 invasion of the Alani, and parish after parish on the banks 
 of the Seine and Yonne attest the pious and grateful remem- 
 brance of his name. It was but the other day that St. 
 Genevieve re-asserted her dominion over the fickle minds of 
 her countrymen ; and the heroine of the graceful legend 
 which dates from the days of Attila, has won back again 
 from the greatest men of France, that magnificent temple 
 which, from the site of the Basilica of Clovis, looks down 
 upon the tumultuous streets of Paris. No less renown 
 clings to the memory of St. Martin of Tours. Originally a 
 Roman legionaiy, he had fought beneath the Labarum of 
 the sons of Constantine and the Pagan eagles of Julian ; but 
 the powerful influence of the new faith which he had 
 adopted, prompted him to deeds of charity and zeal, and 
 these deeds, despite his own conscientious repugnance, raised 
 him to the episcopate. His life was one uninterrupted 
 missionary labour among barbarous tribes, who revered the 
 old traditions, and bowed before the old idols of the land. 
 To him, as to the champion of Christianity against Druidism, 
 is to be ascribed not only the spiritual triumph of the 
 former, but the final victory of struggling civilization in the 
 north and west of Gaul. Nor did the efifect of his labours 
 
PERSONAL INFLUENCE OF THE GEEAT BISHOPS. 703 
 
 terminate with his life. "From the tomb of St. Martin 
 of Tours," says the enthusiastic Capefigue, " extends that 
 immense circle of preaching and conversion which developed 
 itself among the populations who still retained the Arian 
 creed or the antique superstitions of the southern Gothic 
 kingdom and Spain." "^ With the name of Martin must 
 always be associated that of his teacher, adviser, and friend, 
 Hilary of Poitiers, the great opponent of Arianism, and 
 asserter of Catholic Christianity in Gaul. These men did not 
 stand alone ; they are merely specimens of a very numerous 
 class. The names of Honoratus at Aries, Cassianus at Mar- 
 seilles, Severinus at Bordeaux, Medard at Soissons, Gregory 
 at Langres, Claude at Besangon, Sidonius at Clermont, 
 Marcel at Paris, Anianus at Orleans, Nicasius at Rheims, 
 Lupus at Troyes, with many others, were long familiar 
 words in the mouths of men, and represent the real agency 
 by which, in those tempestuous times, the foundations of 
 modern civilization were firmly laid. 
 
 Kext in order to the personal influence exercised by these 
 men, we may say that two other important agencies per- 
 formed a civilizing and constructive work upon the age — the 
 assemblies of the bishops in Council, and the institution of 
 the monastic Orders. The Councils proj^osed to themselves 
 the double object of conserving primitive doctrine amid the 
 corruptions of the time, and humanizing the savage habits 
 of the barbarian invaders. Clovis convened a council at 
 Orleans, in imitation of the oecumenic council convened by 
 Constantine at Nice ; and the council itself imitated its pro- 
 totype, by addressing to the Frank king a letter upon the 
 doctrine of the Trinity. The councils of Epona, of Lyons, 
 of Chartres, and others less well known, not only decided 
 questions of Church dogma and discipline, but they dealt 
 with the most important social problems of the epoch, — the 
 relations between the sexes, — the limitations of legal mar- 
 * Capefigue, vol. iv. p. 193. 
 
704 THE CHURCH AND THE NEW SOCIETY. 
 
 riage, — the mutual duties of master and slave, — public ban- 
 quets and festivals, for which they supplied sumptuary rules, 
 — and, finally, even what we should call sanatory regulations 
 — such as the prohibition to employ for food the flesh of 
 animals which had died from disease or from the bites of 
 others. One particular instance of the excellent results 
 flowing from the Church legislation may be mentioned here, 
 even though it should be necessary to recur to it again. The 
 admirable provisions of Constantine in favour of the slave 
 had been forgotten or ignored during that chaotic era which 
 followed the advent of the barbarians ; but they re-appear 
 in the famous edict of 614 A.D., promulgated under the 
 inspiration of ecclesiastical advisers. The slave is once again 
 recognized as a man ; he is no longer a chattel ; his life is 
 his own by a sacred, inalienable right ; it may not be sacri- 
 ficed, except at the bidding of the law : " Nemo etiam servus 
 nisi lege jubente occidetur." * Such a provision was an 
 immense step in advance of the existing system, or, rather, 
 the existing want of system, in the relations of the free and 
 the slave class. Future legislation moved onward in the 
 same direction j the rights of the master over his slave were 
 gradually restricted from absolute power over life and per- 
 sonal liberty, to a claim upon the labour of his hands. And 
 here, in connection with the subject of Church legislation, 
 we may, perhaps, most fitly remark how largely the autho- 
 rity of the clergy and their social influence was increased, 
 by the fact that jurisprudence rested in their hands. This 
 naturally followed from the ignorance of the barbarians 
 upon the subject, or their disinclination to make themselves 
 acquainted with it. The Merovingian monarch, or the Mayor 
 of the palace, in the royal demesnes, the great rural pro- 
 prietor in his own, dispensed in criminal cases a rude sort of 
 justice beneath some forest oak. This was, however, based 
 upon the most imperfect of all judicial principles, the prin- 
 * De Cellier, Histoire des Classes Laborieuses, p. 52. 
 
THE MONASTIC ORDERS. 705 
 
 ciple of the wehr-geld, or pecuniary compensation for loss and 
 damage ; and, as the dispensers of this antique system of law- 
 possessed a personal interest in the fines which it inflicted, 
 they naturally maintained its administration in their own 
 hands. But all the serious questions concerning civil con- 
 tracts, wills, legitimacy, succession to property, and the like, 
 were handed over to the Church, partly because the Churcii, 
 as the only educated body in the country, alone retained the 
 traditions of Roman jurisprudence ; and partly, also, because 
 with the Church rested the validity of marriage, the primary 
 boftd of civil society, and the source of its most important 
 rights. In tlie hands of ecclesiastics, of necessity, remained 
 the interpretation and the executive of the canon law, and 
 so much of the civil law as survived the fall of the Empire. 
 The remark has often been made^ and it is undoubtedly cor- 
 rect, that the first great symptom of reaction against ecclesi- 
 astical authority is to be found in the revived study of the 
 Koman jurists, and the assertion of their independence by 
 the Civil lawyers, more especially in France. When the idea 
 that justice could possibly have a basis irrespective of reli- 
 gion, as interpreted by the dogmatic decisions of the Church, 
 once established itself in men's minds, one of the strongest 
 supports upon which the whole sacerdotal system rested was 
 shaken to its very foundation. 
 
 But it is time to say a few words upon the third great 
 social influence to which we have referred, — the institution of 
 the monastic Orders. The monastic Orders, more especially 
 that of St. Benedict, may without exaggeration be said to 
 have saved agriculture, the mechanical arts, and literature, 
 in southern Europe. AVe have seen how the first was 
 affected by the fall of the Empire, or, it is more correct to 
 say, by the social conditions which made the fall of the 
 Empire a necessity ; for, even in the most flourishing days 
 of imperial rule, the work of rural depopulation had rapidly 
 spread over the most fertile spots of Italy and Gaul. " Lati- 
 
 2 z 
 
706 THE CHURCH AND THE NEW SOCIETY. 
 
 fundia perdidere Italiam ; " we cannot too often repeat the 
 all-important fact. The inroad of the barbarian armies, who 
 lived from hand to mouth upon the plunder which their 
 swords might chance to win, and who took no steps to re- 
 plenish by cultivation what they had carried off by violence, 
 went near to complete what the tyranny of the imperial 
 fiscus and the luxurious caprice of the large proprietors had 
 so fatally begun. Then the great monastic Orders stepped 
 in, and undertook the work which the public administration 
 had abandoned, and which private enterprise was too feeble 
 or too timid to begin. It was in the East that mona^i- 
 cism had its birth ; and in the East it assumed that fervid 
 yet dreamy character which it derived from the nature of the 
 climate and the disposition of the people. Eastern monasti- 
 cism, therefore, had a type pf its own. Professor Kingsley, 
 with that daguerreotyping power which he possesses beyond 
 any other writer of the time, has placed before our eyes 
 a picture of the desolate Thebaid, its yellow surface 
 glistening like a sheet of brass beneath a burning sun, 
 its dark cliffs upheaved from an ocean of sand which 
 seems to trickle again in scanty threads down their rug- 
 ged seams, the cavern-tombs carved in the rock by long- 
 forgotten hands, the subterranean chambers covered with 
 the gaudy imagery of a licentious Eastern fancy, — a terrible 
 mockery of life glaring upon the eternal silence of the 
 tomb ; the giant monuments of primeval art and worship 
 broken and disfigured, lotus-wreathed pillars, or melancholy 
 Sphinx half shrouded by the climbing sand ; and amid this 
 speaking solitude, this grave of nature and humanity, the 
 young Philammon, full of. vigorous life and power, but 
 doomed by his monastic vows to ponder there for ever 
 undisturbed on life and death and judgment to come, 
 and the agonies of the everlasting fire. Such, except 
 when roused by some spasmodic impulse to passionate fury, 
 was monasticism in the East ; — an abnegation of that con- 
 
THE BENEDICTINES. 707 
 
 tinual struggle with the moral and material world which 
 is the work of man upon the earth. But Western monasti- 
 cism was of another stamp. The more practical genius of 
 the people, the greater vitality and vigour of social interests, 
 even amid the wild confusion which followed upon the fall 
 of the Empire, the necessities imposed on man by a harsher 
 soil and colder sky, — all these things imposed a different 
 character on the institution as it gi-adually took shape and 
 settled down amid the new populations in southern and 
 western Europe. From the height of Monte Casino the 
 great Order of St. Benedict inaugurated a social revolution, 
 as great, perhaps, as any which the world has seen, yet so 
 unobtrusive were its movements, that it has now become 
 difficult, if not impossible, to trace the steps of their progress. 
 St. Benedict, by consecrating the work of the hands with 
 reading the Scriptures and the worship of God, as the three 
 normal occupations of human life, accomplished, whether 
 intentionally or not, an immense result which had never 
 been accomplished by the elder civilization. The Georgics 
 of Yirgil may, as Mr. Merivale says, have been meant to 
 " glorify labour," or, as recent commentators have suggested, 
 to arrest that decay of agriculture which, as we have seen, 
 so largely contributed to the decadence of the Empire. The 
 somewhat artificial and pompous praises of Cicero had pro- 
 bably a similar object. But the experiment was unsuccessful : 
 the " glorification " was an apotheosis ; — the praises fell upon 
 unsympathetic ears. The artificial landscape gardening of 
 Pliny and his contemporaries cannot be regarded as any- 
 thing but a step in the wrong direction. It was left to 
 the Order of St. Benedict, by raising the conception of 
 labour from a degradation to a duty, to give to labour its 
 true place and dignity in the world, and to originate the 
 great social question of our age, which has been gradually 
 absorbing all other questions into itself. The Bene- 
 dictine monastery, by reviving the traditions of Koman 
 
 2 z 2 
 
708 THE CHUECH AND THE NEW SOCIETY. 
 
 agriculture, which had been almost trampled out under the 
 horsehoofs of Attila and the rude tread of the warriors of 
 the North, — by employing the brethren of the Order in the 
 cultivation of land, and encouraging in the like labour tlie 
 wretched remnants of the population who crowded around 
 the monasteries as the only sanctuaries of peace and security 
 in those perilous times ; by improving the mechanical ap- 
 pliances used in tilling the ground, and other operations of 
 the kind ; — by these and by similar means the Benedictine 
 establishments became little centres of active and humanizing 
 industry, which gradually changed the face of the country, 
 and improved the condition of the people. The monk, toiling 
 with his own hands from morning to night in the open 
 fields, taught the people of the new world around him by 
 the best of all teaching, practical example, the necessary arts 
 of common life, to clear and cultivate the land, to plough, to 
 sow, to reap, to grind the corn, to raise vegetables and breed 
 stock, and to work the precious and useful metals for the 
 requirements of the household or the decoration of the 
 temple of God. Were waste lands to be restored to cultiva- 
 tion, the Benedictines undertook the task. Was it necessary 
 to redeem an estate from fiscal tyranny or barbarian ravage, 
 the Benedictines found the funds. Had the whole farming; 
 stock, the agricultural implements, and the cattle of an 
 entire district been swept away, it was from the stores of 
 some Benedictine abbey that they were replenished. To the 
 Benedictines also is ascribed the first employment in the 
 West — perhaps it would be more correct to say the revival — 
 of one of those simple mechanic contrivances which often 
 originate a real social revolution. " The railway and the 
 steamship " have been united by the first of living poets 
 with "the thoughts that shake mankind :" Mr. Frank New- 
 man has shown, in a very interesting lecture, how immense 
 and diversified have been the results of that humble and 
 almost unnoticed precursor of them both — the invention of 
 
BENEDICTINES REVIVE AGRICULTURE, &c. 709 
 
 springs for wheeled conveyances. Bat the scholar will 
 classify the application by the Benedictines of water-power 
 to the grinding of corn in the same category, when he re- 
 members how much of human misery and degradation was 
 connected with the ceaseless and brutalizing toil of that em- 
 ployment in the ancient world. And when he considers the 
 gradual diminution in the price of flour which the increased 
 facilities for its production brought about, the political 
 economist will be led to a similar conclusion. 
 
 But it was not agriculture alone which benefited by the 
 example and exertions of the Benedictines, — and when 
 speaking of the Benedictines at this early period, we speak 
 of monasticism in general, for the great Order had absorbed 
 or completed all the struggling foundations hitherto at- 
 tempted by Martin, Cassian, and Columban. Urban industry 
 was awakened and maintained by the same agency. When 
 the barbarian bands, exasperated by resistance, carried the 
 great cities of the Empire by assault, they not only con- 
 sumed with fire, or shattered with their battle-axes, the 
 various and splendid appliances of Boman luxury, elaborated 
 by ancient art, but by annihilating their occupation, they 
 drove the artificers themselves to despair, and dispersed 
 them as resourceless fugitives among the rural districts. 
 The precious metals disappeared, when the demand for 
 *' articles de luxe," and the art of fabricating them, had also 
 disappeared. Moreover, as is always the case, just as 
 poverty increased and skill declined, the class of articles 
 considered to be luxuries, was very greatly enlarged, until at 
 last it comprised many of the common necessaries of life. 
 But here, as in the former case, the Church and the monastic 
 establishments interfered to prevent the entire disappearance 
 from society of the useful and ornamental arts. ' The con- 
 struction of churches and abbeys — many of them displaying 
 elaborate beauty — revived the traditions of ancient archi- 
 tectural art, and these were handed down to mediaeval times 
 
710 THE CHURCH AND THE NEW SOCIETY. 
 
 by guilds of scientific masons, living under a semi-monastic 
 rule. It is mainly owing to these men, that the mystic 
 power of the Gothic genius modified the old Roman archi- 
 tectural magnificence, by infusing into it a spirit of its own, 
 and working itself out in stone or marble, uplifted those 
 venerable piles which, in their vast and solitary grandeur, 
 involuntarily stay our steps and check our breath, as we 
 come suddenly upon them, amid the glare and tumult of our 
 great cities. Again, the vessels of gold and silver required 
 for the Catholic worship, the rich stufis, laces, silks, and 
 jewels forming the decoration of the altar, the gorgeous 
 vestments of the officiating clergy themselves, called forth a 
 refinement of skijl, and delicate beauty of workmanship, 
 which assuredly would not otherwise have been found in 
 the rude courts of Burgundian, Frank, or Lombard kings. 
 St. Eligius, or St. Eloi, as he is ordinarily called, the patron 
 of the fraternity of goldsmiths, in some respects the most 
 remarkable man of his time, was a worker in the precious 
 metals, and continued his employment even when the inmate 
 of a palace and a councillor of state. 
 
 Once more, the literature of the age was in the same 
 hands. So far as it was original, it is true that it con- 
 sisted in little more than martyrologies and legends of the 
 Saints ; but it would be unreasonable altogether to despise 
 these remarkable products of an entirely abnormal intellec- 
 tual state. They were probably devoured with more appe- 
 tite and more intelligence, than a generation fed on news- 
 papers and reviews would be inclined to consider possible. 
 Nor should we be surprised at the fact. They were an 
 expression of the triumph of our higher over our lower 
 nature, of mind over brute force and violence, quite as 
 appropriate to the circumstances of the age, as dissertations 
 on social science and political economy are appropriate to 
 the nineteenth century. At any rate, they did their work, 
 and were not without their use. They brought the super- 
 
BENEDICTINE LITERATURE. 711 
 
 natural to the aid of the feeble against the strong, and acted 
 through the imagination, upon minds not easily accessible 
 to the arguments by which reason enforces the claims of 
 justice and morality. It was well in that iron age — an age 
 of blind passion and brute force — that the spiritual nature 
 of man should assert itself in any way. It was well that 
 the rude intelligence of the barbarian should be taught 
 that there was something in a man which could not be 
 burnt out of him by fire, or hewn away from him by steel. 
 All honour, therefore, to the poor monkish solitaries, who in 
 the depth of their convents laboriously indited those strange 
 supernatural tales. They too were of the great humanizing 
 brotherhood of letters, they too were doing, a true work for 
 their times ; they were a power in their own generation, a 
 power working palpably for good, for the reproof of the 
 proud and violent, and the defence of the feeble ; for the 
 assertion of something better and loftier in humanity than 
 the mere physical strength, or animal cunning, which seemed 
 to govern the world around them. But the monasteries 
 did even more than this. " The literature of the two last 
 centuries,", says an able writer, " has brought to light the 
 services which the monks have rendered to letters and 
 science, by transmitting to us writing, the manufacture of 
 parchment and paper, and all the material appliances 
 required to fix and transmit human thought. An industrial 
 epoch like our own should not forget that the greatest pai*t 
 of the mechanic arts is indebted to them for the same 
 service, that every great abbey was of use in preserving the 
 industrial products as well as the manuscript writings of 
 antiquity, that it was a school of trade and of the arts, at the 
 same time that it was a school of letters and a model farm."" 
 Such were some of the happy results brought about by 
 the monastic orders and more particularly by the rule of 
 St. Benedict. But the Benedictine Abbey was everywhere : 
 * De Cellier, ch. iii. 3. 
 
712 THE CHURCH AND THE NEW SOCIETY. 
 
 high on the Calabrian headlands, listening to the monotonous 
 thunder of the surf below ; half hidden amid groves of beech 
 and oak in the inmost recesses of the Apennines ; on both 
 slopes of the maritime Alps ; in still Roman Provence ; 
 perched aloft on the black basaltic hills of green Auvergne ; 
 studding with white flocks the fat pastures through which 
 the stately Loire sweeps like a silver bow ; on the vine-clad 
 terraces which overlook the Rhine ; overspreading with 
 bright green patches of growing cereals the brown heaths 
 and half-cleared forests of distant Britain ; in every spot 
 where civilization had planted her footsteps in western 
 Europe, arose the grey towers of that devoted brotherhood, 
 to be the home and nursery of religion and peace and the 
 arts of peace. 
 
 It cannot be denied, highly as we have spoken of them, 
 that these are not the most exalted principles, that this is 
 not the most excellent practice which is demanded of the 
 Christianity of our own age. But could the virtues which 
 now most brightly adorn our Christian life, have flourished 
 or even subsisted in the Merovingian era 1 
 
 " Such Christianity," answers Dean Milman, " would 
 have made no impression, even if it could have existed, on a 
 people who still retained something of their Teutonic severity 
 of manners, and required, therefore, something more im- 
 posing, a sterner and more manifest self-denial, to keep up 
 their religious veneration. The detachment of the clergy 
 from all earthly ties, left them at once more unremittingly 
 devoted to their unsettled life as missionaries, more ready to 
 encounter the perils of this wild age ; while (at the same 
 time) the rude minds of the people were more struck by 
 their unusual habits, by the strength of character shown in 
 their labours, their mortifications, their fastings, and per- 
 petual reUgious services. All these being, in a certain 
 sense, monks, the bishop and his clergy coenobites, or if they 
 lived separate, only less secluded and less stationary than 
 
DIRECT INFLUENCE OF THE CHURCH ITSELF. 71 o 
 
 other ascetics, wherever Christianity spread, monasteries, or 
 religions foundations with a monastic character, arose. 
 These foundations, as the religion aspired to soften the 
 habits, might seem to pacify the face of the land. They 
 were commonly placed, by some intuitive yearning after 
 repose and security, in spots, either themselves beautiful by 
 nature, by the bank of the river, in the depth of the romantic 
 wood, under the shelter of the protecting hill ; or in such 
 as became beautiful from the superior care and culture of 
 the monks — the draining of the meadows, the planting of 
 trees, the home circle of garden or orchard, which emploved 
 or delighted the brotherhood." 
 
 But independently of the influence exercised by the 
 Church upon society through the action of the monastic 
 orders, there were other no less important results of her 
 presence, which must have existed, even had there been no 
 such institution as monasticism at all. Had the old society 
 never been broken up, it is probable that the Church either 
 would never have succeeded in removing from it the canker 
 of slavery, or only succeeded after most protracted eflTorts, 
 and at the expense of a sanguinary revolution. But the 
 violent disruption of all the political ties which had held 
 tlie imperial system together, and the new world of thought 
 and sentiment, as well as the strange confusion of social 
 distinctions which the advent of the barbarians produced, 
 gave to the Church an opportunity for the regeneration of 
 the slave, which to her eternal glory she did not neglect. 
 As a general rule at first, the barbarians looked at persons 
 and things very much as they found them ; and altogether 
 ignored, or failed to comprehend, the delicate gradations of 
 personal rank and right as the elaborate system of Boman 
 jurisprudence had established them. Occupation in manual 
 labour is a palpable mark of class distinction always easy to 
 understand. Among the Teutonic nations themselves it 
 separated the serf plainly and broadly from his superiors. 
 
714 THE CHURCH AND THE NEW SOCIETY. 
 
 With the serf, therefore, when they conquered the Empire, 
 they confounded all whom they perceived to be engaged in 
 his ordinary occupations, the coloni and the members of the 
 agricultural guilds or colleges, as well as the slave. Nor did 
 they for a moment trouble themselves to inquire whether 
 the old regime had made any diflerence between them. A 
 clear conception of the distinction, and the recollection of 
 ancient privilege, doubtless remained with the individuals 
 themselves ; but the whole tendency of things was to amal- 
 gamate them into one body, and equalize, in a social sense, 
 all the members of it in their masters' eyes. Now it came 
 to pass that the influence of the Church was exercised to 
 bring about the very same results ; but the Church ap- 
 proached the question from a different point of view, and 
 worked out its designs in a very different manner. If the 
 policy and conduct of the Church aimed at creating the same 
 social equality among the lower classes of the population as 
 was produced by the supercilious negligence of the civil 
 power, it was not because she regarded all as equally 
 degraded, but because, by her sanction of mixed marriages 
 and her frequent practice of enfranchisement, she laboured 
 to elevate the whole body to, at least, that species of equality 
 which the profession of a common Christianity implies. 
 One provision, which at an early period she had contrived to 
 secure, produced a powerful effect both upon the condition of 
 the serf class and upon her own power. It was this : the 
 operation of causes already noticed, soon swept away in the 
 practice of the barbarian settlers, all the special privileges 
 assured to the Roman colonist by the old law, and placed 
 him on the same footing as the other dependents attached to 
 the land of the new proprietor. He sank to the position 
 of the serf, and became *'ascriptus glebse ;" not indeed in 
 the strict sense of bound to any particular spot, but bound 
 to the estate, and liable to be transferred from any one part 
 of it to another. From this position there was one, and 
 
SLAVERY AND SERFDOM. 715 
 
 one only, means of escaping. No proprietor could refuse free- 
 dom to a serf who was desirous of entering into holy orders, 
 provided that the sum required to purchase his freedom was 
 forthcoming ; and of this, in all desirable cases, the Church 
 took care. But in addition to this, the Church was itself 
 the largest proprietor of land, and consequently of serfs, 
 in the whole country. Almost universally throughout 
 the Ecclesiastical estates, every j)racticable method was 
 adopted for ameliorating the condition of the serf class, 
 and for securing, where it was possible, their enfranchise- 
 ment. If any accident had subjected its serfs to slavery 
 elsewhere, the Church, as a proprietor, deemed itself under 
 an obligation to redeem them. Hence it resulted that its 
 jurisdiction, as has been declared by an excellent authority, 
 " was far more enlightened, far more conscientious, than that 
 of the secular proprietors ; and the cultivators of the soil 
 found their condition approach in practice much more 
 closely to civil freedom."* The same writer remarks that 
 owing to the influence exercised by the clergy, at least 
 where they almost necessarily became the men of adminis- 
 tration and affairs, a similar result was brought about on 
 the royal demesnes ; so that in both an immense improve- 
 ment was effected in the condition of the serf class, as com- 
 pared with the condition of the same class on the estates of 
 the rural nobility. But while under the powerful protection 
 of the monarch and the ecclesiastics, the lower order of 
 labourers was gradually more and more elevated above the 
 degradation of ancient slavery, it fared differently with 
 artisans and others of a higher class, such as the coloni, 
 who occupied a privileged position in the old regime. They 
 had naturally congregated towards the great centres of 
 urban industry, and their combination into fraternities or 
 colleges was a source of strength and profit, so long as the 
 free exercise of their labour was possible, or a sufficient 
 * De Cellier, ch. iii. § 2. 
 
716 THE CHUKCH AND THE NEW SOCIETY. 
 
 demand for its products existed. But the barbarian invasion 
 changed all this, annihilated the rights of the privileged 
 classes, destroyed their occupation, broke up their societies, 
 and scattered the members to struggle with want and poverty 
 in the rural districts. The societies reappear curiously enough 
 in the guilds of the Middle Ages, but the individuals were 
 overwhelmed. It is to this elevation of one class, and depres- 
 sion of another, that we must ascribe the general equality 
 which now begins to be found among those who subsist by 
 the work of their hands ; and this, in conjunction with other 
 causes, plays its part in originating perhaps the greatest 
 social revolution which the world has ever seen — the substi- 
 tution of free for slave labour. It is impossible here to 
 enter into the examination of a question, for the solution of 
 which histoiy affords such insufficient data, and which has 
 perplexed so many able and learned men. But I have been 
 anxious, at any rate, to indicate the share borne in this revo- 
 lution by the Church, and one particular phase of her action 
 will be rendered tolerably clear by the foregoing remarks. 
 The great principle of Christian equality, of the equality of 
 all mankind under the highest aspect in which they can be 
 regarded, maintained by the Church amid many incon- 
 sistencies and many abuses, removed from the lowest class 
 of humanity the burden of inhuman contempt, beneath 
 which they had been bowed down to the earth, and broke 
 for them a passage through that hitherto impregnable 
 barrier with which their superiors had fenced themselves in. 
 The slave, as we have already said, was recognized as a man. 
 But the advancement of the slave in the social scale, and 
 that also of the serf and artisan, received its most powerful 
 influence from the fact that the Church threw wide her 
 arras to all her children, and welcomed them all upon equal 
 terms to her breast. The serf or the emancipated slave 
 who had obtained an education, might become, by entrance 
 into Orders, and as a matter of practice frequently did be- 
 
LITERATURE AND JURISPRUDENCE. 717 
 
 come, an abbot or bishop, and took his seat in the highest 
 council of the realm. Tlie goldsmith Eligius reached the 
 most exalted place in the Catholic hierarchy, yet conde- 
 scended to practise his art when the inmate of a palace, and 
 the most favoured companion and counsellor of kings. 
 Blandina, the virgin martyr of Lyons, one of the most 
 honoured in the noble catalogue of those who shed their 
 blood for Christ, had been a slave ; and her posthumous 
 glory shed a light over all her class. Mathilda and Bathilda, 
 the wives of Dagobert and Clovis II., had been slaves in 
 their youth, and employed the privileges of royalty to« 
 benefit the class from which they sprung. To no other 
 influence than to that of the Christian Church are these 
 results to be ascribed. To her, and to her alone, they were 
 possible. Could they have ever entered even into the con- 
 ception of the legislators and philosophers of the heathen, 
 worid 1 
 
 As literature and jurisprudence were in the hands of the 
 ecclesiastics, it is almost needless to say that education, such 
 as it was, belonged to them as well. Every man of general 
 intelligence or intellectual aspirations was attracted of 
 necessity into the only sphere in which they could find 
 scope for action, or perhaps subsist. And the fact had a 
 reciprocal action upon society, for it imposed the cultivation 
 of these qualities in others upon the only persons who 
 possessed such themselves. If any knowledge of men or 
 things, if any rudi mental science or practical skill still 
 lingered on into those dark times, they were to be found 
 in the Church alone ; and it is to the eternal h(mour of the 
 Church, regarding only her secular influences, that she pre- 
 served law, literature, and art, as we have seen that she did 
 preserve them, through a period of barbarian ignorance, 
 when, but for her, they must have perished from Western 
 Europe. And in considering the relation of the Church to 
 the new society, when we endeavour to estimate the amount 
 
718 THE CHUKCH AND THE NEW SOCIETY. 
 
 of moral force which she exercised upon it, we must not 
 omit the fact that she gave the education which that society 
 possessed ; that she was the teacher and schoolmaster, as 
 well as the legist and theologian, of the age. Of the manner 
 in which, and of the means whereby, she discharged this 
 duty before the Caroline epoch, it is not easy to gather 
 much from contemporary records. But the wise provisions 
 and reforms enforced by the comprehensive genius of 
 Charlemagne, plainly recognize the educating function as 
 properly belonging, and having belonged, to the clergy, 
 however much they may suggest that it was often grievously 
 neglected or abused. Of the schools which the great emperor 
 founded, and of his strong personal interest in their well- 
 being, we have spoken elsewhere. Instruction in these 
 schools was administered by ecclesiastics, and the language 
 which Charlemagne employed to the scholars will show, 
 perhaps more clearly than anything else, the amount of 
 social and even political influence which was placed in the 
 power both of the teachers and the taught. " Because you 
 are rich, and are the sons of the principal men of my king- 
 dom, you think that your birth and your wealth are sufiicient 
 for you, and that you stand in no need of these studies 
 which would do you so much honour. You only think of 
 dress, play, and pleasure ; but I swear to you, I attach no 
 estimation to these riches or this nobility, which bring you 
 so much consideration ; and if you do not quickly repair, 
 by assiduous studies, the time you have lost in frivolity, 
 never, no never, will you obtain sympathy from Charles." 
 
 There is yet another phase under which it is necessary to 
 regard the action of the Church in Western Europe, if we 
 would understand its real character and power. It was 
 a missionary, and therefore a living Church. Missionary 
 labour was then, as it is now, the best proof of vitality. The 
 reason is inherent in the very nature of a true faith. There 
 cannot be a true faith which is passive and obeys not the 
 
MISSIONAEY LABOURS OF THE CHURCH. 719 
 
 law of expansion. Even the heathen Persius could admirably 
 say of truth as ifc got hold of and possessed him, — 
 
 " Quid didicisse, nisi hoc fennentum, et quae semel intus 
 Innata est, rupto jecore exierit caprificus ? " 
 
 How inexpressibly more is this the case with Christian 
 truth. If the mustard-seed do not germinate, if the leaven do 
 not begin to leaven the lump, the vital principle in either is 
 extinct. If the true spirit of the Gospel of the living Christ 
 has entered into a man or a society, it must pass out and 
 beyond them at the moment of their contact with others : 
 it is as much a law of our spiritual being as it is a law of 
 material nature, that the electric spark shall pass by sym- 
 pathetic action into those bodies capable of receiving it. If 
 there be no such sympathetic action, the spark is not there — 
 the Christ is not there — the man or the society is spiritually 
 dead. Tried by this decisive test, the Western Church is not 
 found wanting. She exhibited this best and surest sign of 
 vitality. Wheresoever some little centre of Christian life 
 had been formed, and the Church as an institution had taken 
 root, wherever an actual building had been erected for the 
 purpose of worship, or a monastery or an abbey founded, 
 from this spot the unresting spirit of Christian enter- 
 prise carried onward the glad message of the Gospel into 
 the wildest localities and among the most savage tribes. A 
 network of religious foundations was by this means extended 
 over the whole surface of the territory acknowledging any alle- 
 giance, however incomplete, to the barbarian courts in which 
 the Church had obtained a footiug. In this way all northern 
 Gaul, including the regions, half reclaimed from barbarism, 
 which lay between the mouths of the Loire and the Rhine, 
 and the still more savage and idolatrous tribes scattered 
 among the Armorican bays and headlands, were reclaimed by 
 slow degrees from their original paganism. Early British, 
 or pre-Augustine Christianity, was propagated in the same 
 
720 THE CHUKCH AND THE NEW SOCIETY. 
 
 way, and the names of Augustine himself and his successors 
 testify to the untiring missionary exertion of a later period. 
 Nor was this all. The remote realms of barbarism, the inac- 
 cessible forests of eastern Germany and the Scandinavian 
 peninsula, heard the voice of the heroic churchman of the 
 West, beheld him plant the cross of Christ in their groves 
 and high places, and were not seldom watered by his blood. 
 It is not in ignorance of the glorious roll-call of martyrs 
 and confessors that modern missionary labour has to show ; — 
 it is not in forgetfulness of Xavier, and Heber, and Martyn, 
 and a hundred names honoured in all Christian communions, 
 that we assert, not one among them all is to be placed before 
 our immortal countryman Boniface, the apostle of Germany, 
 and the converter of so many among her heathen tribes to 
 the Faith of Christ. Who could read that marvellous 
 history, so admirably recorded by Dean Milman, without 
 feeling that Boniface is worthy to take his stand in the 
 annals of missionary enterprise, and in the remembrance of 
 Christian Europe, as the precursor and the antetype of all 
 the heroic self-sacrificing spirits who have spread the Gospel 
 of Christ from Borneo to Labrador 1 
 
 And now we have briefly glanced at most of the influences 
 exercised by the early Western Church upon the social life 
 of the age, except her own especial influence. Restorer of 
 agriculture and the useful arts, preserver of literature, eman- 
 cipator of the slave, — legist, theologian, missionary, — in all 
 these capacities she pervaded the barbarian world, gradually 
 moulding it into the type of modern civilization. But all 
 these things were as nothing compared to her spiritual 
 power. Among an ignorant and superstitious generation, 
 she became the actual embodiment on earth of everything 
 that stirred their religious instincts, and connected them, by 
 the bonds of hope and fear, with that unknown and awful 
 future which lies beyond the grave. She disclosed .to their 
 eyes the mysterious vision of an unseen world ; she held 
 
SPIRITUAL POWER OF THE CHURCH. 721 
 
 the keys of heaven and hell : her consecrated officers im- 
 personated the very Christ himself, for they claimed his 
 divine power, and it was believed that they exercised it. 
 Even her material dwelling-places, — the solemn aisles of 
 cathedral or abbey, — were to her people like Bethel to the 
 patriarch : " They were afraid, and said, How dreadful is this 
 place : this is none other but the House of God, and this 
 is the gate of Heaven !" The power of the religious senti- 
 ment, in an intelligent and cultivated age, may become 
 super-sensuous altogether, and even the multitude may be 
 acted upon by it, and act themselves under its inspiration, 
 without the intervention of any material medium between 
 the Divine Source of the sentiment and their own souls. 
 But in a semi-barbarous age this is impossible. Religion 
 clothes itself in concrete forms, and no power on earth can 
 tear it away from the material images under which it subsists, 
 and the material machinery by which it acts upon rude 
 minds, entire strangers to any sort of metaphysical abstrac- 
 tion. Without these external appliances, religion, at such 
 times, is volatilized away into a nonentity, or, to speak more 
 accurately, it never assumes a substantial and intelligible 
 shape. To conceive of Christ without his earthly Vicegerent 
 and Representative, of religion without the Church, of moral 
 duties without ecclesiastical rules, of spiritual doctrines 
 without theological dogmas, of the atonement on the Cross 
 without the Sacrifice of the Mass, was as difficult to 
 the untutored intelligence of barbarians converted to 
 civilization by men who taught these things, as it would 
 have been for them to comprehend the " Ideas " of Plato, 
 or the " Celestial Mechanism " of La Place. Without, 
 then, wasting time upon a nearly exhausted topic, we may 
 readily imagine for ourselves what must have been the 
 extraordinary influence of the Church upon the new society, 
 when we see her thus amassing and concentrating in herself 
 all the power of all that religious sentiment which, even 
 
 3 A 
 
722 THE CHUECH AND THE NEW SOCIETY. 
 
 in a comparatively irreligious age, agitates, moves, and con- 
 trols the world around us. It is true that the sacerdotal 
 system had not yet assumed the gigantic proportions which 
 it acquired from the towering ambition and constructive 
 genius of Hildebrand : it is true that no pope had as yet 
 placed his heel upon the prostrate neck of a secular prince, 
 or plunged a whole people into temporal misery and the 
 peril of eternal perdition, as popes were found in after-times 
 to wither with their paternal curse the England of John 
 and the France of Philip Augustus ; but these things were 
 existing in their elements ; the power was no longer in em- 
 bryo, it was gradually growing and gathering strength, — its 
 earlier developments were already seen. In an age of earnest, 
 if credulous belief, it was no light thing to possess the absolute 
 disposition of the objects of that belief, — to be gifted with the 
 power of bestowing blessings undreamt of even in the fervour 
 of an imagination unchastened by any discipline of the reason, 
 or of inflicting tortures, felt with equal vividness of anticipation, 
 hereafter to be endured amid the eternal and intolerable fire. 
 Two things at once facilitated and perpetuated the exercise of 
 this awful power, — ^the right to insist upon the practice of con- 
 fession, and the right to refuse absolution to the disobedient* 
 By the former, almost every man placed in the hands of the 
 priest a weapon to be wielded against himself ; and by the 
 latter, he was delivered, bound, as it were, hand and foot, to 
 the mercy of him who was to wield it. It was impossible for 
 a moral despotism to be more absolute or more complete, 
 because there existed no means of escape. In that age there 
 were none of those intellectual sanctuaries for the sceptical ; 
 none of those convenient halting-places half way, where 
 doubting respectability may pause on the descent from 
 orthodox belief to open infidelity. Outside of the Church 
 there existed no indifferent public, lost among whom the 
 unfaithful churchman might escape her terrible censure, 
 forget it, or be forgotten ; outside of the Catholic dogma 
 
EVIL EFFECTS UPON THE CHUKCH. 723 
 
 there was no religion, nothing but open Atheism,— an un- 
 disputed institution of Satan, like idolatry, witchcraft, and 
 magic, abhorred and abandoned of all men. 
 
 Mistress, then, of so many spells with which to work 
 upon the imagination of men, and so much tangible, prac- 
 tical power to coerce their conduct ; it is not surprising that 
 the Catholic Church became all that Guizot has described 
 her — the one great institution which saved society, and gave 
 a character to the age. Succumbing occasionally to over- 
 whelming political interests, or to the ferocity of animal 
 passions as they raged in barbarian breasts, she yet stood 
 erect through all the storms of the time, surviving anarchy, 
 imperial centralization, and feudalism, and emerging as the 
 author, or certainly foremost among the several authors, of 
 modern civilization. But can it be imagined, that she 
 passed altogether scathless through the fiery trial ? The 
 very remarks which have been made upon her strength, 
 grandeur, and social influence, carry with them an assurance 
 to the contrary. It would be idle to assert, that the Church 
 exercised an unmixed, or anything like an unmixed influence 
 for good, even at this early period of its relation with the 
 secular society. To do this, is not given to any society 
 composed of human agents, even under conditions most 
 favourable to its perfection. But in a time of stormy pas- 
 sions and weak laws, of extreme perils on the one part, and 
 strong temptations on the other, it is as certain as any pro- 
 position regarding human nature can be, that even in an 
 institution supported by divine sanctions, and, in the main, 
 accomplishing the work of God in the world, the human ele- 
 ment will sometimes appear to preponderate, and will render 
 itself conspicuous by outbreaks of violence or fraud. The 
 general progress of affairs in the West of Europe, at least in 
 that portion of it where the future of the modern world 
 was most manifestly forming itself into its destined shape, 
 was, notwithstanding all we have seen to the contrary, some- 
 3 A 2 
 
724 THE CHURCH AND THE NEW SOCIETY. 
 
 times very unfavourable to the relations of the Church to 
 the civil community, and to the character of the Church 
 itself. The cruel and incessant wars, produced by the mu- 
 tual jealousy of race and class, the personal quarrels of 
 powerful men, and, especially, the great Austrasian and 
 Neustrian schism between the members of the conquering 
 and dominant people, were doubtless alleviated by such au- 
 thority and influence as the ecclesiastical body possessed. 
 By their frequent censure of rapine and violence, by their 
 institution of days of worship and festival, when belligerents 
 ceased from bloodshed, and the poor reposed from toil, by 
 their assertion of the right of sanctuary for holy places, 
 by the royal protection which they obtained for the serfs of 
 the Church, in a word, by their general sympathy with sut-- 
 fering and oppression, the Christian clergy leavened the 
 Merovingian era with the principles of mercy and justice, 
 and prevented it from becoming a Pandemonium upon earth. 
 But it was impossible that any body of men so intimately 
 mixed up with mundane interests, should continue en- 
 tirely uncontaminated by their contact. In those troubled 
 times, the battle between the various combatants was fre- 
 quently for very existence ; and under these circumstances, 
 it was natural, that any aid, moral or material, should be 
 warmly welcomed by either party. Even a moral force like 
 that of the Church was frequently compelled into the con- 
 test by the importunate entreaties of friends or supplicants, 
 or the implacable attacks of enemies. So it came to pass^ 
 that the power exercised by the Church, notwithstanding 
 its nature, became a large element in the unceasing strife 
 which was always going on among the members of the 
 Erank aristocracy, and was, more or less, directly the cause 
 of its most furious outbreaks. It was an object of jealousy, 
 and therefore, in that age of the sword, an object of attack, 
 to proud and ferocious nobles incapable of controlling their 
 passions, and determined at any cost to work their will. It 
 
THE CHURCH AND THE CONTESTS OF THE AGE. 725 
 
 was but a natural consequence of the position, that the 
 Church, too feeble to stand alone, should cast herself for 
 protection into the arms of one or other of the powerful 
 parties who contested the supremacy. Thus she attached 
 herself to the Austrasian, rather than to the Neustrian party 
 amongst the nobles, and to the Carlovingians, when they 
 came into positive collision with the Merovingian dynasty. 
 In both cases, it was her support which secured success. The 
 bishops favoured the Austrasian s, because they found them, 
 owing to their inferior cultivation, a material more easy 
 to work upon, or because they discerned their superior 
 military strength, and divined their future victory. The 
 Austrasians, on their part, were not ignorant of the moral 
 aid which they derived from the support of the clergy, and 
 they repaid it, by extending to them very valuable pro- 
 tection. What were the general relations of the great 
 churchmen to the barbarian kings, may be gathered from 
 the succinct account of M. Guizot. " The bishops," he says, 
 ^' were the natural chiefs of the towns ; they governed the 
 people in the interior of each city, they represented them 
 in the presence of the barbarians, they were their magistrates 
 within and their protectors without. The clergy were, there- 
 fore, deeply rooted in the municipal system, that is to say, 
 in all that remained of Roman society. And they very soon 
 struck root in other directions. The bishops became the 
 councillors of the barbarous kings; they counselled them upon 
 the conduct which they ought to observe to\yards the van- 
 quished people, upon the course they ought to take, in order 
 to become the heirs of the Roman emperors. They had far 
 more experience and political intelligence than the barbarians 
 who came fresh from Germany; they had the love of power; 
 they had been accustomed to serve and to profit by it." * 
 
 These intimate relations, then, naturally brought about a 
 connection between the two parties which could not be 
 * Guizot, History of Civilization in France, Lect. viii. 
 
726 THE CHURCH AND THE NEW SOCIETY. 
 
 altogether innocent for the Church, since it almost necessi- 
 tated a partnership in crime. In all the cruel and violent 
 dealing which culminated in the atrocious murder of Bran- 
 hilda, the Church must have been to a certain extent 
 involved : the clergy could not altogether keep their hands 
 clean, when the bands of their political associates were daily- 
 stained with bloodshed and rapine. To this must be ascribed 
 the servility of the ecclesiastical chroniclers to the Frank 
 kings. It is, indeed, something more than servility, for they 
 occasionally use language which implies a culpable com- 
 plicity in crimes that admit of no extenuation or excuse. 
 The Frank rulers may have been robbers, murderers, and 
 adulterers ; but so long as they persecuted the Arians or 
 defended the Church, they might be assured of being handed 
 down to posterity as monarchs of " glorious, pious, and im- 
 mortal memory." Nothing is more painful in the annals of 
 these times than the strange obliquity of moral judgment, 
 the entire self-deception, for we cannot believe it to be 
 anything else, with which a worthy and well-conducted 
 churchman like Gregory of Tours, regards the bloodstained 
 and guilty lives of the Merovingians, provided only they 
 proved themselves patrons and faithful champions of the 
 Church. We have already quoted his language with respect 
 to Clovis and Clotaire, and it is therefore unnecessary to 
 repeat it here. But the truly marvellous part of the matter 
 is, that Gregory has himself recorded the crimes of the man 
 concerning whom he speaks in such gentle and considerate 
 terms : it is from Gregory we learn that he burnt alive a 
 Breton noble with his wife and daughters ; that he mur- 
 dered his brother's children ; that he mastered by violence 
 the persons of queens whose husbands he had slain by the 
 sword ; that finally, he put to death his own son, and ex- 
 tended the same vengeance to his children. 
 
 The protection of the Merovingian house brought with it 
 even more positive evils than a general influx of the secular 
 
THE CHURCH YIELDED TO THE MEROVINGIANS. 727 
 
 spirit and worldly interests and aims. In early days the 
 right of appointment to the episcopal office rested "cum 
 clero et populo," with the clergy themselves and the congre- 
 gation. The voice of his future people confirmed the new 
 bishop in his office, if it did not force the office upon him, 
 as in the case of Ambrose at Milan and Martin of Tours. 
 But the Church paid for the support of the Merovingians by 
 the sacrifice of her independence. This was the case from 
 the very origin of the connection. Clovis was not the man 
 to brook the serious interference of any authority with his 
 own. He was willing to become a Christian and a church- 
 man, but upon condition of being master of the Church 
 in somewhat the same way as he was master of his 
 people and kingdom. He assumed, therefore, at once the 
 right of nomination to the vacant sees — how far upon the 
 grounds of Byzantine precedent it is impossible to say, — and 
 his successors maintained it. The Church recalcitrated, but 
 the yoke was not to be shaken ofi*. The Merovingians 
 insisted upon the right, and exercised it as they chose, — 
 sometimes in favour of the most disreputable priest or most 
 unsuitable layman. " We don't come to you," said the 
 clergy of Tours to one Cato, "in order to ofier you the 
 bishopric because we want you for our bishop, but because 
 the king commands it."* The same writer informs us that, 
 as well as the right of installation, the king exercised the 
 much more equivocal and mischievous right of deposition 
 from a see, when caprice or the interest of a favourite de- 
 manded it. This was to place the bishopric in the same 
 position as the lowest benejicia of the crown ; and the 
 tendency of the whole was to secularize in their character 
 the highest offices of the Church, and to injure proportion- 
 ately its spiritual usefulness. 
 
 If we carry our view a little further, we shall see that, from 
 ^ their connection with the Ausfcrasian party was brought about 
 * Greg, of Tours, iv. 11. 
 
728 THE CHURCH AND THE NEW SOCIETY. 
 
 the connection of the clergy with the house of Heristal. The 
 favour of the Church in the person of Pepin ratified and 
 consecrated, if it did not altogether effect, the triumph of 
 the Carlovingians. Yet the support of the Church was not 
 granted, as we have already seen, without hesitation and 
 difficulty. Had it not been for Lombard ambition, and the 
 imminent peril of the papacy, it might never have been 
 obtained. The interests of Italy for the time outweighed 
 the principle of legitimacy in Gaul. There the Merovingian 
 rule, strong in the traditions of centuries, was deeply seated 
 in the affections of the simple people, and the fact of its 
 established authority pressed heavily upon the consciences 
 of the clergy. It required the personal intervention of 
 Peter's successor himself to sanction the act of spoliation, 
 and to dissipate those ideas of divine right which since that 
 time Peter's successor has so laboriously endeavoured to 
 re-constitute. Doubtless some of the difficulties of the 
 Church and court of Home in after-days may be regarded 
 as a retribution for its conduct in this matter. Yet for the 
 time it seemed 
 
 " That the assassination 
 Had trammelled up the consequence, and caught 
 With its success surcease." 
 
 No attempt was made to retrace what was felt to be an 
 irrevocable step. The people seem, without a murmur, to 
 have accepted the accomplished fact ; and the Carlovingians 
 entered into such intimate relations with the body to which 
 they owed their security and success, that henceforth its 
 position with respect to the civil society was materially 
 altered, and not altered altogether for the best. It is indeed 
 true, as we have already asserted, that all through the 
 Merovingian period the Church was closely connected with 
 the monarchy, especially in respect of the appointment to 
 bishoprics. It had grown into power upon royal patronage, 
 had enormously increased its resources, and sometimes given 
 
CARLOVINGIAN USURPATION SANCTIONED. 729 
 
 or received hard blows in contest witli an unorthodox prince 
 or aspiring noble. But the advent of the Carlovingians to 
 the throne, while establishing a strong and settled govern- 
 ment, mainly upon the sanctions afforded by the Church, 
 gave to the ecclesiastical power a solidity, elevation, and 
 permanence which rather resembled its position under Con- 
 stantine than its dubious authority under the savage or 
 feeble successors of Clovis. The Church legitimized Pepin, 
 and Pepin established the Church. ; He confirmed the pri- 
 vileges of the clergy, some of which had fallen into abeyance 
 during the troubled times through which the country had 
 just passed : he restored the property confiscated by his 
 unscrupulous predecessor Charles Martel, and he elevated 
 the character of the clergy, which had been somewhat dete- 
 riorated by the admission of persons of the lowest class into 
 the sacred order. Henceforth identified in interest and 
 policy with the ruling dynasty, the orthodox Church, in the 
 persons of its rulers, despite some natural jealousies, some 
 few rebuffs and discouragements, and perhaps some severe 
 shocks to its moral sense, rose with the fortunes of the 
 Carlovingian race, until these fortunes expanded into uni- 
 versal empire. Charlemagne did not break with the tradi- 
 tions of his ancestors, he bestowed wealth in abundance and 
 especial favour upon the ecclesiastics, who were by this time 
 organized into a compact and well-defined body ; and he 
 secured to the great dignitaries privileges and immunities, 
 and a secular dignity too easily abused. The single aim of 
 his maturer life — so far as any man can be said to act from 
 a single aim — was the reconstruction of the Western Empire 
 in the person of himself and his descendants. So far as the 
 action of the Church could be kept in subservience to this 
 aim, he was a zealous patron of the clergy, and a promoter 
 of their interests. But if he went thus far, he did not go 
 further. He had no notion of that childish surrender of 
 the rights and responsibilities of royalty which was forced, 
 
730 THE CHURCH AND THE NEW SOCIETY. 
 
 in after-times, upon monarchs of weaker intellect by pontiffs 
 more powerful and more aspiring than the occupants of 
 Peter's seat with whom he had to deal. Still, he was con- 
 siderate, and even too indulgent, within the limits which he 
 prescribed to the action of Church authority. He confirmed 
 to the Church the guarantees which it had already acquired 
 in favour of the serf class ; he abandoned to them, in their 
 " beneficia," many of the duties and rights generally exer- 
 cised in settled governments by the State ; he gave the 
 bishops something very like inquisitorial power, and per- 
 mitted them to pursue criminals within the limit of their 
 dioceses. Finally, he may be said to have settled the paro- 
 chial system, whose first establishment dates from Justinian j 
 and, by granting to the clergy the tithes originally paid to 
 the Empire, he secured for them a sort of political position 
 and power, which they have ever since more or less retained. 
 The payment of tenths was a secular payment to the officials 
 of the Empire. We have already seen how the officers of 
 the Church succeeded to many of their functions, and how 
 they came to stand altogether in their place. This change 
 in the disposition of the funds hitherto paid to the civil 
 society they justified upon the principles of the Levitical 
 law. Charlemagne saw and acknowledged the justice of 
 the scriptural rule, that those who minister to the altar 
 should live by the altar ; and he acquiesced in a claim 
 which reposed upon such a rational basis. He is, however, 
 said to have insisted on a tripartite division ; — one for the 
 bishop and clergy, a second for the poor, and a third for the 
 maintenance of the actual fabric. The Church knew how to 
 canonize and confirm the grant ; and thus that which was 
 at its institution a reasonable provision, or an obvious 
 analogy, grew up into a sacred and inalienable right, forming 
 now, perhaps, the most ancient title to the tenure of property 
 in the existing systems of European law. 
 
 The efiect, however, upon the clergy themselves of this 
 
THE EFFECTS OF WEALTH AND LUXURY. 731 
 
 half-secular position, this participation in authority and 
 place, and this large share in the secular business of the 
 kingdoms of the world, became only too visible when the 
 great emperor departed from the tumultuous conflict of 
 men and interests which his power and presence alone had 
 been able to control. The Prince-bishops of after-times, 
 invested with all the most offensive attributes of temporal 
 tyranny, and riding into battle harnessed like men-at-arms, 
 do not perhaps imply a degree of disorder and corruption in 
 the Church disproportioned to the disorder and corruption 
 which existed in the civil society around it, yet they offer a 
 very painful contradiction to the first principles of the 
 religion of Christ, and were without doubt the legitimate 
 outgrowth of what the episcopal office had been made 
 by Charlemagne and the previous Carlovingian kings. 
 
 The evil effects of large wealth and luxury are not to be 
 separated from the evils produced by too intimate relations 
 with the secular power, and participation in its management 
 of civil affairs. We only point to the second in their direct 
 connection with the first. The favourable period which 
 elapsed between the exaltation of the Church by Constan- 
 tine and the actual collapse of the Western empire, had been 
 actively employed by the clergy in the promotion of their 
 temporal interests. The whole tenor of circumstances fa- 
 voured their advancement to wealth, place, and power, and 
 to these, therefore, they largely and successfully aspired. The 
 privileges attached by the imperial policy to their order ; 
 the sanctity conceded to their persons ; the separate juris- 
 diction, both civil and criminal, which they had managed to 
 establish for themselves ; the favour of the court, and 'the 
 influence which they exercised as councillors upon political 
 matters ; the still more general and subtle influence which, 
 as men of education and reputed piety, they exercised upon 
 the masses, — all these things contributed to render the 
 clerical office so attractive to the wretched citizens of the 
 
732 THE CHURCH AND THE NEW SOCIETY. 
 
 falling Empire, that all men evinced a disposition to adopt 
 it. As early as the time of Constantine, it was necessary for 
 the emperor to prohibit, by a special law, the absorption of 
 the majority of his subjects into holy orders.* The opera- 
 tion of the same causes increased proportionately with the 
 decay of the civil power. At the period when Gaul finally 
 succumbed to the barbarians, the Gallican church was not 
 only opulent from her reaUzed wealth and landed property, 
 but from her enormous influence over all those who had 
 property of their own. The inroad of Teutonic Paganism 
 for a moment menaced the future fortunes of the Church. 
 It seemed that her wealth and influence were about to pass 
 away. But there were many points of secret sympathy 
 between the reverential spirit which inspired the German 
 superstitions, and the doctrines which the Catholic Church 
 proclaimed to their rude adherents. This, added to the 
 other causes already described, gave her the victory which 
 she rapidly won over the invaders, and the conversion 
 of Clovis not only assured to her victory in northern 
 France, but also brought in its train a permanent triumph 
 over the rival form of faith established in the Visigoth and 
 Burgundian kingdoms. The policy pursued by Clovis was 
 the model upon which the policy of his successors was based. 
 Clovis was munificent towards churchmen, for churchmen 
 were his most efficient allies in his difficulties and enter- 
 prises. The Merovingian monarchs inherited the same 
 difficulties, and were for the most part inspired by the same 
 ambition, and subject to the same superstitious alarms. 
 Like Clovis, therefore, they heaped wealth and honour upon 
 the Church to an almost incredible degree. The same mo- 
 tives acted upon private individuals, and induced them to 
 shower costly off'erings on the Church ; and the Church, it 
 must be admitted, well knew how to stimulate the generosity 
 of its friends or penitents by efiective appeals to their hopes 
 * Cod. Theod. xv. 2, 3. 
 
CHARLEMAGNE REPEOVES THE CLERGY. 73S 
 
 and fears, by fervid pictures of future blessedness or future 
 tortures in the fangs of the eternal fire. Charlemagne him- 
 self, one of the most orthodox of monarchs in an honest 
 cause, asks with some bitterness, " whether that man can be 
 considered to have given up the world for the sake of doing 
 God service, who strives every day to swell his possessions 
 by all means in his power, — with persuasions respecting the 
 happiness of heaven, or menaces of the eternal punishment 
 of hell ; imposing, in the name of God or some saint, upon 
 rich and poor alike, so that the ignorant or imprudent dis- 
 inherit their proper heirs, and these heirs are forced by 
 poverty and destitution into robbery and all sorts of crimes." 
 He goes on to complain of the dishonest practice of bribing 
 witnesses to commit perjury in testamentary suits, and of 
 hawking about relics from place to place, for the purpose of 
 making money out of them for church-building and similar 
 purposes.* 
 
 This Capitulary is of itself sufficient to show that the 
 wealth of the clergy was not always acquired with very 
 clean hands, and it also indicates the sources from which it 
 was mainly derived. Testamentary dispositions, extorted by 
 cajolery or terror, against which the rude intelligence of the 
 age was not proof ; the sale of bones or relics of the bodies of 
 the saints (" ossa et reliquias sanctorum corporum"), of which 
 the supply was always kept equal to the demand, and some- 
 times by very unscrupulous expedients ; i,he acquisition of 
 estates, surrendered with the sole reservation of a life interest 
 for the owners, and a sort of consecration of property to the 
 shrine of some saint, closely resembling the Jewish system 
 of Corban, which preserved the property thus made over 
 inviolate from the rapacity of power or the accidents of 
 plunder, — these were the principal sources from which arose 
 
 * The text of this portion of the Capitulary (anno 811) may be seen 
 in a note in Perry's Franks. I have certainly not exaggerated in trans- 
 lation, any of the charges. 
 
784 THE CHURCH AND THE NEW SOCIETY. 
 
 the enormous wealth of the Gallican church. To all this 
 must be added, that the celibacy of the clergy consecrated 
 and confined all these possessions to their own order. It 
 was indeed possible for property to be left away from the 
 Church, but the fact was almost unexampled. The abbot or 
 bishop, almost as a general rule, bestowed his personalities 
 on his successor: the accumulations of his life went to enrich 
 the cathedral or monastery over which he had presided. 
 Thus it came to pass that the Church, like a vast reservoir, 
 receiving property from a thousand channels and parting with 
 it in none, became filled to overflowing with the spoils of the 
 kingdoms of the world. 
 
 When all circumstances are taken into consideration, we 
 shall have little reason to question the assertion of Montes- 
 quieu, ** Le clerg6 recevoit tant, qu'il faut que dans les 
 trois races on lui a donn6 plusieurs fois tous les biens du 
 royaume."* The possession of large wealth in human 
 societies implies the practice of elaborate luxury, and luxury 
 cannot be long practised without bringing sensuality and 
 corruption into its train ; and thus the social position of 
 churchmen only too powerfully contributed to plunge them 
 into those evils which, as we have just remarked, culminated 
 in the lives of the prince bishops of feudal times. 
 
 Another circumstance, less noticed perhaps than those 
 upon which we have dwelt, had no small efiect upon the 
 simplicity of life and manners which marked the clergy of 
 the earlier barbarian epoch. It was the Benedictine order, 
 as we have seen, which conserved the elements of civiliza- 
 tion for those rude times. But the poor Benedictine brother, 
 though the instructor of the serf or barbarian in agriculture 
 and the common arts of life, had small pretension originally 
 to the character of a man of letters. His uninstructed 
 eloquence acted upon the minds of his hearers, and he was 
 successful as a preacher and teacher, probably because his 
 * Esprit des Lois, xxxi. 10. 
 
THE CHURCH TOO EEFINED FOR THE MASSES. 735 
 
 language and imagery differed little from their own. He 
 had the success which a converted tinker or a shoemaker 
 so often attains among persons of his own class — a success 
 not to be spoken of with contempt by Englishmen, who 
 know the effect produced among their countrymen by the 
 half-inspired utterances of the poor tinker .lying in Bedford 
 gaol. But this must not make us forget that the Benedic- 
 tine was not at first what he afterwards became. In the 
 wild days of Childebert and Clevis, the monk might have 
 been seen in his simple russet robe labouring in the field 
 beside the peasant, or in his workshop with the artisan, and 
 discoursing with them in familiar language on the marvels 
 of some saintly legend. But when the wild days of Chil- 
 debert and Clovis passed away, the monastery was honoured 
 and secured under the protection of the strong right hand 
 of the house of Heristal. In the Carlovingian period, litera- 
 ture, which had nearly died out during the long winter of 
 the preceding centuries, began once more to put forth its 
 shoots. Its influence soon became manifest amongst the 
 clergy. A more refined and courtly phraseology assumes the 
 place of the unpolished language which was sufficient for 
 the ruder uses of Merovingian times. Simplicity, and per- 
 haps utility, were sacrificed to the graces of style, and the 
 larger range of knowledge resulting from intellectual culture, 
 required more diversified illustration, and more elaborate 
 expression in words. Leisure and more elevated social 
 position brought with them their natural effects. Higher 
 tastes were awakened, greater excellence attained, more 
 ambitious aims pursued. The Benedictines had been the 
 husbandmen, the shepherds, the artificers of the land j they 
 became its artists, musicians, students, editors; they laid 
 the first foundation of such scientific attainments as the 
 Middle Ages possessed j they preserved ancient literature, 
 and created mediaeval art. What is true of the Benedic- 
 tines in particular, is true of the clergy generally, though in 
 
736 THE CHUECH AND THE NEW SOCIETY. 
 
 a less degree. Charlemagne employed them in those great 
 educational designs which elevate the man so much above 
 his age, and he so employed them that their duties, of neces- 
 sity, reacted on themselves. As instructors, they were 
 forced to become instructed ; and some amusing stories are 
 told of the energy with which " the rough, tough, and shaggy 
 old monarch" hunted down all literary hypocrisy among his 
 schoolmasters, and compelled them to fulfil their educational 
 functions without subterfuge or pretence. 
 
 Yet all was not mere gain. The able and learned author 
 of the History of the Industrial Classes in France has re- 
 marked, that the social progress of these classes, at this par- 
 ticular era, by no means kept pace with that of their 
 superiors. One reason of the difference between the two is 
 to be found in the fact that manual labour was abandoned 
 not only by the secular clergy but by the majority of the 
 monks, who left to lay brothers or converts, as occupations 
 unworthy of educated men, those toilsome pursuits in which 
 formerly the Benedictine had led the way. The superior 
 education of the clergy, moreover, even with respect to the 
 interchange of thought and social communication, began to 
 alienate them more and more from the serfs and workmen 
 who spoke a language which deteriorated as rapidly as the 
 Latin of the cloister improved. Henceforward, the preachers 
 no longer exercised their former influence upon the masses ; 
 and this accounts for the fact, otherwise unintelligible, that 
 the Church which had once been so gladly " heard by the 
 common people " as its teacher and protector, when the evil 
 days of feudalism arrived, exhibited such very imperfect 
 sympathy for the degraded condition of the peasant and the 
 serf. The Carlovingian period, therefore, presented one very 
 different feature from its Merovingian predecessor. In the 
 latter, the general intellectual level of the age was mainly 
 raised by the social improvement of the industrial classes ; 
 in the former, these classes shared but little in the immense 
 
POWER OF THE HIGHEE CLERGY. 737 
 
 advance which society was making in all branches of secular 
 knowledge. The fact was unfortunate, for it rendered 
 Feudalism possible, and retarded the advent of better prin- 
 ciples of government for some centuries ; unfortunate, that 
 is to say, in the conventional sense which our imperfect 
 judgment of the fitness of things attaches to the term — 
 doubtless not unfortunate to an intelligence capable of com- 
 prehending the laws of that eternal order in accordance with 
 which societies ripen, reach their maturity, and decay. 
 
 One special reason why ecclesiastical affairs took the turn 
 they did, is not uninstructive. When we speak of the wealth, 
 and power, and influence of the Church, we must be under- 
 stood to mean, that these were vested in its chief officers, 
 and in them alone. The great body of the lower clergy 
 had probably as little to do with wealth, and the means of 
 even self-government, as they generally have had. The 
 high dignitaries of the Church, its abbots and bishops, kept 
 up the external pomp and splendour of their position, in 
 the same manner, and often to a far higher degree, than the 
 most illustrious nobles of the realm. Their estates were 
 larger, their wealth more readily available, their hereditary 
 vassals more numerous, their equipages and trains more 
 magnificent, than those of the great Neustrian and Aus- 
 trasian peers, who were in attendance at the monarch's 
 court. Doubtless, this was in a great measure a necessary, 
 or, at any rate, a natural condition of the political circum- 
 stances of the age. When secular society was divided into 
 seigneurs and serfs, it was not easy to prevent ecclesiastical 
 society from being divided into something very like seigneurs 
 and serfs also. The facts, which we have already with some 
 minuteness described, sufficiently explain the reason why, 
 upon their first contact with the barbarians, the leading 
 churchmen stood out before their eyes, in a position of 
 almost absolute authority. Other facts, which have equally 
 passed under our notice, account for the motives which 
 
 3 B 
 
788 THE CHURCH AND THE NEW SOCIETY. 
 
 induced the barbarian leaders to recognize tbis authority, 
 and to aid in perpetuating it. Other circumstances in the 
 constitution of the Church enabled the class who had ac- 
 quired this supremacy, to maintain it exclusively for them- 
 selves, and to set at nought any attempt on the part of their 
 brethren to share in or mitigate it. Of the two great 
 agencies which, in modern times, modify absolutism in 
 practice, — public opinion and resistance on the part of the 
 aggrieved, — the former did not exist, for there were no means 
 of creating or representing it, and the latter was entirely 
 crushed by the nature of the despotism with which it had 
 to deaL The prelates were masters of the inferior clergy, 
 in things temporal as well as things spiritual. The bishop 
 possessed entire power over their chances of advancement in 
 the Church, over their properties and over their persons; — 
 all were at his disposition. A bishop might degrade a dis- 
 obedient priest from his office ; might deprive him of the 
 land in which, under any circumstances, he only held a life 
 interest ; might subject him to imprisonment and stripes ; 
 might inflict upon him blindness, and even more disgraceful 
 mutilation. The bishop of Le Mans caused several of his 
 clergy who had complained of him to the king, to be 
 whipped, blinded, and treated with more than oriental 
 cruelty. The original authority for these statements may 
 be found in the work of a learned writer, who has been 
 quoted several times in these pages, and who subjoins 
 this important remark : — " In the hands of the bishop was 
 the exclusive management of all church lands within his 
 diocese ; his acknowledged share of the entire income of his 
 diocese was a lion's one ; and of the surplus which remained 
 after defraying the regular expenses, he was irresponsible 
 master."* 
 
 It would have been a contradiction to all our expe- 
 rience of human nature, had not an authority so arbitrary 
 * Perry, Franks. 
 
OPPOSITION FUTILE. 739 
 
 and oppressive provoked opposition. It did provoke oppo- 
 sition, sometimes so violent as to break out into open 
 rebellion, and terminate in bloodshed. Gregory of Tonrs 
 relates more than one instance of the sort. But it 
 was universally futile, because based upon no admitted 
 rights, and supported by no powerful arm. The rights 
 of the clergy against the bishop, Mr. Perry* may well 
 say, were few enough, when we find quoted as almost the 
 only one, the right, sanctioned by the council of Tours,t of 
 driving strange women from the household of a bishop, who 
 had not " licentiam extraneas mulieres de frequently habita- 
 tionis egicere ;" and besides all this, we must remember that, 
 with the bishops alone rested the right of ordination, and that, 
 of course, they availed themselves of it to strengthen their 
 own position. They repeated the sin of Jeroboam ; " they 
 made priests of the lowest of the people," and filled their 
 dioceses with creatures of their own, who, they knew, would 
 be subservient ministers of their will. It was in vain to 
 look for redress to the royal authority, for the bishops 
 themselves were for the most part creatures of the royal 
 authority, and it was for the interest of both parties alike to 
 keep down the development of anything like a democratic 
 element in Church or State. 
 
 When, then, all these things are considered, it is evident 
 that there is a darker side to the picture of the early Western 
 church, as well as that brighter one on which we have been 
 delighted to dwell. If the equity of history demands that 
 we should strike a balance between the good and the evil of 
 this, as of all other institutions, against the good which has 
 been stated in the language of M. Guizot, we may place the 
 conclusion of Mr. Perry, who has, however, elsewhere most 
 candidly admitted all that is to be said on the opposite side. 
 "We cannot wonder, under these circumstances, that the 
 office of bishop was filled by persons utterly unfit in cha- 
 * Franks, p. 476, note. f Greg, of Tours, vi. 11, 36 j x. 15. 
 
 3 B 2 
 
740 THE CHURCH AND THE NEW SOCIETY. 
 
 racter and habits to minister to the religious wants of the 
 community. As early as the seventh century, in fact, the 
 Franco-Gallican Church, if we are to judge of it from its 
 highest dignitaries, would seem to have almost entirely lost 
 the character of a religious institution, and to have existed 
 chiefly to enable a few great spiritual lords to live in the 
 greatest splendour, and to engage, with vast influence and 
 almost boundless means, in the political feuds by which the 
 country was distracted." * 
 
 To this we will only add two qualifications. Some- 
 thing must be allowed for the political necessities of the 
 times. On all sides the struggle was for actual exist- 
 ence. No power could subsist as a power without abun- 
 dant resources, and formidable means of aggression and 
 defence. If the prelates meant to maintain their order 
 as an existing institution of the state, they needed lands, 
 wealth, and even arms, simply for self-defence. No one will 
 accuse IMichelet of an exaggerated preference for the Church, 
 or of any favouritism as a writer towards its members ; 
 therefore his testimony is more unexceptional than our own 
 could be, and he says — " Both as an asylum and as a school 
 the Church needed wealth. In order to be listened to by 
 the nobles, it was essential that the bishops should address 
 them as their equals. In order to raise the barbarians to 
 her own level, the Church had to become herself material and 
 barbarous : to win over these men of flesh, she had to become 
 fleshly." t 
 
 Again, in speaking of the Church as a society, we must 
 not altogether identify it with the men whose names rise 
 to the surface in the pages of history. In geological con- 
 vulsion, it is the hardest material which crops up ; the 
 whirlpool forces the scum and the foreign substances to the 
 surface of the waves. So in social convulsions, the men of 
 hardest character force their way to the summit of affairs ; 
 
 * The Franks, p. 4/9. f History of France, book ii. ch. 1. 
 
QUALIFYING CIRCUMSTANCES. 741 
 
 those who are most visible in the working of an institution 
 are often the most alien from its inner spirit, and the mass 
 of the elements of which it is composed. The case is the 
 same with the Christian Church. If at any particular era 
 she throws out to view men of turbulent, grasping, and 
 worldly minds, it does not follow that in the great under- 
 current of her spiritual life there is not to be found, in large 
 predominance, the pure elements of her natural character — 
 piety, love, earnestness, labour, and self-sacrifice. Notoriety 
 is not a necessary proof of excellence, neither are the 
 notorious men of a society any sufficient sample of its inner 
 nature and most common attributes. At any rate, in the 
 Christian Society no such test can for a moment be admitted. 
 It is necessary, without doubt, that some of its members 
 should stand in high places and assume large proportions in 
 the eyes of the world. It is worse than idle for the laity to 
 demand of its great officers the primitive simplicity of 
 Galilean fishermen, until the laity themselves re-assume the 
 equally primitive condition of the crowds who went forth 
 to listen to the preaching of the Baptist among the reeds of 
 Jordan, and to whom it was an important object to receive 
 loaves and fishes for their food in the waste places of Judea. 
 No rational man will condemn the existence of a certain 
 amount of power and splendour in the Komano-Gallic 
 Church ; but he must not allow this power and splendour 
 altogether to avert his gaze from the men who trod humbly 
 in her more quiet paths ; the men who in every Church form 
 the main element of its strength, and the real source of its 
 practical usefulness ; the men who hereafter, when honours 
 are distributed in accordance with a judgment which exter- 
 nals cannot deceive, may be proved to have been the real 
 heroes and benefactors of their age. That there were many 
 such in the Church of Gaul is proved even by the very fact 
 of her continued existence. The salt had not altogether lost 
 its savour, or how should the whole mass have been pre- 
 
742 THE CHUECH AND THE NEW SOCIETY. 
 
 served from corraption ? The writer, whose severe censure 
 has been recorded above, has himself elsewhere declared, — 
 "We have good reason to believe, that, amidst the too 
 general corruption of these times, there were always some in 
 whose hearts the life-blood of the Church was treasured and 
 preserved." * 
 
 I do not know that a better illustration of what is meant 
 can be given than the brief sketch of a fifth-century bishop 
 and his flock, which, like our other sketches of the same 
 age, will be borrowed from the pages of Sidonius. This 
 time, however, the worthy bishop forms a prominent figure 
 in his own picture. The portraiture is the more interesting 
 because it illustrates a matter which has induced two dis- 
 tinguished Frenchmen to reproduce the scene in their 
 writings. It has seemed to them that it satisfactorily proves 
 the thoroughly Pagan tone of feeling which was still under- 
 lying all Christian habits of thought, even the minds of 
 distinguished churchmen. And doubtless this was charac- 
 teristic of an age which separated and shared two civiliza- 
 tions. Literature was, indeed, touched by the morning 
 twilight of the day which was already climbing above the 
 horizon of European intellect, but there mingled with it still 
 the dim shadows and distorted imagery of the night that 
 had not passed altogether away. The Muses, Apollo, Diana, 
 and the deities of the old Mythology, with the whole train 
 of associations which their names suggest, were the ordinary 
 stock-in-trade of such literature as the age possessed, even 
 though it rested in the hands of churchmen alone. It was 
 long before poetry acknowledged any other source of inspi- 
 ration, and we may doubt whether Sidonius in Auvergne, 
 
 * Yet it must be admitted that this power and splendour sometimes 
 has assumed shapes as much calculated as possible to suggest secular 
 associations, and put out of sight, as much as possible, the distinction 
 between the Church and the kingdoms of the world. Why, for in- 
 stance, should those with whom the ordering of such things rested, have 
 imposed upon posterity the exact attributes of Dives — "his purple and 
 fine linen'^ — as the appropriate symbols of Episcopal power? 
 
A FIFTH-CENTURY BISHOP. 743 
 
 Ausonius in Bordeaux, and Synesius in Africa, were more 
 truly Pagan in sentiment and language than the wits and 
 courtiers who frequented at Versailles those very Pagan- 
 looking salons of His Most Christian Majesty Louis XI Y. 
 In respect to Sidonius, at any rate, we shall attempt to show 
 that he was far more sensitively alive to the religious re- 
 sponsibilities of his position than M. Guizot or M. Chasles is 
 inclined to believe. 
 
 " The mixture of rhetoric and religion," says M. Guizot, 
 in speaking of another production by Sidonius, " these literary 
 puerilities amid the most animated scenes of real life, this 
 confusion of the hd esprit and the bishop, make this singular 
 society better known than all the dissertations in the world."* 
 Let us therefore endeavour to depict a scene from it, not yet 
 familiar to English readers. 
 
 The time is about the latter part of the fifth century — 
 the scene the pleasant land of Auvergne. It is an early 
 autumnal morning : on all sides are seen groups of peasantry 
 bending their steps towards the Basilica of the little city, an 
 edifice which had been converted from its ancient uses into 
 a Christian church. Though the sun has not yet risen, 
 the building is crowded with devout worshippers, and fresh 
 numbers are continually arriving. In the portico, in the 
 crypt beside the tomb of the holy martyr St. Just, are seen, 
 kneeling forms. The tones of the chant sung by the re- 
 sponsive voices of monks and clergy mingle sweetly with the 
 fresh morning air. The bishop and some of the leading 
 men of the city, who had been almost stifled by the atmo- 
 sphere of the interior of the church, and dazzled by the glare 
 of its numerous lamps, retire for a while, and seat themselves 
 upon a grassy mound which encircles the tomb of the Boman 
 consul Syagrius. Inhaling the soft perfumed breeze, doubly 
 welcome after the oppressive heat, they give themselves up 
 to the " abandon " of the hour, and to delightful familiar 
 * History of Civilization in France. 
 
7U THE CHUECH AND THE NEW SOCEITY. 
 
 converse, undisturbed by the melancholy politics of the time. 
 Not a word of the " Powers that be," or of exactions and 
 tributes ; not a word on that still more fearful topic, the 
 coming of the barbarians. The conversation becomes ani- 
 mated. Witticisms circulate freely, good stories are told, 
 and at last ecclesiastical solemnity is forgotten. The bishop 
 calls for his raquette, and engages in a game at tennis. His 
 brother prefers dice, and good-humouredly blows on his 
 dice-box like a trumpet, to challenge his adversaries. The 
 attendants on the church service crowd around, and enjoy 
 with infinite zest the amusements of their superiors. Among 
 the tennis-players was an old gentleman of some literary 
 reputation, who rejoiced in the learned appellation of Phili- 
 mathius. He was an enthusiastic player ; but having unfor- 
 tunately passed his " premiere jeunesse," and being somewhat 
 obese in figure, the violent exercise of the game made him, 
 like Hamlet — " fat and scant of breath." 
 
 His frequent tumbles, his pantings, his profuse perspira- 
 tion, and the severe punishment he received from the ball, 
 excited the commiseration of the worthy bishop, who made 
 some excuse for securing to his friend an honourable retreat. 
 The energetic old man retired from the game, and sitting 
 down upon a bench before the porter's lodge, wiped his brow 
 with the rough horse-towel which hung on a roller before 
 the door. " Come," said he to the bishop, " improvise for us 
 one of your epigrams." — " On what subject ?" asked the 
 bishop. " On my napkin," replied the old gentleman, " and 
 I should like to have my name inserted if possible." The 
 improvisator assured him that even this might be done. 
 "Set to work, then, at once — my amanuensis is ready." — 
 " We are in the jniddle of a crov/d," remonstrated Sidonius, 
 "and the Muses love solitude." — "You sly fellow," re- 
 turned his friend, "you want a tete-a-tete and a private 
 flirtation with the ladies. Arn't you afraid that Apollo 
 will be jealous?" Sidonius was instantly ready with his 
 
HAESH JUDGMENT OF M. GUIZOT. 745 
 
 epigram. It is a pity that the English reader should be 
 deprived of this exquisite morceau, which formed the pre- 
 lude to a solemn church service of the fifth century. It 
 runs somehow thus : — 
 
 '* At early morn, and when the bath requires, 
 When from the chase his heated brow perspires, 
 May Philomath this thirsty napkin seek, 
 To drink the moisture from his dainty cheek."* 
 
 After this little interruption the congregation again crowd 
 into the church, the mass is solemnized with unusual fervour, 
 and in conclusion an excellent discourse is delivered by the 
 episcopal improvisator. " Voila le dialogue des deux Gaulois," 
 says M. Chasles, " I'un eveque, I'autre homme grave et vieil- 
 lard, tons deux Chretiens." " Sidonius was then bishop ! '* 
 writes M. Guizot, "and, doubtless, many of those who partici- 
 pated with him in the celebration of divine service, at the 
 game of tennis, in the chanting of the psalms, and in the 
 taste for trifling verses, were bishops like him !"t And yet 
 how unjust would be any general inference as to the levity 
 of the leading churchmen of the century, is proved by the 
 fact, that these men were contemporaries of Jerome, and 
 Jerome of all men still retaining their reason, offers the 
 strongest example of religious exaltation, and the abnegation 
 of all human interests and affections. While these bishops 
 of Gaul were conversing with the national cheerfulness, and 
 writing epigrams, though the sword was already suspended 
 over their heads, he was filling the ears of all men with 
 "lamentation and mourning and woe," and painting the 
 aspect of what he believed to be a dying world, in the 
 lurid light of his own despair. But we should not only be 
 
 * I append the original : — 
 
 *' Mane novo seu c^m ferventia balnea poscunt, 
 Seu ctim venatu frons calefacta madet, 
 Hoc foveat pulcher faciem Philimathius udam, 
 Migret ut in bibulum vellus ab ore liquor." 
 
 t Guizot, Civilization in France, Lect. iii. 
 
746 THE CHUECH AND THE NEW SOCIETY. 
 
 unjust to the episcopal order in general, we should be unjust 
 to Sidonius himself, if we assumed upon these grounds his 
 " semi-paganism," levity, or unfitness for his office. I have 
 been struck during a somewhat careful study of his works 
 by the humility, the strong sense of responsibility, and yet 
 the entire trust in his Divine Master, which his private cor- 
 respondence exhibits. One instance is all that I can give. 
 " If you are well, it is indeed well. But I, weighed down with 
 the burden of an unhappy conscience, was lately brought to 
 the very verge of the grave by a violent fever. And it was 
 natural that it should be so, so great is the burden of the 
 function which has been imposed upon me, most unworthy 
 as I am — upon me, unhappy man, who am forced to teach 
 before I myself have learnt, who presume to preach what is 
 right before I practise it, and like a barren tree, because I 
 possess not works for fruit, scatter words like leaves."* 
 Worthy sentiments, and surely not unsuited to teachers of 
 the Gospel in our own Church and generation ! They may 
 at least preserve us from too rapid inductions concerning the 
 religious state of other times and other men : they may, to 
 recur to the object for which they have been introduced, 
 prevent the injustice of utterly uncharitable judgments upon 
 whole societies, and whole orders in those societies, founded 
 upon the evils which the character of prominent individuals 
 presents to our view. 
 
 The remarks that have hitherto been made relate directly, 
 indeed, to the Romano-Gallic Church, and the circumstances 
 which attended upon its connection with the barbarian 
 invaders. But in their general principles they apply to the 
 Churches of the West, wherever they came in contact with 
 the new nationalities. The fortunes of these churches 
 varied in diflferent localities, more particularly in reference 
 to their contest with the doctrines of Anus. These par- 
 ticulars, however, have been already narrated in connection 
 * Sid. Apollinaris, lib. v. epist. 3. 
 
CONFLICT OF THE CHURCH WITH ARIANISM. 747 
 
 with the several countries where the collision took 
 place. 
 
 Thus in Gaul, Arianism, introduced by the Burgundians and 
 Visigoths, and established in their several kingdoms, received 
 its death-blow from the conversion of Clovis to Catholic 
 orthodoxy, and the invincible energy with which the early 
 Frank leaders extended their empire and their faith to the . 
 Pyrenees. 
 
 In Spain, Arianism shared the same fate, under, as we 
 have seen, still more remarkable circumstances. The 
 almost universal attachment of the original population to 
 the Latin form of doctrine, was exalted to the highest pitch 
 by persecution, and asserted itself after the incorporation of 
 the Catholic Suevi into the Gothic kingdom, in a manner so 
 energetic that the Visigoth rulers found it politic to conform 
 to the more popular dogma ; and henceforward, until the 
 Saracen invasiou, Spain was the most orthodox, and most 
 thoroughly priest-governed country of all those which had 
 been formed from the fragments of the Roman Empire. We 
 have seen something of the legislation which resulted from 
 the fact, and have conceded enough to the Councils of 
 Toledo to indicate our assent to Gibbon's candid admission 
 that they surpassed in intelligence the government of the 
 contemporary barbarians. But if the test of a good govern- 
 ment be the conservation of itself and the country over 
 which it is placed, the impotence of Spain, in presence of 
 the Saracen invader, must surely make us hesitate before 
 we apply to the semi-ecclesiastical constitution which brought 
 it about, the enthusiastic language of M. Capefigue : " Le 
 caract^re religieux, episcopal et regulier se trouve plus 
 specialement dans I'organisation de la monarchic des Visi- 
 goths, la plus belle, la plus impartiale, fondee sous 1' influence 
 des eveques."* 
 
 The situation of the clergy, originally perhaps resembling 
 * Vol. iv. ch. 27. 
 
748 THE CHURCH AND THE NEW SOCIETY. 
 
 that which they occupied in the other German nationalities, 
 such as we have already described it in Gaul, soon began to 
 differ materially in the degree of civil power which they 
 were enabled to exercise and maintain. The causes we have 
 already stated ; we shall not repeat them here. Enough has 
 been said to show that the remarks which have been made 
 in respect of Gaul, apply to Spain, with the understanding 
 that in the latter country there was a much more complete 
 absorption of the temporal into the spiritual element, and a 
 much larger assertion, on the part of the clergy, of the pre- 
 rogatives whose possession confers political power. 
 
 Africa was the real birth-place and home of orthodox 
 Latin Christianity. There it took root ; there its greatest 
 and most influential teachers lived and taught, and not 
 unfrequently suffered death. The Vandals brought over 
 with them their national Arianism. Once more, then, the 
 two forms of the faith were brought into contact and colli- 
 sion. If Arianism was to have her chance of supremacy, 
 this appeared to be the opportimity. The military power and 
 fomiidable character of its professors seemed likely to crush 
 out Catholic Christianity from its very centre and strong- 
 hold — from the land of Cyprian, Tei-tuUian, and Augustine. 
 But the Vandals succumbed to the temptations of luxury, 
 and Arianism succumbed to the temptations of persecution. 
 We have already had to recount how these two fatal evils 
 destroyed the empire of Genseric, and delivered over the 
 African province to the arms of Belisarius and the doctrines 
 of the orthodox faith. Arianism was expelled from Africa 
 with the Vandals. The Church became subject to the 
 Greek, as it had been subject to the Western emperors, and 
 was finally extirpated by the fanatical followers of the 
 Arabian prophet. Ever, therefore, owing allegiance to an 
 imperial master whom she had no occasion to convert, or in 
 subjection to a barbarian master whom she could not tame, 
 the African church was very differently situated from those 
 
IN AFRICA AND ITALY. 749 
 
 of Spain and Gaul, and never acquired political powers, or 
 entered extensively into the political organization of the 
 land in which she was placed. 
 
 Into Italy, Arianism descended with Theodoric from the 
 Alps ; but it halted at Ravenna. Into the august Presence 
 which sat on the Seven Hills, beside the tombs of the apostles, 
 and clothed with the traditional glories of an imperial Past, 
 the new dogma dared not venture yet. But in establishiug 
 itself at Eavenna, it also established a power which might 
 have been developed into formidable proportions. It was 
 under the auspices of Arian bishops that the famous 
 Ostrogoth code was constructed Upon the basis of the old 
 Poman law. Ostrogoth legislation and government, as we 
 have already recorded, deserves the highest commendation, 
 and, had no disturbing causes been at work, it might have 
 materially checked the temporal power of the Italian pon- 
 tiffs. But it was a policy of toleration. Surrounded by so 
 many enemies, Theodoric could not afford to neglect or ill- 
 treat his Catholic subjects. When he was goaded into 
 doing so, when his policy became one of persecution, Theo- 
 doric fell. Then ensued the conflict of his descendants with 
 the Eastern emperor. Aided by the sympathies of the 
 orthodox, the Greek generals Belisarius and Narses ex- 
 pelled the Ostrogoths from Italy. Totila, the most politic 
 and glorious leader of the nation, discerning the cause of 
 his weakness, renounced his religion, and embraced the 
 Nicene dogma ; but it was too late. With him perished, 
 perhaps, the best chance ever afforded to Arianism of 
 establishing itself as a political power. 
 
 But all chances were not over yet. Once more Arianism 
 triumphed with the Lombards, but halted at Pavia, as it 
 had previously halted at Ravenna. Lombard conquest soon 
 absorbed all Italy except the Exarchate and the Eternal 
 City itself; but with the Lombards, their religion never 
 appears to have assumed a more important shape than that 
 
750 THE CHUBCH AND THE NEW SOCIETY. 
 
 of political partisanship. Their kings oscillated to and fro 
 between the two faiths, as interest or occasion required. 
 We hear, indeed, that Agiluph, under the influence of his 
 wife Theodolinda, insisted upon a general conversion to 
 orthodoxy among his subjects. To Theodolinda we owe 
 the church of Monza, where the iron crown, the sym- 
 bol of Lombard sovereignty, was offered to John the 
 Baptist by " Agiluph, king of the Lombards by the 
 divine grace ; " and where Theodolinda herself dedicated 
 to the same Saint a hen and seven eggs of gold, in remem- 
 brance of the seven provinces which formed the Lombard 
 heptarchy. But Arianism again raised its head, and the 
 two faiths were alternately accepted and rejected by 
 the Lombard Gallios, who cared only for the cities of the 
 Pentapolis and the success of the siege of Bome. Had 
 their ambitious designs been realized, it is impossible to 
 conjecture which faith would have triumphed ; but in Italy 
 all further controversy, confusion, and doubt was cut short 
 by the orthodox battleaxe of Pepin-le-Bref and the coronation 
 of Charlemagne. 
 
 One other country saw the contact between Christianity 
 and a band of barbarian conquerors, and apparently with a 
 more disastrous result to the latter than elsewhere. The 
 Saxons who landed in Britain, either from their native 
 ferocity, or from some peculiar circumstances attending the 
 invasion, were the only race of Teutonic stock which altogether 
 repudiated the religion found in their new country, and 
 attempted its extirpation. It is impossible to determine the 
 exact period when Christianity was introduced into the 
 island. The mythical conversion of Lucius, and the canoniza- 
 tibn of Alban, a Boman, as his name implies, coupled with 
 other more satisfactory evidence, prove that during the 
 second and third centuries, a Christian church had gradually 
 grown up in the Boman colony. But before this church 
 could acquire political consistence, it was swept by the 
 
CONTEST WITH HEATHENISM IN BRITAIN. 751 
 
 Angles and Saxons into the fastnesses of Wales, the western 
 islands of Scotland, or the still more secure refuge afforded 
 by the Irish morasses. The next attempt at conversion was 
 the famous expedition of Augustine, organized by Gregory 
 the Great. It lies altogether out of our sphere to pursue 
 its details, but it is important to notice, with respect to the 
 relation of the Church to the civil society, that she, in this 
 case, encountered the difficulties arising from a disputed 
 message and a divided house. The British Church, holding 
 to its traditions, derived in part from the East, would not 
 submit to the supercilious strangers who regarded these 
 traditions as an abomination. The consequence was much 
 bitter language, and finally open rupture. The Latins had 
 owed their introduction to a French princess. Bertha, wife 
 of Ethelbert, the Saxon king. The Latins were, therefore, 
 the court party, and naturally prevailed. But hardly had 
 the conquest been achieved, when a new schism, partly, 
 perhaps, reacting from the old one, divided the strength of 
 the Church, and impaired its relation with what had now 
 begun to be called the centre of Catholic unity. The quarrel 
 between the native and foreign clergy, or what would in 
 later times be called the rupture between the national and 
 ultramontane party, produced a new aspect of church affairs 
 in England, and prevented them from following the course 
 which we have seen them pursue in Gaul. It is sufficient 
 merely to point out the divergence and its causes. The 
 more minute treatment of the subject has engaged a fellow- 
 labourer in the historic field.* 
 
 One only observation it will be desiraT^le to make. In 
 Britain alone there was no such struggle with a rival form 
 of faith, as we have recorded in Gaul, Spain, Italy, and 
 Africa. No Saxon Arianism opposed the efforts of Augus- 
 tine, though he had to contend against a more virulent spirit 
 of Paganism than that which confronted the Christian 
 * White's History of England : Eoutledge and Co. 
 
752 THE CHUECH AND THE NEW SOCIETY. 
 
 bishops who civilized the countries which we have named. 
 These, then, — Paganism and the Arian heresy, — were 
 the two great adversaries of Catholic Christianity. She 
 conquered them both, not assuredly by the exercise of 
 superior physical strength, perhaps not by the exercise of 
 superior mental powers. It was because her spirit was 
 more fully sympathetic with the inner life of humanity, 
 more thoroughly pervading its whole nature, and more 
 suited, so to speak, for assimilation into it. Paganism as 
 the religion of sense, and Arianism as the religion of intel- 
 lect, answered severally to the wants of the animal nature and 
 the logical faculty. But both failed to satisfy the conditions 
 required for universality and permanence, for they offered 
 an imperfect counterpart to that microcosm of affections, 
 feelings, thoughts, and wishes, which constitutes the moral 
 nature of man. The sense of dependence which Schleier- 
 macher dwells on as the root of our religious emotions, the 
 craving for personal relations with the Power which holds 
 our destinies in the hollow of His hand, could not be satisfied 
 by the assertion of Divinities whose power reason distrusted, 
 and against whose attributes conscience rebelled. Neither 
 could they be satisfied by a Divinity which, appearing in the 
 guise of an impersonal Unity, answered only to a part of 
 their nature, though they were told, and may have believed, 
 that it was the highest part. It is not difiicult, at least for 
 us, to understand how faith in an incongruous array of 
 anthropomorphous idols, or even faith in what to the un- 
 educated mind is always resolving itself into a logical 
 abstraction, passed away in the day of trial before faith in 
 a living personal God, Father and Ruler of men, and in 
 Him, — 
 
 " The Everlasting Word, who dwelt with God 
 In the beginning, and Himself icas God, 
 Yet Son of Man, and Man, touch 'd with the sense 
 Of our infirmities, and, while with men, 
 Known only by the words and deeds of love, 
 
CAUSES OF THE SUCCESS OE THE PAPACY. 753 , 
 
 Blessing the bridal, weeping by the grave. 
 Moved by sad woman's penitential tears, 
 And sorrow's bitter cry, and childhood's smile, 
 And pain's engrossing anguish ; and at last 
 Uplifted on the Cross, to draw all hearts, 
 All aspii-ations, and all aims of men, 
 All thoughts and all affections to Himself, 
 And bind them in the bond of perfect love ! " 
 
 These thoughts lead us naturally to the last topic on 
 which we have engaged to remark. Why was it, when the 
 barbarian nationalities had been matured, that the Christian 
 Church, after the long process of combination with them, 
 assumed the particular form in which we find her ? Why do 
 we see her government gradually growing into an ecclesiastical 
 absolutism, nearly as complete for a time as the imperial 
 absolutism to which she succeeded in the city of the Caesars ? 
 Why, with capacities and opportunities which might have 
 suggested and assured independence, do we find her sub- 
 mitting to the despotic rule of an individual which, though 
 justified on spiritual grounds, exercised an arbitrary and 
 irresponsible authority over temporal affairs 1 
 
 The answer is twofold, partly resting upon the innate 
 instincts of men, and partly upon the force of external cir- 
 cumstance. The Papacy succeeded, because the Papacy 
 stinick that chord in the human heart which Philosophies 
 and philosophical Religions like that of Arius had always 
 missed. She met that craving for a personal relation between 
 the worshipper and the object of his worship which is so 
 intangible when men declare the object of worship to be 
 an essence or abstraction of any kind. Sooner or later, in 
 their religious relations, Christians will turn to a fatherly 
 government : their most deep-rooted instincts demand it : 
 the principle is the very inner life of their faith. This 
 fatherly government the Papacy supplied, or affected to 
 supply, in a visible, material way ; and the hearts of men 
 turned towards it, as vegetation turns towards the great 
 physical source of light, heat, and vitality. It is for the 
 
 S C 
 
754 THE CHURCH AND THE NEW SOCIETY. 
 
 theologian to explain how deep and dangerous a delusion 
 lurks beneath the Papal experiment, if, after all, it prove a 
 counterfeit ; if there be a fatherly government already ex- 
 isting against which men rebel, and if they are encouraged in 
 their rebellion by the presence of a fictitious representative 
 which usurps its place. Our business is only to trace the 
 connection between the mental and the historical pheno- 
 menon ; between the idea and its practical development in 
 men's lives and acts. 
 
 The concurring causes which aided this development and 
 gave temporary success to the Papal theory of church govern- 
 ment, thanks to our prolonged controversy with Home, have 
 been perhaps as completely discussed as any subject in our 
 literature. I shall, therefore, attempt nothing more than a 
 very cursory resumje of such among them as present them- 
 selves most vividly to my own mind. They are certainly 
 not unimportant, because the more we can show that such 
 supremacy was the natural and almost necessary outgrowth 
 of circumstances, the more do we weaken the argument for 
 direct Divine appointment from the existence of the su- 
 premacy as an established fact. 
 
 (1.) In the first place, then, Home had been the political 
 centre of the world. It was almost of necessity, therefore, 
 that she became its religious centre. There was very much 
 power in the mere traditions of the place. An indefinable 
 reverence hung about it. It had been the old seat of Empire, 
 of arts, and arms, and laws, as they were known in the 
 West. It possessed easy communications with all civilized 
 regions, and men for a thousand years had been accustomed 
 to regard the aureum mUUariwm in the Forum as the central 
 point of this vast network which overspread the world. Both 
 reverence and habit, therefore, directed men's minds to 
 Home as a local centre, irrespective of the authority of which 
 it was to be the seat. 
 
 (2.) This authority had been the authority of the Caesars ; 
 
CAUSES OF THE SUCCESS OF THE PAPACY. 755 
 
 that is to say, men's minds had been familiarized with Rome 
 as the seat of an eminently monarchical and absolute power, 
 which power rested in a person who was the supreme 
 visible Head of the society, the fountain of law, honour, 
 rewards, and punishments, — in short, the very essence of the 
 system of government without which men could not conceive 
 of it as a government at all. But to this position, as we 
 have seen, the Church succeeded, when she adopted the 
 statistical and geographical arrangements of the Empire as 
 the platform for her own organization. In the ninth book 
 of Bingham's great work will be found an account of the 
 ecclesiastical divisions formed upon this principle, and " the 
 original of these." The Church was no longer, if it had ever 
 been, as GuLzot asserts, a congregation of floating units con- 
 nected by a common dogma. It was a society, with all the 
 functions and attributes of a society : it had an outward 
 form, an inherent judicial and administrative power, a 
 graduated scale of dignity among its own members, relations 
 with foreign bodies ; the right to rule, reconcile, and combine 
 which belongs to a sovereign power. The nations had only 
 known one such power before, and with this they, as has 
 been said above, indissolubly associated the idea of a supreme 
 visible Head. When, therefore, they saw the Christian 
 Church in possession of its deserted place, they could not 
 conceive of her as a dominant authority without a visible 
 Head also, which should be to metropolitans, bishops, and 
 clergy, what the temporal Caesar had been to the officers of 
 provinces, dioceses, and parishes within the Empire. 
 
 (3.) It could not be doubted for a moment who this 
 should be. The circumstances of the early Church required, 
 both for the definition of doctrine and the maintenance of dis- 
 cipline, numerous meetings, synods, and councils. These also 
 of necessity required in each case a president. Bishops, metro- 
 politans, and patriarchs, associated in the ascending scale of 
 their rank, fulfilled these offices on the occasions of their 
 
 3 c 2 
 
756 THE CHURCH AND THE NEW SOCIETY. 
 
 occnrrence, and naturally associated with their own persons, 
 much of the authority belonging to the assemblage of which 
 they were the mouthpiece and representative. The amount of 
 this authority depended upon the importance of the locality 
 and the rank of the president. No locality could vie in dignity 
 and consideration with Rome : no officer surpassed in rank 
 the Roman patriarch. When, therefore, differing or disputed 
 decisions came to be compared, and their relative value 
 assigned to each, it was natural that the traditions of Rome 
 should confer upon her ecclesiastical chief somewhat of that 
 pre-eminence which her secular rulers had so long enjoyed. 
 
 (4.) It was natural, had these traditions merely recalled 
 the power and splendour of republican and imperial Rome ; 
 but by this^time Christian Rome had acquired traditions 
 of her own, appealing not less effectually to the sympathies 
 of the faithful than her faded glories of earlier days. She 
 was said to contain the sepulchres of two Apostles, St. 
 Peter and St. Paul, and they had been reverenced even by 
 the unscrupulous rapacity of the barbarian. St. Peter, it 
 was positively asserted, had himself personally founded the 
 See, and transferred to its occupants the miraculous power 
 of opening and closing the gates of heaven. There had 
 been endured the bitterest persecutions ; there the noblest 
 triumphs had been won. The blood of martyrs had stained 
 the pavement of her streets ; the smoke of the flames in 
 which they perished had defiled her roofs. It was a city of 
 confessors and conquerors ; the scene of that most marvellous 
 triumph, which had given to the persecuted faith of the 
 Catacombs the kingdoms of the world. Therefore sanctity 
 attached to it in a Christian aspect, as sanctity had attached 
 to it in a pagan aspect. The Church of the two Apostles 
 was for the one society what the temple of Capitolian Jove 
 had been for the other. 
 
 (5.) But Rome was also a centre for business and affairs, 
 the centre, moreover, of a real intellectual supremacy. All 
 
CAUSES OF THE SUCCESS OF THE PAPACY. 757 
 
 matters of importance, legal and administrative, had ever 
 been transacted at Rome, and the business of the Church 
 flowed in the same channel as the business of the Empire. 
 Appeals for guidance from the perplexed, and protection 
 from the weak, the decision of disputes personal or theolo- 
 gical, the general privilege of arbitrament on questions 
 where the churchman was bound, in his character as such, 
 not to submit to heathen interference, — all these turned 
 naturally, from the first, to such a centre, and increased, as 
 they themselves increased, its moral weight and influence. 
 Kome claimed, therefore, in process of time, as a right, 
 those judicial and legislative functions which had originally 
 been an accident of her position. The claim was perpetually 
 received with protests; but none of the protesters were 
 strong enough to make head against the metropolis, except 
 the rival metropolis of the East, and her protest was practi- 
 cally made good. Constantinople never acknowledged the 
 supremacy of Rome. It has also been said that Rome was 
 the seat of a real supremacy of intellect. The one assertion 
 implies the other. The capital necessarily, in every country, 
 attracts to itself the men of genius and leading ability. The 
 more centralized the government, the stronger the attrac- 
 tion : the assertion is more true of St, Petersburg or Paris 
 than of London or New York. It was eminently true of 
 Rome ; for even that amount of rivalry which these cities 
 may be supposed to exercise towards each other, until the 
 departure of Constantino, was, in her case, utterly unknown. 
 Even then the foundation of a new capital on the Bosphorus 
 had little effect on the rude nationalities of the West. 
 To this must be added the fact that the Christian Church, 
 independently of its action upon the imperial jurisprudence, 
 had by this time tribunals and a jurisprudence of her own, 
 reposing upon opinion and the voluntary submission of its 
 members ; but not on that account less real or less effective. 
 The central court of this half-recognized discipline or law 
 
758 THE CHURCH AND THE NEW SOCIETY. 
 
 was necessarily at Rome. Thither, therefore, personally or 
 by their representatives, flocked all whose object was to 
 avail themselves of its provisions ; and the bishop of Rome, 
 as supreme arbiter in all such cases, attracted to himself the 
 reverence which is universally directed to the fountain of 
 law, order, and justice. 
 
 It is not, therefore, on the whole, any matter of marvel that 
 Rome absorbed into herself the knowledge, ability, and expe- 
 rience in affairs to be found throughout the West. When both 
 bishop and emperyor resided as rival powers within her walls, 
 these were naturally the two centres round which this intel- 
 lectual activity was grouped. But the emperor passed away, 
 the bishop remained, and there was no longer any disturb- 
 ing cause to prevent its concentration round a single figure. 
 The fact had some mischievous consequences ; it made Rome 
 the very hotbed and focus of religious controversy, the 
 chosen battle-field — to borrow an expression from Dean 
 Milman — of all the civil wars of Christianity. But the 
 consequences no less prove the fact, and its influence was 
 immense. All the great men of the new faith congregated 
 to Rome, and the Christian world looked upon her as its 
 Capital, until it came to regard her as its Queen. 
 
 (6.) We are thus reminded of one of those causes which 
 Guizot declares to be most potential in social revolutions — 
 the personal character of the great men who lead and govern 
 the society. The influence of Jerome, of Ambrose, and of 
 Augustine, moulded the character of the Papacy, gave to it 
 a spiritual, and laid for it the firm foundations of temporal 
 policy. Leo and Gregory did what remained to be done. It is 
 not easy to overrate the influence exercised over his contem- 
 poraries by the heroic conduct of the first of these two men. 
 All the world, and especially all the Christian world, looked 
 with reverence and wonder upon that unarmed warrior, 
 before whose fearless front the terrible Alaric and the still 
 more terrible Attila and Genseric ^had recoiled. It is not 
 
CAUSES OF THE SUCCESS OF THE PAPACY. 759 
 
 surprising that an imaginative but ignorant age should have 
 succumbed to a power which proved itself mightier than 
 the sword of men who had overrun and subdued the 
 world. The prestige which Leo had gained for the pon- 
 tifical office was employed to the uttermost, and aug- 
 mented by Gregory the Great^ who is by most writers 
 regarded as the founder of the Papacy, — at least, the 
 Papacy as it is known in modem times. The vague 
 elements of an undefined power, — such as the first 
 elements of a moral power invariably are, — he arrested by 
 his marvellous genius and crystallized into substance, con- 
 verting them into one solid and coherent body, upon which 
 he impressed an immutable form. It' is well said of him 
 by Hallam, that in his hands all imperfect or disputed claims 
 assumed a positive shape ; and they were prosecuted with 
 invariable success, until the first officer of the first office in 
 the Christian world, — as we may well admit the bishop of the 
 Western metropolis to have been, — towered up to the gigantic 
 proportions of Vicar and Representative of Christ, and Spi- 
 ritual Ruler of the Kingdoms of the World. The limits in 
 such a case, between a spiritual and a temporal power, are 
 very difficult to observe, even when there is an earnest desire 
 for their observance. There was no such desire in the minds 
 of Gregory or his successors, and assuredly the chances of con- 
 fusion were materially increased, when the spiritual fathers 
 of the Church were admitted into the fraternity of secular 
 sovereigns by the dotation of Pepin-le-Bref. A larger sphere 
 than ever was opened to the occupants of the pontifical 
 throne, for the action of personal genius and ambition, and 
 the most conspicuous example of the embodiment of these 
 qualities, and of their political results, was affi^rded in atter- 
 ages by Hildebrand, and his administration of the Holy 
 Office. 
 
 (7.) Any enumeration of the concurring causes which gave 
 power to the Papacy would be incomplete, if we failed to 
 
760 THE CHUECH AND THE NEW SOCIETY. 
 
 notice the exceedingly favourable circumstances which ac- 
 companied its external relations with other powers, eccle- 
 siastical or tempoi'al. The legions of Titus disposed of its first 
 and most formidable rival. Jerusalem, the natural centre, of 
 Christian unity, was swept away from the family of nations 
 by the Roman sword, and was not originally even elevated 
 to the rank of a patriarchate. The other patriarchates, of 
 Antioch, Alexandria, and Constantinople, were too remote 
 to interfere with Rome in her own peculiar sphere. The 
 Saracens destroyed the power of the first two as completely 
 as Titus destroyed all chances of rivalry from Palestine. 
 Constantinople alone remained. Her opposition was of very 
 trifling importance in the struggles which Rome had to 
 maintain with the new nationalities around her; yet the 
 opposition of Constantinople was not entirely inefiectual : ib 
 is to her we owe the fact that the Papacy was compelled to 
 accept the title of Queen of the West in exchange for that 
 of Queen of the World. Nor was the Papacy less fortunate 
 in its relations to the civil powers with whom it was from 
 time to time brought into contact. In the first place, the 
 departure of Constantino and the Court left the bishop as 
 the chief man in the capital ; the highest in social as well 
 as in ecclesiastical position. He discerned the favourable 
 conditions by which he was surrounded, and ably availed 
 himself of them. Even the invasion of the barbarians pro- 
 duced the same effect. In one sense Alaric may be said to 
 have swept Rome with the besom of destruction, for the old 
 Romans were found there no more. After that terrible 
 visitation, none save the Christians had courage to return. 
 To them, therefore, and to the masses who lacked the means 
 to fly, was left the ancient mistress of the world. Hence- 
 forth she was Christian in every sense of the word, and 
 reflected what remained of her ancient glory upon the 
 Chief of the new people within her walls. She never after- 
 wards lost the power and the prestige thus acquired. She 
 
CAUSES OF THE SUCCESS OF THE PAPACY. 761 
 
 stood erect in the presence of the barbarian kings, who came, 
 sword in hand, to demand entrance at her gates. She dis- 
 missed Attila and his Huns beyond the Alps. She arrested 
 the. Ostrogoth at Ravenna, and the Lombard at Pavia. 
 When Attila was preparing for her destruction, his life 
 was cut short by the dagger of one whom some have 
 not hesitated to regard as the Jael or Judith of Latin 
 Christianity. When Theodoric changed his policy, and 
 thought himself in a position to menace the Church, a tem- 
 pory gleam of prosperity enabled the Greek arms to drive 
 his descendants from Italy, and, as a most unexpected and 
 unwished for consequence, established on a solid basis the 
 power of a rival and an adversary to the Patriarch of the 
 East. The Lombards were more troublesome and dangerous 
 neighbours than the Ostrogoths. But just when the Lom- 
 bard thought his foot was on the neck of the Supreme 
 Pontiff, and the sceptre of Italy within his grasp, a new 
 Protector was raised up beyond the Alps, whose strong arm 
 and generous spirit conferred upon the Church more of the 
 realities of temporal power than she had hitherto enjoyed. 
 Fortunate, indeed, was it for Rome that she had the Franks 
 for friends, at an era when the slightest change in the con- 
 fused and troubled relations of European politics might have 
 converted them into enemies. Fortunate, too, was it for her 
 that Charlemagne was rather inclined to accept her spiritual 
 assistance than to distrust her temporal ambition. Had he, 
 or another man of the same stamp, been living half a century 
 later, the pretensions then for the first time put forward 
 would have been crushed by a rude and heavy hand. As 
 it was, the relations between the two powers were left inde- 
 finite and obscure. They are symbolized by the singular 
 interchange of investiture between Adrian and Charlemagne. 
 The theory seemed to be that the Pope should make the 
 Emperor, and the Emperor should make the Pope. Charle- 
 magne, as long as he lived, had no idea of foregoing his part 
 
762 THE CHURCH AND THE NEW SOCIETY. 
 
 of the ceremonial ; still less would he have tolerated entire 
 independence ; least of all would he have conceived possible 
 a claim to universal supremacy. But the successors of the 
 two men reversed their positions and their policy. No 
 Nicholas II., no Hildebrand, sat upon the throne of the 
 great man who had erected the empire of the West. 
 
 I am not writing a controversial paper upon the subject 
 of the Papal supremacy. That has been often and ably done ; 
 and the results at which controversy has arrived, so far as it 
 ever arrives at any results, are easily accessible. It is my 
 humbler duty to record the impression produced upon the 
 historian's mind by a consideration of the circumstances 
 which accompanied its origin and its growth. I have 
 endeavoured to do so with simplicity and fairness; and 
 the general result appears to be this. It is ureasonable to 
 deny the fact of a positive precedence attaching to the 
 See of Eome from a very early period ; and again, it is un- 
 reasonable to deny that the power which gi-ew out of this 
 precedence, was of immense value to Christendom, because 
 in the stormy times accompanying its birth, it offered a 
 central point of union to the young nationalities which had 
 accepted the faith, and proved itself an efficient instrument 
 to re-organize and conciliate the dislocated relations of a 
 society which the passing away of an old and the coming of 
 a new order of things had broken up, But, on the other 
 hand, it is surely as unreasonable blindly to take the logical 
 leap from a practical precedence to an absolute supremacy ; 
 or to assume that such a precedence, however just, reasonable, 
 and useful in its generation, necessarily implies its own 
 permanence, or the inalienable right attaching to a Divine 
 appointment. A Divine appointment in one sense, indeed, it 
 was — in the sense in which great men, nations, and national 
 institutions ; nay, even our own insignificant lives and fortunes 
 are of Divine appointment ; because they are the instruments 
 of an over-ruling purpose ; — instruments which arise, flourish, 
 
CAUSES OF THE SUCCESS OF THE PAPACY. 763 
 
 fulfil their functions, and pass away. Like Feudality, 
 like Chivalry, like the Crusading spirit^ like the forms of 
 Mediaeval life, like the Fanaticism of the Covenant, the tem- 
 poral power of the Papacy has had a great work to do upon 
 the earth, which it cannot continue to do, if only for the 
 reason that it has been done. Is it uncharitable to hope 
 that the aspects of the time portend the advent of another 
 great phase in the existence of Rome — a noble and a useful 
 one? Divested by a mightier Power of those unspi- 
 ritual attributes which she would never have voluntarily 
 abandoned, and forced into a path in which she would 
 never of herself have walked, by the kindly but inexorable 
 pressure of that Hand which shapes the destinies of nations, 
 may she one day take her stand among the Christian sister- 
 hood of Churches, separated from those around her by no 
 more exclusive partition-wall than the diversity in doctrine 
 and speculative belief which are the inseparable accidents of 
 Humanity, and which must continue to subsist among us, so 
 long as the light of Divine truth is refracted through the 
 gross atmosphere of a contaminated world. 
 
 " Our little systems have their day, 
 
 They have their day and cease to be ; 
 
 They are but broken lights of Thee ; 
 
 But Thou, LoED, art more than they ! " 
 
CHEONOLOGICAL APPENDIX. 
 
 B.a 
 
 Assassination of Julius Caesar 44 
 
 Munatius Plancus founds the famous colony of Lugdunum in Gaul 43' 
 
 Philippi confirms the power of the Csesarean party 42 
 
 Agrippa, anxious for the safety of Gaul, attacks the Germans be- 
 yond the Ehine 3T 
 
 The Roman lieutenants combat the tribes of W. Alps — Octavius 
 
 attacks Dalmatians and Pannonians 35" 
 
 While Augustus visits Gaul on his progress, Tiberius and Drusus 
 
 combat the Rhenish barbarians 15 
 
 Drusus attacks the Batavi, ravages the Sigambrian (Franks) terri- 
 tory, and returns to Rome 12 
 
 Drusus continues his invasion of Germany 11 
 
 Tiberius sent against Dalmatians — Drusus attacks Catti and other 
 German tribes— the consecration at Lyons of the altar in honour 
 
 of Augustus 10 
 
 Drusus pursues the Germans to the very banks of the Elbe — dies 
 
 between Saale and Weser 9 
 
 Tiberius goes to Germany after death of Drusus — Pannonia sub- 
 dued 8 
 
 Tiberius Caesar sent against the German tribes, who are restless * ' 
 
 and threatening 4 
 
 Tiberius, who had been going against the Marcomanni, suppresses, 
 
 after three years, the revolt in Germany S 
 
 Pannonia subdued — war lingers in Dalmatia 8 
 
 The great disaster of Varus in the Teuto-burger Wald, near the 
 
 Lippe 9 
 
 Tiberius goes to the German legions — Germanicus follows him there 10 
 Germanicus routs an immense concourse of Germans on the plains 
 
 of Idistavisus, near the river Weser 16 
 
 Mauritania made a province 42 
 
 Claudius attempts the conquest of Britain, as the chief seat of 
 
 Druidism 43 
 
 Claudius makes Thrace a Roman province 45 
 
 Revolt of the Batavi, near the embouchure of the Rhine, under 
 
 Civilis — -joined by Gaulish tribes under Sabinus 69 
 
766 CHEONOLOGICAL APPENDIX. 
 
 A.D. 
 
 The Alani, an Asiatic tribe, greatly harass the Parthians, who de- 
 mand a Koman leader 72 
 
 Agricola completes the subjugation of the Britons 85 
 
 The Dacians from north of Danube invade Mcesia — Domitian pur- 
 chases peace 86 
 
 Huns divide into two branches ; 1st I'emains N.E. of Sogdiana, 
 2nd comes westward 92 
 
 Trajan crosses the Danube from Moesia into Dacia — attacks the 
 king in his capital 101 
 
 Trajan builds a stone bridge over Danube in Dacia — leaves perma- 
 nent traces of occupation 104 
 
 Displacement of the nations between Baltic and Danube — Marco- 
 manni, Quadi, Sarmatae, Roxolani, lazyges, Vandals — advance 
 by Pannonia nearly to Aquileia— repulsed with difficulty 168 
 
 The Marcomanni appear under Aquileia — repulsed by gladiators 
 and slaves armed 172 
 
 The " Thundering Legion" employed against the Marcomanni. . . . 174 
 
 Marcus Aurelius dies at Sirmium, or Vindobona, while repelling the 
 Marcomanni 180 
 
 First appearance of Franks on the frontier — defeated near May- 
 ence by Aurelian 241 
 
 Decius first emperor who combats the Goths — they appear in Moesia 
 — Decius killed 251 
 
 The magnificent temple of Ephesus (which had been rebuilt) 
 burnt down by the Goths 260 
 
 Gaul for twelve years under separate chiefs, independent of the 
 Empire — recovered under Aurelian 261 
 
 Claudius II. (Gothicus) drives the Goths from Thrace, Asia Minor, 
 and Greece 269 
 
 Aurelian allows the Goths to settle in Dacia — Trajan's conquest — 
 the name of Dacia now given to part of Moesia south of the 
 Danube 271 
 
 The Alemanni penetrate into Italy as far as Umbria 273 
 
 Probus builds his famous wall of defence against the barbarians . . 276 
 
 Franks obtain from Probus settlements in Gaul 277 
 
 Insurrection in Gaul vigorously maintained by the peasants (Bagau- 
 dse) against imposts 285 
 
 Franks have lands granted in Gaul for military service 291 
 
 A Gaul, Sylvanus, made emperor for three months — Jxalian (the 
 Apostate) sent from the schools of Athens into Gaul as Caesar — 
 defends it against Franks . . . .• 355 
 
 The emperor Julian permits Franks chased by the Quadi to settle 
 in Brabant 358 
 
 The Huns, a barbarous nomad race of central Asia, impelled on- 
 wards to Europe and the West, driving other barbarians before 
 them — overthrow Alani 874 
 
CHEONOLOGICAL APPENDIX. 767 
 
 A.D. 
 
 Goths, chased onward by the Huns, ask Valens for lands south of 
 the Danube — left with their arms, owing to corruption of Roman 
 officials — make use of them to avenge their ill-treatment 376 
 
 Bloody victory of Goths over Valens at Adrianople — begins the 
 
 BARBARIAN INVASION 378 
 
 The orthodox Spaniard Theodosius made emperor 379 
 
 Maximus, at Bordeaux, condemns heretics to death — first blood 
 shed by emperors for orthodoxy 384 
 
 The Frank Arbogastes, after killing Valentinian II., has disposal 
 of the Empire 392 
 
 Theodosius last sole master of Empire — cessation of Olympic games 
 — the Empire divided between sons of Theodosius ; Honorius, 
 W. ; Arcadius, E 394 
 
 Rufinus (a Gaul, minister of Arcadius, emperor of the East) brings 
 in Alaric and Visigoths 395 
 
 Alaric and the Visigoths in central Greece and Peloponnesus, but 
 surrounded by Stilicho's forces, and forced to retreat 396 
 
 Alaric defeated twice in Upper Italy by Stilicho, falls back upon 
 Illyria 403 
 
 Passage of the Rhine by the Burgundians, Sueves, Vandals, &c., 
 notwithstanding the opposition of the Ripuarian Franks— enter 
 Italy — driven back by Stilicho 406* 
 
 Sack of Rome by Alaric, because of refusal to pay tribute agreed 
 to by Stilicho 409 
 
 Partition of Spain (in part) between Sueves and Vandals 411 
 
 Burgundians established in Gaul with consent of Roman emperor 413 
 
 Ataulf establishes the power of the Visigoths in Spain 414 
 
 Toulouse, the capital of the Visigoth empire — relations of Visigoths 
 with Roman emperor Honorius, through Placidia, his sister — 
 
 Visigoths extend their conquests in Spain 419 
 
 Theodoric 1 420 
 
 War between Rome and Visigoths — Aetius 425 
 
 Invasion of Africa by Vandals — Boniface 429 
 
 Aetius takes refuge in Pannonia, among the Huns 432 
 
 Vandals recognized in Africa by treaty with Roman emperor .... 435 
 
 Visigoths at war with Rome — Theodoric extends their limits .... 437 
 
 Vandals take Carthage, and establish Arianism — Visigoths defeat 
 Romans and Huns at Toulouse — obtain Novempopulana from 
 the emperor 439 
 
 Frank Merovius raised on the shield — Sueves acquire Baetica 
 and Carthagena (imperial provinces) in Spain 448 
 
 Britons appeal for aid to Aetius — Attila, king of Huns, concludes 
 a peace with Greek emperor Theodosius, who had tried to get 
 him assassinated 449 
 
768 CHRONOLOGICAL APPENDIX. 
 
 A.D. 
 
 Invasion of Gaul by Attila, and defeat at Orleans and Chsllons by 
 Aetius and the barbarians already settled in Gaul 451 
 
 Huns in Italy take Aquileia — retire from before Rome at the 
 entreaty of St. Leo, Pope — Emperor Valentinian pays tribute — 
 foundation of Venice by fugitives 452 
 
 Death of Attila, and division of the Empire among his sons .... 453 
 
 Assassination of Aetius by Valentinian III 454 
 
 Genseric the Vandal invited into Italy by the widow of Valen- 
 tinian III. — Rome sacked for fourteen days — empress carried 
 off with her two sons 455 
 
 The Burgundians combining with Visigoths in Spain dreadfully 
 defeat the Sueves — Ricimer the Sueve, kingmaker and imperial 
 general in Italy 466 
 
 Invasion of Roman Gaul by Visigoths, to avenge Roman emperor 
 Avitus 459 
 
 Unsuccessful attempt of Roman emperor Majorian against African 
 Vandals 460 
 
 The Ostrogoth chief Theodoric sent hostage to Constantinople — 
 educated six years there 461 
 
 Visigoths gain Narbonne by treason — advance up the Loire .... 462 
 
 When near to Orleans, they are driven back by .^gidius 463 
 
 The Salian Franks, for some time under .^gidius, place themselves 
 under their chief Childeric, son of Merovius — part remain under 
 Syagrius, son of -^Egidius 464 
 
 Rome for the third time stormed by the barbarians (under 
 Ricimer) 472 
 
 Rome for the fourth time stormed — Odoacer, chief of the Heruli 
 and Rugae, a Scythian tribe — the Heruli the first to settle in 
 it — Augustus Romulus dethroned 476 
 
 Visigoths conquer all Spain, except Galicia (still Suevic) — Genseric 
 dies 477 
 
 Visigoths make conquests in Gaul 480 
 
 Accession of Clovis at 16 481 
 
 The Ostrogoth Theodoric invited to Constantinople, and destined 
 for the consulship 483 
 
 Franks extend their power over Gaul through the victories of 
 Clovis over the Roman Syagrius at battle ol Soissons 486 
 
 Ostrogoths and Theodoric directed upon Italy by Greek emperor 
 — gain two victories over the troops of Odoacer, but shut up 
 in Pavia 489 
 
 Theodoric saved by the aid of the Visigoths from southern Gaul — 
 Odoacer retires to Ravenna 490 
 
 Clovis the Frank, pagan, marries Clotilda, a Catholic, niece of 
 the Arian king of the Burgundians — Theodoric makes himself 
 master of Italy — founds the Ostrogoth dynasty, which lasts for 
 sixty years — Ostrogoths speedily master Sicily, Dalmatia, Nori- 
 cum, Pannonia, and the two provinces of Rhaetia 493 
 
CHRONOLOGICAL APPENDIX. 769 
 
 A.D. 
 
 Clovis, after the battle of Tolbiac, is baptized on Christmas-day 
 
 with 3,000 followers — great blow to Arianism in Gaul 496 
 
 The sister of Clovis marries the king of Ostrogoths — he is also 
 strengthened by alliance with the Armorican Gauls, who have 
 
 hitherto remained independent — Salic law re-established 497 
 
 Arian Visigoths in southern Gaul persecute Catholics, who invoke 
 
 aid from the Franks 498 
 
 Franks assail the Burgundians upon religious grounds 500 
 
 Franks make a temporary truce with Visigoths at Amboise 504 
 
 Franks attack Visigoths, whose king, Alaric XL, not waiting for 
 the Italian Ostrogoths, is vanquished and killed at Vougl^, neai" 
 
 Poitiers 607 
 
 Franks joined by Burgundians, gain Toulouse from Visigoths, but 
 driven back by aid of Italian Ostrogoths at Aries — Franks 
 
 settle at Paris — receive embassy from Constantinople 508 
 
 Visigoths, after losing Toulouse, make Narbonne their capital — 
 
 Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths, really rules both nations . . 509 
 Franks and Burgundians again defeated by Ostrogoths at Aries 510 
 Death of Clovis — four Frank kingdoms : capitals, Metz, Soissons, 
 Paris, and Orleans — each have part ofAquitaine not yet entirely 
 conquered — Theodoric still rules both nations at Aries, and re- 
 stores Roman prefecture 511 
 
 Justin emperor 618 
 
 Arian counter -persecution by Theodoric — death of Symmachus 
 
 and Boethius 524 
 
 Clodomir, king of Orleans, killed fighting Burgundians — partition 
 of realm between the two brothers, Childebert (Paris), Clotaire 
 (Soissons) — Theodoric dies — Visigoths and Ostrogoths again 
 
 divide — Rhone the boundary 526 
 
 Lombards settle in Pannonia (remain forty-two years) 527 
 
 Order of St. Benedict instituted 528 
 
 Justinian code published (Institutes and Digest, 533) 529 
 
 Thierry, king of Austrasian Franks, conquers Thuringia — revolu- 
 tion among the Vandals — Gelimer king 530 
 
 War between Franks and Visigoths, on account of the Visigoth 
 queen, a Frank 531 
 
 Visigoth capital transferred by Theudes south of Pyrenees — en- 
 courages Franks to devastation 533 
 
 End of Burgundian kingdom — partition by the Franks (Gondemar 
 last king) — Gelimer and the Vandals defeated by Belisarius — 
 Africa a Roman province — internal quarrels in the Ostrogoth royal 
 family ; 534 
 
 Justinian courts the Franks, wishing to conquer Italy — expedition 
 sent against Ostrogoths to Sicily 535 
 
 Greeks in Italy — Belisarius conquers Rome and Naples — Ostro- 
 goth king Vitiges 536 
 
 3 D 
 
770 CHRONOLOGICAL APPENDIX. 
 
 A.D. 
 Yitiges, after vain attempts on Kome, shuts himself up in 
 
 Ravenna 63S 
 
 Pirst passage of a Frank army over the Alps — Theudebert, the 
 Austrasian, ravages the country — attacks both Greeks and 
 
 Ostrogoths 5Z9 
 
 Vitiges in Ravenna surrenders to Belisarius 539 
 
 Franks cross the Pyrenees, hoping in Spain to plunder the Visi- 
 goths, as their fellows in Italy plundered the Ostrogoths — 
 
 Childebert and Clotaire , 642 
 
 Totila, the new Ostrogoth king, defeats the Greek army in absence 
 
 of Belisarius 542 
 
 Next year captures Naples 543 
 
 Theudebert again attacks Italy and Sicily — forms a combination 
 with Totila against the Greeks — Totila a fifth time sacks Rome, 
 
 pulling down much wall 546 
 
 Belisarius sent again into Italy — retakes and rebuilds Rome 
 
 (walls) — recalled 547 
 
 Austrasian Franks confirmed in occupation of basin of the Rhone 
 
 by Justinian 548 
 
 Assassination of Visigoth king Theudes 548 
 
 Totila again makes himself master of Rome — he does not sack it, 
 wishing to make it his capital — foundation of Poland by the 
 
 Slave Lech 54D 
 
 Narses again for the sixth time lays siege to Rome — Totila dies — 
 Rome occupied by Greeks — Justinian attacks Visigoths — ob- 
 tains part of eastern coast 552 
 
 Narses is now entire master of Italy since defeat of Gothic king 
 
 Teias— Exarchate 553 
 
 Franks summoned across the Alps both by Greeks and Ostrogoths 
 — two armies cross — wasted by disease and Narses — Verona 
 and Brescia, last Ostrogoth strongholds surrender — laws of 
 Justinian enforced through Italy — Athanagilda, Visigoth king, 
 
 makes capital at Toledo 654 
 
 "War between Franks (Clotaire I.) and Saxons — Clotaire king of 
 
 Austrasia only 555 
 
 The death of Childebert, leaving only daughters, makes his brother 
 Clotaire king of all the Frank states — Paris, capital — Frank 
 
 gold money circulates at Constantinople 558 
 
 The Bulgarians approach and devastate the Empire 559 
 
 The sons of Clotaire, as heretofore those of Clovis, make a four-fold 
 division of the kingdom of the Franks — same capitals, but Gon- 
 
 tram, king of Orleans, rules over Burgundians 661 
 
 The Avars, a Hunnish tribe, invade Austrasian Gaul 562 
 
 Death of Belisarius and Justinian — Empire left strongly defended 
 
 with forts, &c. — Sueves become Roman Catholics 565 
 
 The Lombards, aided by the Avars, crush the Gepidas — Alboin 
 marries Rosamond, daughter of king of Gepidse ; he is nephew of 
 
CHRONOLOGICAL APPENDIX. 771 
 
 A.D. 
 
 Ostrogoth Theodoric — Brunehaut, daughter of the Visigoth 
 king, marries Sigebert, king of Austrasia 5Q6 
 
 Caribert, king of Paris, dies — leaves only three Frank kingdoms — 
 disgrace of Narses by Justin II. — dies at Rome 567 
 
 Avars attack Austrasia — Sigebert prisoner — Fredegonde marries 
 Chilperic — the Lombards, with Gepidse and Bulgarians in their 
 train, set forward for Italy — schism between the French and 
 Spanish Visigoths 568 
 
 Alboin enters Italy, takes Milan, besieges Pavia 569 
 
 War between Abyssinian Christians and Pagan Arabs — Mahomet 
 born 570 
 
 Lombards repulsed from Gaul by Burgundian Franks and Roman 
 Patrician — Pavia surrenders — Lombards gain Italy nearly to 
 Beneventum — Leovigilde, the Spanish Visigoth, reunites the 
 Visigoth monarchy 572 
 
 Quarrel between Frank kingdoms, owing to Brunehaut and 
 Fredegonde — assassination of Alboin by Rosamond — sort of 
 elective monarchy follows, and then anarchy 573 
 
 Complicated quarrels among the Franks — Lombards again try to 
 pass the Alps into Gaul ; again repulsed by the Roman Patri- 
 cian — Burgundians 575 
 
 Remarkable superstitions — destruction of impost and tax records 
 by Chilperic and Fredegonde — Visigoth king's son converted by 
 Frank wife to Catholicism, who soon after rebels 580 
 
 The Avars, despite the emperor Maurice, devastate south bank of 
 the Danube — conspiracy of Frank lords in favour of Gondovald 
 — Lombards pillage environs of Rome 582 
 
 Childebert, the Austrasian Frank, instigated by the Greek emperor 
 to assail the Lombards — returns laden with spoil — arrests Lom- 
 bard victory over Greeks — the Catholic prince and his wife 
 martyred by Visigoths — gives occasion for Frank uncle, Gontram, 
 to interfere — Visigoths share the last Sueve kingdom — all Ger- 
 mans in Spain under one rule — Turks first appear 584 
 
 Death of Leovigilde — first Visigoth who took sceptre, crown, 
 and robe 586 
 
 Recarede, the Visigoth king, and his people, embrace Roman 
 Catholicism 587 
 
 Two Frank armies destroyed in Italy — expedition against Armorican 
 Bretons — Gregory the Great Pope 500 
 
 Lombards besiege Rome — saved by Gregory the Great 593 
 
 The Avars slaughter 12,000 Roman prisoners fiOO 
 
 Death of Recarede delivers Visigoth kingdom to a succession of 
 ambitious rivals one after the other 601 
 
 Lombard prince renounces Arianism — influence of Gregory the 
 Great 602 
 
 Solemn and inviolable alliance between Franks and Lombards. . . . 604 
 
 Frank, Lombard, and Visigoth league against Brunehaut 608- 
 
 3 D 2 
 
772 CHRONOLOGICAL APPENDIX. 
 
 A.r. 
 
 Mahomet declares himself Prophet of God — Avars ravage north- 
 west of Empire 610 
 
 Brilliant reign of Sisebert among Visigoths 612 
 
 Murder of Brunehaut — Clotaire 11. called to throne — unites the 
 French crowns 613 
 
 Flight of Mahomet from the idolaters to Medina — Hegira — Dago- 
 bert founds the house of Heristal — great triumphs of Heraclius 
 in the East 622 
 
 The Visigoths drive the remnant of Greeks from Spain, and rule 
 all the Peninsula first time 623 
 
 The Avars, with Baian at their head, decline siege of Constan- 
 tinople 627 
 
 Dagobert does not divide his kingdom with his brother, but cedes 
 part of Aquitaine 628 
 
 Mahomet recognized at Mecca and throughout Arabia — Dago- 
 bert's (I.) Capitularies, — commerce with the Eastern empire. . . . 630 
 
 Mahomet receives deputations from Arab tribes — conquests in 
 Greek Syria — Slaves attacked by German tribes at instigation of 
 Dagobert — revolution and dethronement of Visigoth king 631 
 
 Death of Mahomet— Ali, Abou-beker, Khaled, Khoran, &c 632 
 
 Fifth council of Toledo favours Visigoth usurper, Isidore of Seville 633 
 
 Khaled captures Damascus -. 634 
 
 Arabs found Bassorah to cut off Persians from Indian commerce — 
 Khaled conquers (at Yermack) Syria from Greeks — court of 
 
 Frank Dagobert brilliant 636 
 
 Omar takes Jerusalem ; Abou-Obeidah, Antioch — death of Dago- 
 bert — Mayors of Palace most important personages in, (1), 
 
 Neustria and Burgundy ; (2), Austrasia 638 
 
 Conquest of Egypt by the Saracens 639 
 
 Surrender of Alexandria — burning of the libi-ary 640 
 
 Lombards take from Greeks all they had left in Italy, from Cottian 
 
 Alps to Tuscany 641 
 
 Reduction of the Lombard code — duelling admitted 643 
 
 Othman succeeds to the Caliphate 644 
 
 Progress of the Saracens over North Africa 648 
 
 Revision of Visigoth code — Germanic and Roman inhabitants 
 
 equally obey it 649 
 
 Arabs take Rhodes from the Greeks — destruction of Colossus .... 651 
 Arabs obtain possession of the Persian empire — end of the Sas- 
 
 sanides 652 
 
 Visigoth king to be selected when last dies — king engages to 
 observe something like a constitutional government, under the 
 
 control of the national councils 653 
 
 Check of the Arab attempt upon Constantinople 655 
 
CHRONOLOGICAL APPENDIX. 77S 
 
 A.D. 
 Death of Othman— succession of Ali — Merovingian kings merely 
 
 nominal rulers under the Mayors 656 
 
 Assassination of Ali by a fanatic — rivalry after his death 661 
 
 Lombards devastate the Greek Pentapolis Q6Q 
 
 Foundation by Saracens of Kairoan, a commercial emporium a 
 
 few (5-|) miles from Carthage 670 
 
 Commencement of assaults continued seven years by Saracens 
 
 against Constantinople — saved by Gi'eek fire 672 
 
 The Bulgarians, a Scythic or Sarmatian tribe, having penetrated 
 south of the Danube, receive tribute from Constantinople — long 
 the most terrible foes of the Empire — Dagobert II. ends the 
 Merovingian line in Austrasia — Mayors Pepin d'Heristal and 
 
 Martin succeed 673 
 
 The Greek emperors remit tribute payable at the pope's ordina- 
 tion — retain the right of confirming the election 680 
 
 Council of Constantinople 681 
 
 Disgraceful treaty (sacrificing Maronite frontier defence) of Greek 
 
 emperor with the Arabs 686 
 
 The battle of Testry decides triumph of Pepin over Neustrian 
 mayor — Merovingian monarchs finally suppressed, though 
 nominally left kings — Pepin king de facto of the three realms. . 687 
 Supplementary council at Constantinople not recognized by the 
 
 West 691 
 
 Failure of Justinian II. against Pope Sergius 694 
 
 First Arab money coined — for seventy-six years after Hegira they 
 used Greek and Persian — Justinian II. among the Turks and 
 
 Bulgarians after his deposition 695 
 
 Venice suppresses twelve tribunes, and elects a Duke or Doge . . 697 
 
 Final destruction of Carthage by the Saracens 698 
 
 Aided by the Bulgarians, Justinian II. returns to Constantinople. . 705 
 Arabs successful in Transoxiana, the basin of the Indus — take 
 
 Samarcand 707 
 
 Arab conquest of Africa confirmed by the submission of the 
 
 Berbers 708 
 
 Three years' struggle between Franks and German idolatrous 
 
 pagans 709 
 
 Eoderic, king of Visigoths, deposes Vitiza, and retaliates his cruel- 
 ties — conspiracy against him 710 
 
 Invited by Eoderic's enemies, Musa, emir of Africa, sends into 
 Spain Tarik-Abdallah — 7,000 Mussulmen occupy Algeziras and 
 Gibraltar— Roderic fatally defeated — remnant of Christians seek 
 
 refuge in the Asturian mountains 711 
 
 Luitprand, king of the Lombards 712 
 
 Arabs (called Moors) capture Spanish cities — Toledo falls — towns 
 which submit made tributary — others suffer fortune of war — Tarik 
 disgraced by Musa, who is also himself disgraced by Caliph .... 713 
 
774 CHRONOLOGICAL APPENDIX. 
 
 A.D. 
 
 Death of Pepin d'Heristal 714 
 
 Greek language abolished by Arabs — mosques built — minai-ets 
 invented — tbe Arabs frequent the great eastern route from 
 Samarcand to Canton — seat of Government established at Cordova 
 — Neustria and Austrasia again at variance — Cbarles Llartel, 
 mayor of latter — Venice enters into relations with the Lombard 
 monarchy ,• 715 
 
 Under the caliphate of Soliman, Constantinople attacked by 800 
 sail — repulsed by Huns and Greek fire 717 
 
 Winifrid (Boniface), the Anglo-Saxon's mission in Germany 718 
 
 Charles Martel gains a second great victory over theNeustrians at 
 Soissons — recompenses his followers with the lands of the Church 719 
 
 Saracens cross the Pyrenees — win Septimania and Narbonne from 
 Visigoths 720 
 
 Zama, the wise and politic governor of Spain, defeated in a great 
 battle (Toulouse) by Eudes, duke of Aquitaine 721 
 
 The Arabs ravage Burgundy 725 
 
 Leo, the Isaurian emperor — fury of the Iconoclast controversy — 
 destruction of images, .and rebellion everywhere — Romans expel 
 Greek duke — Pope begins independent authority 726 
 
 Luitprand profits by the confusion to attack the Exarchate and 
 Pentapolis 728 
 
 Venetians aid Greek Exarch against Luitprand — latter two are 
 reconciled, and, attacking rebellious Lombard dukes of Bene- 
 ventum and Spoleto, fall upon Rome— Pope Gregory 11. dis- 
 
 I suades Luitprand 729 
 
 Gregory writes to the emperor in favour of images — Italy devas- 
 tated by the quarrel — this pope the last confirmed by the 
 Exarch in the name of the Greek emperor 730 
 
 Great battle of Tours, in which Charles Martel delivers Europe 
 from the Saracens 732 
 
 Failure of the armament of Leo the Isaurian against Italy — its 
 relics destroyed at Ravenna ' 733 
 
 Charles Martel combating Arabs in Burgundy and Provence, finds 
 Leudes and Bishops favourable to the invasion, and sacks Avignon 
 and Nismes — he leaves the nation for five years without a king, 
 when Thierry IV. dies — proceeds against Piisians and Saxons. . 737 
 
 Rivalry of soldiers of difierent race in Arab army confounds Spain 
 — good for Franks — as Romans protect the Lombard rebel duke 
 of Spoleto, Luitprand advances to Rome 740 
 
 Charles Martel summoned by the pope to aid against Lombards — 
 offers mediation, but does not cross the Alps — divides Frank 
 mayoralty between Pepin-le-Bref and Carloman — Pope Gregory 
 dies, and Charles Martel 741 
 
 Alplionso the Catholic wrests part of Galicia from the Moors 
 (successor of Pelagius) — the two Frank mayors place Chil- 
 peric III. on the throne — continual wars with the Alemauni, 
 
CHRONOLOGICAL APPENDIX. 775 
 
 A.D. 
 Bavarians, Aquitanians, and Vascons — return to Germanic 
 institutions — national assemblies inks Champs de 31 ars, ouMai — 
 office of Doge re-established in perpetuity at Venice 742 
 
 Christians in Spain occupy Astorga, Leon, and southern part of 
 mountains — council of Church allows Carloman to bestow 
 church lands (precarious benefices) on those who served against 
 Saxons, &c, — the right of the property still rests with the 
 Church — pope interferes to save Ravenna and Pentapolis from 
 Lombards 743 
 
 Same ecclesiastical laws established in Neustria as above — Luit- 
 prand dies 744 
 
 New regulations as to the disposal of Arab soldiery in Spain 745 
 
 Five provinces, Cordova, Toledo, Merida, Saragossa, and Nar- 
 bonne, founded by Arabs — Carloman becoming a monk, leaves 
 Pepin-le-Bref sole mayor of the Franks 747 
 
 Termination of the dynasty of the Ommiades — Abassides succeed 750 
 Pepin deposes the last Merovingian, Childeric III., with consent 
 of the pope — consecrated kin? by St. Boniface— begins the con- 
 quest of Septimania — the Lombard king Astolphus conquers 
 
 finally the Exarchate and Pentapolis 752 
 
 Stephen II. demands aid against Astolphus from Pepin — con- 
 secrates him and his two sons — anathematizes for all future 
 time the enemies of the new dynasty 754 
 
 Expedition of Franks into Italy — Pepin bestows Exarchate and 
 Pentapolis upon popes — commencement of their temporal 
 power 755 
 
 Pepin returns into Italy, and forces the Lombards to observe the 
 terms agreed on 756 
 
 The new king of Asturias holds a council, at which celibacy of 
 the clergy is determined — the Greek emperor courts the 
 Franks 757 
 
 Truce for fifty years between Arabs and Christians — the latter 
 pay tribute — the Franks occupy Narbonne, and take all Mus- 
 sulman possessions in Gaul — Pepin commences war against 
 Aquitaine 759 
 
 Pepin, by the assassination of Guaifer, gains Aquitaine — dying, 
 leaves his two sons, Carl and Carloman, the kingdom between 
 them 768 
 
 Short war in Aquitaine — Carloman dies, leaving all the empire to 
 Charlemagne — grandeur of Lombard kingdom under Didier — 
 connection by marriage with Charlemagne 771 
 
 Commencement of war against Saxons by Charlemagne 772 
 
 Charlemagne, after two campaigns, destroys the Lombard king- 
 dom — confirmation of Pepin's grant — Charlemagne made 
 Patrician, with power over Pontifical states 774 
 
 A Bulgarian chief takes refuge at Constantinople, and made 
 Christian 776 
 
776 CHRONOLOGICAL APPENDIX. 
 
 A.D, 
 Entrance of Franks into Spain, invited against Abderaman by emirs 
 of Saragossa and Aragon — Roland at Roncesvalles 778 
 
 Partition of Saxon conquered lands among the Frankish chiefs. . . . 780 
 Charlemagne returns into Italy, to put down Lombard and Greek 
 
 conspiracy — has his two sons made kings of Italy and Aquitaine 781 
 After three years, Saxon Witikind vanquished and receives bap- 
 tism — constitution settled at Paderborn ^ 785 
 
 Abderaman builds mosque at Cordova, after model of Damascus . . 786 
 The Carolines — Charlemagne again in Italy, to force Lombard 
 duke of Beneventum to submit — increases Papal territory — re- 
 turns to Gaul with many learned men (Alcuin) 787 
 
 Tassillon, the Bavarian duke, sent to a monastery — Bavaria made 
 a province of France 788 
 
 Byzantines unite themselves with Lombards against Franks — 
 Franks come into contact with Avars, behind Bavarians — Char- 
 lemagne conquers North Spain up to the Ebro 789 
 
 War with the Avars — part of the Saxons return to idolatry 791 
 
 Charlemagne condemns heretic Urguel — grand project to connect 
 German Ocean with the Euxine by a canal 792 
 
 Inroad of Spanish Arabs in south of France — the two Carlovin- 
 gian kings of Italy and Aquitaine unite against Lombard duke of 
 
 Beneventum 792 
 
 Charlemagne fixes his residence at Aix-la-Chapelle — his two sons 
 
 gain victory over the Avars in Pannonia 796 
 
 Franks make progress in north Spain 797 
 
 The Avars come to Aix, to pay homage to Charlemagne 798 
 
 Leo III. comes to seek aid from Charlemagne — he gives him an 
 
 army 799 
 
 Haroun Alrascbid sends the keys of the sepulchre to Charlemagne 
 — the latter, on Christmas-day, receives at Rome the crown of 
 emperor of the West (Augustus) 800 
 
 Louis, king of Aquitaine, takes Barcelona from the Arabs 801 
 
 Missi dominici regularly authorized by general assembly at Aix-la- 
 Chapelle 802 
 
 Treaty between Franks and Greeks regulates limit of respective 
 empires — Charlemagne revises laws of Salian and Ripuarian 
 Franks — bishops and abbots exempt from military service .... 803 
 
 Nicephorus tributary to Haroun — may not rebuild fortresses de- 
 stroyed by Mussulmen — Charlemagne at Thionville divides 
 empire between Charles, Pepin, and Louis — war always with 
 Saracens — king of Italy takes Corsica from them ; king of Aqui- 
 taine, Pampeluna 806 
 
 Bulgarians invade empire — take Sardica, in Moesia 807 
 
 Descent of the Northmen upon Frank coast renders necessary a 
 Frank navy 808 
 
CHRONOLOGICAL APPENDIX. 777 
 
 A.D. 
 
 I'rank Council, with consent of Charlemagne, adopts the "Filioque" 
 
 clause — death of Haroun Alraschid 809 
 
 The Doge of Venice, after having lost his continental possessions to 
 Pepin and' the Franks, establishes himself on the Rialto 811 
 
 Death of Pepin, king of Italy — Charlemagne gives the kingdom to 
 his young son Bernard 812^ 
 
 Louis of Aquitaine associated in the imperial dignity 813 
 
 Charlemagne dies on the 28th of January, at Aachen, or Aix-la- 
 Chapelle — Louis-le-D^bonnaire at first holds all his father's em- 
 pire except Italy, governed by Bernard 814 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Abassides, dynasty of the, founded by 
 Abul Abbas, 600 ; Bagdad their capital, 
 511, 601. 
 
 Abderaman, the Arab chief, 47^ 480. 
 
 lieutenant of the ruling caliph, 512. 
 
 of the family of the Ommiades, 
 
 founds the khalitate of Cordova, 602. 
 
 Abou-beker, the friend of Mohammed, 592, 
 593 ; the successor of the Prophet, 596 ; 
 his circular to the Arab tribes, 604 ; 
 invades Syria, and captures the principal 
 cities, 605 ; his death and character, 
 596, 597. 
 
 Abou Taleb, uncle of Mohammed, 593. 
 
 Abul Abbas, founder of the dynasty of the 
 Abassides, 60O. 
 
 Abul-Sofian, his attack on Damascus, 606. 
 
 Acatzir, in Attila's army, 198. 
 
 Achaia, a Roman province, 22. 
 
 Adda, battle of the, between Odoacer and 
 Theodoric, 294. 
 
 Adelchis, the last of the Lombards, 341. 
 
 Adrianople, the Romans defeated by the 
 Visigoths at, 18/ ; its direful effects, ib. 
 
 jElian on the ancient art of war, 12. 
 
 Aetius, the Roman patrician, allies himself 
 with the Goths, 189; his difBculties in 
 opposing the Huns, 199 ; defeats the 
 Huns at Chaions, 203, 204 ; conspiracies 
 against him, 205 ; the minister of the 
 empress Placidia, 248. 
 
 Africa, Roman dominion over, 19 ; state of 
 in the fifth century, 369 et seq. ; occu- 
 pied by the Vandals, 371 ; Genseric the 
 undisputed master of, 383 ; invaded by 
 Belisarius, who defeats and disperses the 
 Vandals, 398,399; Saracen conquests in, 
 610, 61 1; the birthplace and home of 
 orthodox Latin Christianity, 748. 
 
 Africans, Salvian's account of the, 3/5 — 
 377. 
 
 Agapetse, the, 682, 
 
 Agathyrsians, the, 154. 
 
 Aghatana, architectural description of, 502. 
 
 Agilulf, the Lombard king, 318; his death, 
 319. 
 
 Agricola, his government of Britain, 8 ; a 
 Gaul, 169. 
 
 Agriculture of the Romans transmitted to 
 modern times, 13 ; neglected state of, in 
 Italy, 99, 100; revived by the Benedic- 
 tines, 7O8, 709. 
 
 Agrippa, minister of Augpstus, 39. 
 
 Ahanaric, the Visigoth, 133. 
 
 Akbah, the Saracen, invades the Moors 
 of Africa, 6II. 
 
 Alani, or Alans, irruptions of the, 173, 174 ; 
 enrolled in Attila's army, 198; invade 
 Spain, and divide the country, 366, 635, 
 537. 
 
 Alaric, his invasion of Greece, 237; ■?* 
 pointed master- general of Eastern Illyri- 
 cum by the court of Byzantium, ib. ; 
 appointed king of the Visigoths, 238 ; 
 defeated by Stilicho, 238, 239 ; marches 
 upon Rome, 241, 242; extorts heavy 
 ransoms from the citizens, 242 ; besieges 
 and sacks Rome, 243, 244 ; the destroyer 
 of Paganism in Rome, 657; his death, 
 247. 
 
 Alaric II., the Visigoth king, defeated and 
 slain, 453. 
 
 Alboin, king of the Lombards, 309; defeats 
 the Gepid£e,310; subdues a great portion 
 of Italy, 312 ; his assassination, 313. 
 
 Alemanni, their irruptions into the Roman 
 territories, 20, 175, 232; migrations of 
 the, 129 ; defeat and death of their king, 
 233. 
 
 Aleppo, captured by Omar, 606. 
 
 Alexander the Great, smote down the 
 Persian empire, and founded Alexandria, 
 30 ; his conquests the means of diffusing 
 Greek civilization, 37; the Greek mon- 
 archies which sprang up from the ruins of 
 his empire, ib. 
 
 Alexandria, founded by Alexander the 
 Great, 37; the rival of Rome, 41 ; cap- 
 tured by the Saracens, 6O8, 609; great 
 library of destroyed, 609; the intellectual 
 centre to which flowed the cults, philo- 
 sophies, and faiths of the world, 674, 
 675. 
 
 Alfonso, count of Portugal, 563. 
 
 Algebra, invented by the Saracens, 602. 
 
 Ali, cousin of Mohammed, 592; becomes 
 
780 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 his vizier, 593 ; elected to the khalifate, 
 598; his constant struggles, 598, 599; 
 establishes himself in Ir&k, 610; his 
 assassination, 599, 
 
 Almansor, the second of the line of the 
 Abassides, selects Bagdad as his capital, 
 601. 
 
 Altar of the Church, derived from a pagan 
 antetype, 670. 
 
 Amalafred, the Vandal queen, beheaded, 
 396. 
 
 Amalaric, the Visigoth king, 540. 
 
 Amalasontha, assassinated, 305. 
 
 Ammianus Marcellinus, his account of a 
 sanguinary battle between the Romans 
 and the Germans, 139—141 ; his descrip- 
 tion of the Huns, 150, 151. 
 
 Amphitheatre, number and variety of beasts 
 brought into the, 88; gladiatorial but- 
 cheries of the, 89. 
 
 Amrou, the Saracen leader, 599 ; conqueror 
 of Egypt, 599, 6O8 ; his bravery and 
 wisdom, 609. 
 
 Ancient world, threefold division of the, 17. 
 
 Angles, or Anglo-Saxons, migrations of 
 the, 131. 
 
 Anianus, bishop of Orleans, 201. 
 
 Antharis, the Lombard king, 316; his 
 energetic rule, 317 ; his death, ib. 
 
 Anthemius, elected emperor, 257; slain, 
 259. 
 
 Antioch, captured by Omar, 606. 
 
 Antoninus Pius, a Gaul, 169. 
 
 Antonius, the orator, a Gaul, I69. 
 
 Aquileia, besieged and destroyed by Attila, 
 207. 
 
 Aquitaine, long the seat of Roman institu- 
 tions and language, 485 ; which are ex- 
 tinguished by its fall, 485, 493 ; its fall, 
 493. 
 
 Arab civilization in Spain, 6l3. 
 
 Arabia, character of its inhabitants, 567; 
 peninsula of, 569 ; w ildness of the coun- 
 try, 571 ; the channel of ancient com- 
 merce, 573 ; literature and poesy of, 574, 
 575 ; idolatry the autochthonous worship 
 of, previous to Mohammed, 576 et seq. 
 
 Arabic numerals, invented by the Saracens, 
 602. 
 
 Arabs, their marvellous movements in the 
 west of Europe, 56o ; the wild people of 
 a rugged land, 570 ; their national cha- 
 racteristics, 572 ; went forth as warriors 
 and fanatics, 588 ; subdued by Moham- 
 med, 595 ; voluntarily profess the new 
 faith, ib. ; their conquests, 604. 
 
 Ara;?on, kingdom of, its early foundation, 
 562. 
 
 Arbogastes, master- general of the Gaulish 
 armies, 234 ; defeated, 235 ; his death, 
 ib. 
 
 Arcadius, son of Theodosius, empire of, 
 235. 
 
 Ardaric, king of the Gepidse, establishes 
 himself in the royal residence of Attila, 
 211. 
 
 Argentaria, battle of, 233. 
 
 Arian confession, adopted by Bishop Ul- 
 phiias, 185. 
 
 Arianism, proscribed by Justin I., 304 ; 
 finally extinguished by Grinwald, duke 
 of Benevento, 319; adopted by the Van- 
 dals, 374; the Goths converted from, 
 546, 547 ; contestsof the Catholic Church 
 with, 747—750 ; supported by the Van- 
 dals, the Ostrogoths, and the Lombards, 
 748, 749 ; one of the great adversaries of 
 Catholic Christianity, 752 ; the religion 
 of intellect, ib. 
 
 Arians, their depredations, 293 ; their 
 frightful contentions, 39 1, 392; supported 
 by the Vandals, 392; their persecutions 
 of the Catholics, 394, 395. 
 
 Aristovistus, the German, defies Caesar, 169, 
 
 Armenia, the local origin of the nations of 
 the world, 114. 
 
 Arminius, his resistance to the Romans, 20. 
 
 Army of the Roman empire, 23 ; Constan- 
 tino's treatment of the, 48 et seq. ; its 
 power aitd importance in the earlier 
 annals of Rome, 49, 50 ; changes in the 
 constitution of the, 51 ; barbarians ad- 
 mitted into the very heart of the, ib. 
 
 Aroun Alraschid, the third of the dynasty 
 of the Abassides, 6OI ; his victorious 
 career, ib. ; the glories of his reign, 602. 
 
 Arpad, of Hungary, 229. 
 
 Arsacidae. dynasty of, established by Ar- 
 saces, 607. 
 
 Asia, Roman dominion in, 19; northern 
 and central, its immense extent, 177 ; ir- 
 ruptions of the barbarous tribes of, ib. ; 
 Saracenic conquests in, 61 1. 
 
 Aspar, general of the Greeks, defeated by 
 the Vandals, 372. 
 
 Astolphus, king of the Lombards, 331 ; 
 besieges Rome, ib. ; his belligerent spirit, 
 332 ; his disputes with Pope Stephen, 
 333 ; defeated by the Franks, and stripped 
 of his recent acquisitions, 334. 
 
 Astrologers, consulted by Tiberius, 78. 
 
 Asturias, foundation of the kingdom of, 
 560, 561 ; political and social condition 
 of the, 564. 
 
 Ataulphus, brother of Alaric, enters Gaul 
 and Spain, 248. 
 
 Atheism of modern imperialism, 73; ten- 
 dencies toward in the time of Augustus, 
 76, 77. 
 
 Atlantic Ocean, the northern and western 
 boundary of the Roman empire, 17. 
 
 Attains, prefect of Rome, his elevation and 
 degradation, 243, 244. 
 
 Attila, king of the Huns, 148; his destruc- 
 tive career, ib. ; his capital, 153; his 
 genius and energetic measures, 192; his 
 treaty of Margus, ib. ; establishes a bar- 
 barian empire of his own, 193; his extor- 
 tions, 194 ; his preparations for invading 
 Gaul, 197, 198 ; his immense army, 198 ; 
 the Goths take arras against him, 200 ; 
 the vast forces arrayed against him, 200, 
 201 ; is defeated by the Romans at Cha- 
 lons, 203, 204; invades Italy, 205; re- 
 
INDEX. 
 
 781 
 
 ceives an embassy from Leo I., bishop 
 of Rome, 208 ; retires from Italy, 209 ; 
 his numerous wives, 210 ; his mysterious 
 death, ib. ; dissolution of his empire, 211. 
 
 August, the name derived from the Ro- 
 mans, 13. 
 
 Augustine, his expedition to Britain, 751. 
 
 Augustus, his policy regarding the Roman 
 provinces, 21, 56; his intention to restore 
 old Rome, 67, 68 ; his reforms, 69 ; a 
 believer in prodigies and magic, 78. 
 
 Aurelian defeats the Goths, 444. 
 
 Austrasia, territory of, 458 ; historical no- 
 tices of, 471, 4/2 ; triumph of over Neu- 
 stria, 472 ; the seat of Pepin of Heristal's 
 government, ib. 
 
 Austrasian mayors, 467. 
 
 Austrasians, contests of the, 724, 725. 
 
 Autulphus, the Gothic king, 533, 534 ; as- 
 sists the Romans in Spain, 534 ; defeated 
 by Constantius, ib. ; compelled to with- 
 draw from Gaul, 536 ; his death, ib. 
 
 Auvergne, captured by Euric, 262. 
 
 Avars, migrations of the, 143 ; a branch of 
 the Turanians, 211 ; make their appear- 
 ance in Europe, 212 et seq. ; receive 
 tribute from the Greek emperor, 212 ; are 
 pursued by the Turks, 213 ; Guar Khouni 
 assume the name, ib. ; terrors which the 
 name inspired, 214 ; establish a powerful 
 kingdom under Baian, 215, 216; reduce 
 the Slaves, 2l6 ; at war with the Greeks, 
 ib.; come in contact with the Franks, 
 217; invade Lombardy, 218; their de- 
 predations and cruelties, 219; their at- 
 tempt to seize the emperor, 220 ; besiege 
 Constantinople, 223, 224 ; their repulse, 
 225 ; their kingdom broken up by a re- 
 volt of the Slaves, 226, 237; wars of 
 Charlemagne against the, 501 ; their 
 methods ot fortification, 502, note ; their 
 Hrings, 502, 503, 505 ; their subjugation, 
 505. 
 
 Avitus, Blecilius, at the Visigoth court, 
 199, 200 ; elected emperor, but dethroned, 
 254, 255. 
 
 Ayesha, the widow of Mohammed, 599. 
 
 B. 
 
 Bjeticx, one of the ancient divisions of 
 Spain, 532. 
 
 Bagaudte, the, 175. 
 
 Bagdad, the capital of the dynasty of the 
 Abassides, 601 ; its civilization and 
 splendour, 602 ; supplants the khalifate 
 of Damascus, 602. 
 
 Baian, khan of the Avars, 215 ; defeated by 
 the Greeks, 218; his cruelties in Lom- 
 bardy, 219; attacks Constantinople, and 
 is repulsed, 225 ; his forces broken up, 
 226. 
 
 Balance of power, 101. 
 
 Baltic, the bursting of its barriers, 162 ; the 
 inhabitants rush towards the south, ib. 
 
 Bankers of Rome, 28. 
 
 Barbarian races, which lay outside the 
 Roman empire, 34, 35, 107 et seq. ; po- 
 licy of Rome towards the, 40. 
 
 Barbarians, admitted into the very heart of 
 the array, 51; their irruptions, 172 et 
 seq. ; their desolating career and con- 
 quests, 176etseq. ; cross the Pyrenees, 
 and found the first barbarian kingdom ic 
 the Iberian peninsula, 19O; their irrup- 
 tions into Italy, 232 ; found Gaul a fa- 
 Tourable field for their ambition, 421 ; 
 influence of the Church and its bishops 
 over the, 700, 701 ; their mode of judg- 
 ing of different degrees of rank, 713, 
 714; their submission to the Church of 
 Rome, 761. 
 
 Barbarism, its rude impulses and animal 
 passions, 420. 
 
 Basilicas, commander of the Byzantine 
 expedition against the Vandals, 385, 386. 
 
 Basilius, the Roman patrician, 277. 
 
 Basque tribes, 410, 512. 
 
 Bastarnae, the, in Attila's army, 198. 
 
 Bathilda, wife of Dagobert, 717. 
 
 Belisarius, exploits of, 304 ; conquers the 
 African Vandals, 305 ; invades Italy, and 
 enters Rome in triumph, ib. ; captures 
 Ravenna, and breaks up the kingdom of 
 the Ostrogoths in Italy, 306; recalled, 
 ib. ; commands an expedition against the 
 Vandals in Africa, 398, 399 ; captures 
 Carthage, 400. 
 
 Bellonoti, the, in Attila's army, 198. 
 
 Benedictines, their great social influence, 
 707, 7O8 ; revive agriculture and urban 
 iridustry, 7O8, 709 ; elevate labour in 
 dignity, 709, 71O; preservers and pro- 
 moters of literature, 710, 711 ; their 
 simple eloquence, 734 ; their useful la- 
 bours, 735. 
 
 Berchor, mayor of Neustria, 472. 
 
 Berecynthian Cybele, priests of, at Rome, 
 78. 
 
 Berenice, city of, 36. 
 
 Bertha, the betrothed of Pepin, 521 ; wife 
 of Ethelbert, 751. 
 
 Bishops, at the council of Nice, selected 
 from the Barbarians, 54 ; civil and poli- 
 tical influence of, 698, 699; their influence 
 with the Barbarians, "00, 70 1 ; their per- 
 sonal influence, 703 ; their great authority 
 and cruel despotism, 738. 
 
 Blandina, the virgin martyr of Lyons, 717. 
 
 Boethius, 277; his learning and genius, 
 300; executed, 304. 
 
 Bonaparte, the dream of his ambition to 
 make the Mediterranean a French lake, 
 31. 
 
 Boniface, minister of the empress Placidia, 
 248 ; invftes the Vandals, 249; the apo- 
 stle of the mediaeval gentiles, 481, 486; 
 and great missionary of the Romish 
 church, 720. 
 
 Boroughs, origin of, 9. 
 
 Bostra, in Syria, capture of, 605. 
 
 Braccati, the, 140. 
 
 Brennus, the Gaul, enters Rome, 161. 
 
782 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Bretons, their short resistance to Charle- 
 magne, 513. 
 
 Britain, a Roman province, 18; opinions 
 of Roman writers on, ib. ; revolts in, 
 ib. ; never reduced to slavery, 19; Ro- 
 man roads in, 33 ; Paganism of, and its 
 contests with Christianity, 750, 751. 
 
 Britons, groans of the, 419, 420. 
 
 Brunhilda, the Frank queen, 463 ; murder 
 of, 467, 468, 726. 
 
 Bulgarians, irruption of the, 143, 284. 
 
 Burgundians, migrations of the, 129 ; em- 
 brace Christianity, and defeat the Huns, 
 191 ; their irruptions into Italy, 293 ; 
 soon effected permanent settlement in 
 Gaul, 422, 424 ; their political character- 
 istics and habits, 424, 426, 427, 428 ; sub- j 
 dued by Clovis, 452. I 
 
 Bussorah, battle of, 599. 
 
 Byzantine empire, its declining power, 508. 
 
 Byzantine expedition, defeated and de- 
 stroyed by Genseric, 386. 
 
 Byzantine Greeks, overrun by the Avars, 
 216. 
 
 Byzantium, becomes the seat of the Ro- 
 man empire, 44, 45 ; a meet metropolis 
 for the civilized world, 45. 
 
 Caaba, at Mecca, 582, 594. 
 
 Cadesia, battle of, 607. 
 
 Csepio, Servilius, defeated by the Gauls, 
 163. 
 
 Csesarean rule, its evils depicted by po- 
 litical analogy, 104 note. 
 
 Caesars, continuity of Roman history, from 
 the era of, to modern times, 15 — 18; 
 fall of the, 284, 285 ; Christianity on the 
 seat of the, 620. 
 
 Caliphs, empire of the, 31. 
 
 Camillus, defeats the Gauls, ]6l. 
 
 Campus Sacer, in Lombardy, 219. 
 
 Capitolian Jove of ancient Rome, 73. 
 
 Capitularies of Charlemagne, 517 » proofs 
 of priestly extortions, 733. 
 
 Caracalla, confers the right of Roman citi- 
 zenship upon the civilized world, 55, 67 ; 
 results of his edict, 57, 58, 59. 
 
 Carloman, son of Charles Martel, dominions 
 of, 484 ; his sanguinary treachery, 485 ; 
 retires to a monastery, 486. 
 
 Carlovingian dynasty,' 333, 335; its real 
 foundation dates from the battle of Tes- 
 try, 472 ; consolidated by Pepin-le-Bref, 
 489, 490 ; legitimized by the Church, 729. 
 
 Carlovingian romance, 510, 511. 
 
 Carthage, her commercial importance, 30, 
 31 ; her long struggle with *Rome, 38 ; 
 the capital of the Vandals, 252; its dis- 
 appearance from history as a nation, 307 ; 
 description of, 375 ; captured by the 
 Vandals, 3/7 ; retaken by Belisarius, 400 ; 
 burnt by the Saracens, 612 ; on the fall 
 of, 613. 
 
 Castile, political foundation of, 563. 
 
 Castinus, defeated by the Vandals in Spain, 
 367. 
 
 Castriani, institution of the, by Constan- 
 tine, 51. 
 
 Catholic Church, its frightful contentions 
 with the Arians, 391 et seq., ^\^ — 749; 
 persecution of the, 394, 395 ; corrupted 
 state of in Arabia, 579. 
 
 Catholic Christianity, Paganism and the 
 Arian heresy the two great adversaries 
 of, 752 ; why did its government deter- 
 mine in the Papacy ? 753 et seq. ; its 
 power over the Barbarians, 761 ; the great 
 work it has had to accomplish, 763. 
 
 Catholicism, Visigoths converted to, 547. 
 
 Cato, divorces and re-marries his wife Dlar- 
 cia, 84. 
 
 Celibacy, relations of, as connected with 
 Christianity, 630, 631. 
 
 Celtic language driven into the Armorican 
 peninsula, 421. 
 
 Celts, of Connaught and Brittany, 118; their 
 migrations, 119, 120; description of the, 
 123 ; their characteristics, 125 ; historical 
 notices of the, 169 et seq.; the four 
 periods of their history, 16O ; their attack 
 upon Italy, 161 ; in Provence, l63; com- 
 pletely Latinized, 167— 169 (see Gauls). 
 
 Chalons, Attila defeated at, 203, 204. 
 
 Champagny, Count de, his analysis of the 
 Roman population, 27, 28 ; on the Greek 
 civilization of the Romans, 36; on the 
 power of Rome, 63, 64. 
 
 Charitable institutions, their relations as 
 Connected with Christianity, 635, 636. 
 
 Charlemagne (Charles the Great), con- 
 quests of, II ; empire of, 31 ; accession 
 of, as emperor of the West, and re- 
 viver of civilization, 338 ; his dotation to 
 tho pope, 340 ; assumes the title of 
 "king of Lombardy," 341 ; his contests 
 in Italy and Germany, 342 ; his corona- 
 tion as Caesar Augustus, emperor of the 
 West, 343, 344 ; France not the empire 
 of, 449 ; his accession to the empire, 496; 
 succeeds to a turbulent reign, 497; per- 
 sonally engaged m fifty-three expeditions, 
 498 ; his wars with the barbarians of 
 Germany, — Saxons, Bavarians, &c., 498 
 et seq. ; his sanguinary system of prose- 
 lytism, 498, 500 ; his victorious career 
 against the Avars, 500 et seq. ; his wars 
 with the Lombards, 507 ; with the Sara- 
 cens, 509 ; his domestic wars, 513; cata- 
 logue of his wars, 514 ; his relations with 
 the East, 515 ; his patronage of the Church 
 and letters, 519, 520; his legendary his- 
 tory and personal attributes, 521—523; 
 results of the empire of as connected with 
 the new civilization, 525, 526; his decla- 
 rations in favour of general education, 
 718; his munificence to the Church, 729, 
 730 ; reproves the clergy, 733 ; employs 
 them in great educational designs, 736. 
 
 Charles Martel, the virtual ruler of France, 
 473 ; his great activity and renown, 4"4 ; 
 defeats the Saracens at the battle of 
 
INDEX. 
 
 783 
 
 Tours, 4/9; his exploits, 481, 482; his 
 death and character, 483 ; division of the 
 empire among his sons, 484. 
 
 Childebert, king of the Franks, enters 
 Italy, 461. 
 
 Childeric II., the Merovingian king, 484. 
 
 Chilperic II., the Neustrian monarch, 4/4. 
 
 Chinese language, roots of the, monosylla- 
 bic, 112. 
 
 Chosroes, king of Persia, his victorious 
 career, 222 ; combines with the khan of 
 the Avars to attack Constantinople, 224 ; 
 his contests with Mohammed, 594, 595. 
 
 Christendom, fleets of, on the Mediterra- 
 nean, 31. 
 
 Christian Church, Constantine's reliance on 
 the, as the embodiment of order and 
 unity, 47, 48 ; its temporal relations with 
 the Church during the Lombard domina- 
 tion, 320, 321 ; its relations to the Old 
 Society,6l5 et seq. (see Church of Christ). 
 
 Christian teachers, Platonic language of, 
 681. 
 
 Christianity, its early progress and unseen 
 action, 53, 54 ; uncompromising antago- 
 nism of imperialism to, 72 ; the Vandals 
 converted to, 359 ; its early spread in 
 Arabia, 577 ; corrupted state previous to 
 Mohammed, 577—579 ; on the seat of the 
 Caesars, 620 ; persecuted by the Romans, 
 623; unpopular with philosophers and 
 the populace, 625, 627 (see Church) ; the 
 mission of, understood to be a reforma- 
 tion of morals, 638 ; persecutions of, 
 639—641 ; edicts in favour of, 644, 645 ; 
 the change in the seat of empire forms 
 an important revolution in the history of, 
 662 ; appropriated to itself several of the 
 external forms of Pagan worship, 666 et 
 seq. ; its contests with Paganism in Bri- 
 tain, 750. 751. 
 
 Chronology, the handmaid of history, 108. 
 
 Church of Christ, watched over the 
 childhood of the new nationalities, 420 ; 
 firmly established in Gaul during the 
 third and fourth centuries, 421 ; in the 
 fifth century presents itself as an inde- 
 pendent and constituted society, 423 ; 
 Pepin, " the eldest son of the," 494 ; 
 state of the, in the Merovingian era, 
 »ib. ; Charlemagne's patronage of the, 
 519 ; its relations to the Old Society, 6l5 
 et seq. ; its contemporaneous appearance 
 with the Empire in the world, 617, 618 ; 
 its eventual triumph, 619 ; reasons of its 
 success, 620 ; Gibbon's dogma respecting 
 it, 621 ; unpopular with the court and 
 government, 622, 623 ; with the philoso- 
 phers, 624, 625, 673 ; and the populace, 
 627 ; its effect upon the Old Society in 
 several special ways, 628, 629 ; marriage, 
 629; celibacy, 631 ; the public spectacles, 
 633, 649 ; slavery, 634, 649 ; charitable 
 institutions, 635 ; gradual growth of its 
 political influence, 636 ; at first passive, 
 637 ; persecutions of the, 641 ; not created 
 by Constantine, 643 ; its connection with 
 
 the civil law, 647; union of the civil 
 power with the, 649 ; aff'ected by the 
 civil power, 659 ; tried by prosperity, 
 661 ; oflScers appointed by the emperor, 
 663 ; adopts some pagan practices, 667 ; 
 dedicatory offerings and religious orders, 
 671 ; old Roman religion extinguished by 
 the, 679 ; its connection with Gnosticism, 
 679, 680 ; Platonic language of its teachers, 
 681; gnosis of the, 685— 687 ; its vitality, 
 686, 687; its relation to the New So- 
 ciety, 688 et seq. ; its position according 
 to Guizot's view, 6S9 — 695 ; founded on 
 a person, 692 ; origin of its civil powers, 
 
 697, 698 ; inherited the place of the Em- 
 pire in the eyes of the invaders, 699, 700 ; 
 early apostles of the, 703 ; its direct in- 
 fluence, 713 ; its result on the slave and 
 serf class, 715, 716; education in its 
 hands, 717; its missionary labours, 7I8, 
 719 ; its spiritual power, 720, 721 ; evil 
 effects upon the, 723; its labours and 
 trials, 724, 725; engaged in the con- 
 tests of the age, 725, 726 ; supported by 
 the Blerovingians, 726, 727 ; subservient 
 to their dynasty, 727; legitimizes the 
 Carlovingian dynasty, 729 ; njunificence 
 of Pepin and Charlemagne to the, 729, 
 730 ; effects of wealth and luxury upon 
 the, 731; its grasping spirit, 733; re- 
 proved by Charlemagne, ib. ; its impos- 
 tures and extortions, 733, 734 ; too re- 
 fined for the masses, 735 ; general review 
 of the, 737 et seq. ; state of in the fifth 
 century, as illustrated by Sidonius, 743— 
 746. 
 
 Church of Rome, has preserved the Latin 
 language in its devotions, 6 ; origin of its 
 temporal power, 334; and evils thence 
 resulting, 335 ; Charlemagne's dotation to 
 the, 312 ; its temporalities supported by 
 Pepin-le-Bref, 488. 
 
 Church councils, 703. 
 
 Churchmen, civil and political influence of, 
 
 698, 699 ; their influence with the bar- 
 barians, 700, 701. 
 
 Cimbri, their emigration to the south, l62 ; 
 their contests with the Romans, 162, 
 163 ; defeated by Marius, l65. 
 
 Circus, shows of the, 83 ; number and va- 
 riety of beasts brought into the, 88. 
 
 Cities, origin of, 8, 9- 
 
 Citizens of Rome, 28. 
 
 Citizenship, extension of the right, 56, 57 ; 
 its results, 58. 
 
 Civil law, degrees granted in, 8 ; its rela- 
 tions as connected with the Church, 647. 
 
 Civil power, its union with the Church, 649 ; 
 the Church affected by the, 659 ; origin of 
 that power, 697, 698. 
 
 Civil wars, the breaking up of the ancient 
 policy of the Republic, and of old Roman 
 society, 65. 
 
 Civilization, modern, composed of two ele- 
 ments, the Teuton and the Latin, 4 ; 
 causes which have wrought it out, 585. 
 
 Civilizations of Greece and Rome which 
 
784 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 divided the Empire, 36—41 ; their differ- 
 ent consequences, 42. 
 
 Claudius II. defeats the Visigoths, 180, 
 181. 
 
 Clepho, the Lombard king, assassinated, 
 315. 
 
 Clergv, grasping spirit of the, 733 ; re- 
 proved by Charlemagne, ib. ; their edu- 
 cation and pursuits, 736 et seq. 
 
 Clients of Rome, 86. 
 
 Clodion, the Frank monarch, 196. 
 
 Clotaire, the Merovingian king, 455. 
 
 Clotaire II., king of the Franks, 468. 
 
 Clovis, king of the Franks, 446, 447 ; his 
 character, 448 ; at the head of the Salian 
 Franks, 450 ; marries Clotilda, the I3ur- 
 gundian princess, ib.; his warlike dispo- 
 sition, ib. ; gains the battle of Tolbiac, 
 452 ; receives Christian baptism, ib. ; 
 subdues the Burgundians and Visigoths, 
 452, 453 ; gains the battle of Vougle, ib.; 
 his further conquests, 454 ; founder of 
 the Merovingian dynasty, ib. ; breaks 
 down the power of the Visigoths in Spain, 
 539 ; his conversion to Christianity, 702 ; 
 convenes a council at Orleans, 703 ; his 
 atrocities, 726; bis absolute authority 
 over the Church, 727 ; his death and cha- 
 racter, 459, 
 
 Comitatenses, institution of the, by Con- 
 stantine, 51. 
 
 Congreve, Mr., his theory respecting Roman 
 imperialism refuted, l(i4 note. 
 
 Conquest, produced foreign corruption, 75. 
 
 Constans, son of Constantine, defeated and 
 beheaded, 533. 
 
 Constantine, transfers the seat of empire to 
 Constantinople, 38, 39; his policy in 
 removing the seat of empire, 42 ; his 
 profession of the Christian faith, 43 ; 
 creates a new nobility, 46, 47 ; his treat- 
 ment and remodification of the army, 48 
 et seq. ; general remarks on his policy, 
 53 et seq. ; his contentions with Hono- 
 riu«, 533; the Church not created by, 
 643 ; effects of his edict, ib. ; difficulties 
 with which he had to contend, 651, 652, 
 659, 660 ; appoints Church officers, 663, 
 654; his increasing influence, 665; eman- 
 cipates the slaves, 704. 
 
 Constantinople, besieged by the Persians 
 and the Avars, 222, 223 ; fanaticism 
 excited in, by the loss of the " true cross," 
 223 ; attacked by the Avars, 224 ; their 
 repulse, 225 ; her triumphs and riches 
 under Justinian and Belisarius, 403; 
 besieged by the Saracens, 610 ; the Chris- 
 tian rival of Rome, 760. 
 
 Constantius, general of Honorius, 534 ; his 
 great successes in Spain, ib. 
 
 Cordova, khalifate of, founded by Abdera- 
 man, 602 ; khalifate of, 6 13. 
 
 Corn, amount of imported into Rome, 27, 
 28. 
 
 Cornelius Gallus, a Gaul, l6S. 
 
 Cornuti, the, 140. 
 
 Corruption, in the practice of Roman law, 
 
 66; produced by conquest, 75; conse- 
 quence of, 80. 
 
 Crescent, its triumphant fleets on the waters 
 of the Mediterranean, 31 ; supplants the 
 Cross wherever the Saracens advance, 476. 
 
 Croatia, origin of, 227. 
 
 Crusades, the, 31. 
 
 Cultivation of the soil neglected, 102. 
 
 Cunimund, king of the Gepidae, defeated 
 and slain, 310. 
 
 Customs of the Romans, 13, 14. 
 
 Cyrene, city of, 36 ; the rival of Carthage, 
 37. 
 
 Cyril, missionary to the Slaves, 351. 
 
 D. 
 
 Dacians, irruptions of the, 174. 
 
 Dagobert, king of the Franks, 350, 351 ; of 
 Austrasia, 468, 469. 
 
 Dagobert II., king of Austrasia, 471. 
 
 Damascus, the capital of the Ommiades, 
 600 ; capture of, 605, 606. 
 
 Danube, a boundary of the Roman empire, 
 19, 20. 
 
 De Foix, duke of Nemours, slain, 294. 
 
 Dedicatory oflferings of the Church, chiefly 
 derived from the paganism of Rome, 671. 
 
 Desiderius, the Lombard king, 338 ; at war 
 with the pope, 339; defeated by the 
 Franks, and driven into a monastery, 
 340. 
 
 Despotism of the Empire, 65 ; necessitated 
 by the system of slavery, 93, 99; its 
 benefits short-lived, I06 note. 
 
 " Devil's Wall," constructed by Probus, 20. 
 
 Diana, worshippers of, at Rome, 78. 
 
 Diocletian, his policy, 42, 44 ; created an 
 army of civil functionaries, 102; excess 
 of taxation under, 103 ; his various mea- 
 sures contributory to the fail of the 
 Empire, ib. 
 
 Divorce, frequency of, among the Roman 
 aristocracy, 84, 85. 
 
 Druidism, the religion of the Gauls, 126; 
 crushed by the Romans, 76, 622 ; driven 
 into the Armorican peninsula, 421. 
 
 Eastern Empire, invaded by the Visi- 
 goths, 187; emperors of the, during the 
 fifth century, 253. 
 
 East and West, innate and indestructible 
 discord arising from the, 59. 
 
 Ebroin, mayor of Neustria, 47 1. 
 
 Ecclesiastical afi^airs, general review of, 737 
 et seq. 
 
 Ecclesiastics, literature and jurisprudence 
 in the hands of the, 717. 
 
 Eclecticism, epoch of, at Alexandria, 6/5. 
 
 Education, state of, 81 ; remarks of Quin- 
 tilian and Tacitus on, 82 ; in the hands 
 of the Church, 717- 
 
 Egypt, subdued by tbe Saracens, 6O8, 609. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 785 
 
 Elephants, number of, brought into the 
 circus, 88. 
 
 Eligius, the goldsmith, obtains an exalted 
 position in the Church, 717. 
 
 Emperors of Rome, their absolute authority 
 and demon-like characters, 85, 86. 
 
 Empire, idea of, 10. 
 
 Empire of Rome, struggles for the, among 
 the soldiery, 52 ; its despotism almost 
 justified by the misgovernment of the 
 provinces, 65 ; contemporaneous appear- 
 ance of the Christian Church with the, 
 615 ; change in the seat of, forms an 
 important "revolution in the history of 
 Christianity, 662; the Church inherited 
 its place in the eyes of the barbarians, 
 699, 700. 
 
 England, social and political analogies of, 
 as illustrative of Csesarean rule, 104 — 106, 
 note. 
 
 Englishmen, early history of Spain inter- 
 esting to, 629. 
 
 Ephesian Artemis, worshipped at Rome, 
 78. 
 
 Epicureanism, its introduction into Rome, 
 76 ; of the schools, antagonistic to Chris- 
 tianity, 626. 
 
 Equalitv, the principle of, proclaimed by 
 the Church, 715, 716. 
 
 Equites of Rome, 27. 
 
 Erastianism, triumph of, 27S. 
 
 Ermanaric, the Ostrogoth sovereign, 182 ; 
 his possessions, ib. ; empire of, 183; his 
 death, 188. 
 
 Ethnology, study of necessary to the com- 
 prehension of history, 108; the mother 
 of history, ib. ; its importance, 109; the 
 three bases on which it rests — the histo- 
 rical, the physiological, and the philo- 
 logical, 111 et seq. ; the methods em- 
 ployed by, for distinguishing the varieties 
 of the human family, 113, 114 ; its con- 
 clusions point to the Armenian table-land 
 and the plateau of Iran as the local 
 origins of the human race, 114 et seq. ; 
 its division into three classes — Turanian 
 or Mongol, the Semitic or Aramaic, and 
 the Japhetic or Indo-European, 115— 
 117- 
 
 Etrurians, their disappearance from history 
 as a nation, 307- 
 
 Eudo, duke of Aquitaine, 475 ; assists in 
 the defeat of the Saracens, 480. 
 
 Eudoxia, empress, invites the Vandals to 
 Rome, 249; taken into captivity, 251. 
 
 Eugenius, assumes the imperial purple, 
 235; is executed, ib. ; placed on the 
 imperial throne, she attempted to revive 
 Paganism, 654. 
 
 Euric, king of the Visigoths, 262, 453; 
 subjugates all Spain to his dominion, 
 538, 539. 
 
 F. 
 
 Fair sex, vices of the, as portrayed by 
 Juvenal and others, 81. 
 
 Farmers of taxes in Rome, 28. 
 
 Fatiraites, the Mohammedan sect, so called 
 from Mohammed's daughter, 593 ; their 
 numerous battles, 599. 
 
 Fava, the captive king of Rugiland, decapi« 
 tated, 279. 
 
 Festivals of the Church, chiefly derived 
 from the Paganism of Rome, 670. 
 
 Feudalism, origin of. 317. 
 
 " Field of May," a Frank assembly, 5lG. 
 
 Fins, the, 147; their general character, 
 152, 153; countries occupied by the, 176; 
 their barbarous ferocity, 177. 
 
 Fleets of the Roman empire, 23. 
 
 Foreign gods at Rome, "]"!. 
 
 Foreigners, corruption of public manners 
 caused by, 75 ; their political connection 
 with Italy in the fifth century, 303. 
 
 Fortune-hunters of Rome, 87. 
 
 Forum Julii, in Lombardy, captured and 
 sacked by the Avars, 219. 
 
 Forum Romanum, 25. 
 
 France, ambition of, 11 ; her aggressions 
 beyond the Alps, 11, 12; ethnology of, 
 407, 408; early history of, 448 et seq.; 
 not the empire of Charlemagne, 449; 
 under the Merovingian era, 457. 
 
 Franconia, 449. 
 
 Franks, migrations of the, 130; their 
 bravery, 130, 131 ; divided into two great 
 bodies — the Salian and the Ripuarian 
 Franks, 131 ; irruptions of the, 174; their 
 establishment, 175; their contests with 
 the Avars, 217 ; their rising importance 
 after the defeat of the Saracens at Tours, 
 328, 329; march into Italy against the 
 Lombards, 333; establish themselves in 
 Gaul, 409 ; early effected permanent 
 settlements in Gaul, 422, 426, 427; 
 attack the Visigoths, 439 ; their con- 
 quests, 440 ; confederation of, 441 ; his- 
 torical notices of the, 442 et seq.; general 
 history of the, from Clovis to the reign 
 of Pepin, 450 — 495 ; the nation assumes 
 a twofold division, 457; converted by 
 the Latin clergy, 459; in Italy, 46O, 46 1 ; 
 defeat the Saracens under Charles Martel, 
 479 ; free assemblies of the, 5l6. 
 
 Fredegonde, 463. 
 
 Frederic, son of Fava, beheaded, 292. 
 
 French, principally derived from the Latin, 
 4, 5. 
 
 Friday, the name derived from the Saxon 
 goddess Frea, 14. 
 
 Funeral images and customs, of Roman 
 origin, 14. 
 
 Furs, importation of, 57. 
 
 G. 
 
 Gaels, their early origin, 407. 
 
 Galerius. effect of the edict of, 644. 
 
 Gallic Church, Pepin " the eldest son of 
 
 the," 487. 
 Games of Trajan, lasted 120 days, 88. 
 Gascons, the, 475. 
 
■S6 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Gaul, subjugated by the Romans, 19, 38 ; 
 extent of as a Roman province, 22 ; im- 
 bued with Roman civilization, 38; pro- 
 gress of Augustus through, 39; menaced 
 by Attila, 197; >he Roman province of, 
 406 ; ethnology of, 407, 40S ; Caesar's in- 
 vasion of. and its results, 409 ; her various 
 contentions, 412^ completely Latinized 
 by the Roman conquest, 412, 413 ; misery 
 of under imperial government, 414, 415 ; 
 loss of national spirit in, 419 ; alleviated 
 by the Church, 421 ; a favourable field for 
 the ambition of the Barbarians, ib. ; bar- 
 barian settlements soon effected in, 422 
 et seq. ; Burgundians, Franks, and Visi- 
 goths in, 423—432. 
 
 Gauls, admitted into the Roman senate, 
 55 ; their easy submission to Roman 
 rule, 65 ; planted their standards on the 
 Capitol, 122, 123 ; subdued bv Caesar, 123 ; 
 description of the, 123—125; their reli- 
 gion, 126; characteristics of the, 127; 
 their Celtic origin, 160 ; their early 
 struggles, l60,l6l; their attack upon Rome 
 under Brennus, l6l, l6i; defeat and exter- 
 minate the Roman army, l63 ; subdued by 
 Csesar, 16" ; become Romanized under 
 the emperors, l6s ; distinguished natives 
 of, 168, 169 ; never completely subdued 
 by Rome, 17I; their various relations 
 to the Empire till the irruption of the 
 Barbarians, 172, 173. 
 
 Gelimer, usurps the Vandal throne, 397 ; 
 Justinian declares war upon him, ib. ; 
 Belisarius commands an expedition a- 
 gainst him, 393 ; his military disposi- 
 tions, 399; his defeat and capture, 401 
 — 403 ; is carried to Constantinople, 403. 
 
 Geloni, the, in Attila's army, 198. 
 
 Genseric, king of the Vandals, 197. 249; 
 captures Rome, and carries off the spoil 
 to Africa, 250, 251 ; his history and cha- 
 racter, 367, 368 et seq. ; transports his 
 subjects from Spain to Africa, 371 ; de- 
 feats the troops of the Empire, 372 ; his 
 power consolidated, 373 ; adopts Arian- 
 ism, 373, 374 ; seizes Carthage, 'iJJ ; his 
 ravages, 378 et seq. ; captures Rome, 
 381 ; undisputed master of Africa from 
 the Straits of Gibraltar to the frontiers of 
 Cyrenaica, 383 ; his political intrigues, 
 3S3, 384 ; defeats and destroys the By- 
 zantine expedition, 385 ; his treaty with 
 the Greek emperor, 387 ; his death, 389 ; 
 compared with Theodoric the Goth, 391. 
 
 Geographical limits of the Roman empire, 
 16—22. 
 
 Geography, the handmaid of history, 108. 
 
 Gepidse, the, 180; their contests with the 
 Lombards, 309 ; defeated by Alboin, 
 310. 
 
 German nationalities and spirit, an inter- 
 ruption in the course of imperial civiliza- 
 tion, 3. 
 
 German tongues, their origin, 120, 121. 
 
 German tribes, difficulties of the Romans 
 against the, ig, 20. 
 
 Germans, migrations of the, 127—129; 
 their warlike prowess against Caesar, ib.; 
 their characteristics, 132, 133, 138; their 
 gigantic stature, 134 ; their love of liberty, 
 134, 135 ; their religion, 137 ; their san- 
 guinary contests with the Romans, 139 — 
 141 ; defy Caesar under Aristovistus, 169; 
 slaughter the legions of Varus, 170 ; 
 migrate into Gaul, 409 ; wars of Charle- 
 magne against the, 493 ; invade Spain, 
 and divide the country, 535. 
 
 Gerontius, the general of Constantine, 
 533. 
 
 Ghisulph, duke of Lombardy, 219. 
 
 Gibbon's remarks on the conquests of 
 Trajan, 35. 
 
 Gladij^torial shows, the distinctive charac- 
 teristics of Rome, 87 — 90 ; a cruel and 
 sanguinary spectacle, 89; abolished, 649. 
 
 Glycerins, elected emperor of Rome, 250 ; 
 dethroned by Julius Nepos, 26I. 
 
 Gnosis, principle of the, as taught at 
 Alexandria, 675, 679 ; opinions of the 
 ancients on the, 680, 681 ; of the heathens 
 and the Christians, 685. 
 
 Gnosticism, connection of the Church with, 
 679, 630 ; its long duration, 683. 
 
 Gnostics, their doctrines, 75 ; their dog- 
 matical opinions, 76 ; their permanence, 
 683. 
 
 Gondebauld, the Burgundian king, de- 
 feated by Clovis, 452. 
 
 Goths, migrations of the, 128 et seq. ; 
 irruptions of the, 174, 176 ; forced for- 
 ward by the Huns, 177 ; the greatest of 
 all the barbarian tribes, 178; sketch of 
 their history, 178etscq. ; countries oc- 
 cupied by them, 179 ; consisted of three 
 great communities, 180; their fury 
 against the Romans after the battle of 
 Adrianople, 187; direct their attention 
 to the Western empire, cross the Alps, 
 and sack the "Eternal City," 188; in- 
 vade Greece under Alaric, 237; their con- 
 quests and spoliations, 237 et seq.; de- 
 feated by Stilicho, 238 ; their siege and 
 capture of Rome, 243, 244 (see Alaric) ; 
 enter Gaul and Spain, 248 ; their migrH- 
 tion to Italy, 288, 289 ; displace the 
 Slaves, but are themselves displaced br 
 the Huns, 349 ; defeat the Vandals, and 
 slay their king, 358; enter Spain, 363» 
 364 ; their struggle with the Vandals, 
 365; historical notices of the, 429; in 
 Gaul and Spain, 431 ; defeated by Aure- 
 lian, 444 ; Probus grants lands to them, 
 ib. (see Ostrogoths and Visigoths). 
 
 Gratian, contributes to the overthrow ( 
 Paganism, 356. 
 
 Greece, invaded by the Goths under Alaric, 
 237. 
 
 Greek, the language of literature and daily 
 life at Rome, 41 ; the rival of Latin, ib. 
 
 Greek civilization, communicated to the 
 Romans, 36 — il ; everywhere diffused, 
 37 et seq. ; policy of Rome towards, 
 40. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 787 
 
 Greek and Roman civilization, smothered 
 by the predominance of the Latin ele- 
 ment, :>[). 
 
 Greek emperor, treacherously surprised by 
 the Avars, 221. 
 
 Greek emperor.-<, pay tribute to the Bar- 
 barians, 215. 
 
 Greek empire, division of the, after the 
 death of Theodosius, 235 ; its power over 
 Italy lost, 337 ; pitiable condition of, 
 during the Saracenic conquests, 605. 
 
 Greek fire, repels the Saracens from Con- 
 stantinople, 610. 
 
 Greeks, of Constantinople, their succes»es 
 against the Avars, 218; their resolute 
 defence against them, 225 ; attack the 
 troops of Theodoric the Ostrogoth, 282 ; 
 invade Italy under Belisarius, 305 ; their 
 cunning policy under the empress Irene, 
 508 (see Cunstantinople). 
 
 Gregory of Tours, his history of the Mero- 
 
 * vingians, 726. 
 
 Gregory I., bishop of Rome. 318; his in- 
 fluence over the Lombards, 319 ; his high 
 character, 320, 321 ; his contests with 
 the Italians, 321—324; Papacy sprang 
 from, 322. 
 
 Gregory II., death of, 327. 
 
 Gregory III., his appeal to Charles Mart^l 
 against the Lombaids, 329, 482; his 
 death, 330. 
 
 Grinwald, duke of Benevento, 319. 
 
 Gripho, son of Charles Martel, dominions 
 of, 484. 
 
 Guaifer, of Aquitaine, his assassination, 
 485, 493. 
 
 Guilds, origin of, 9. 
 
 Guizot's ideas of the Roman empire, 10, 
 11 ; his view of the position of the 
 Church, 689 ; too purely doctrinaire, 693. 
 
 Gundamund, the Vandal king, 395. 
 
 Gunderic, king of the Vandals, 535. 
 
 Gundobald, the Burgmidian,259 ; appoints 
 Glycerins emperor, 260 ; the leader of a 
 Gallo-Bomau reaction, 464; his death, 
 465. 
 
 H. 
 
 Hadrian, rampart of, in Britain, 18. 
 
 Hadrian I.. Pope, 339; receives the dota- 
 tion of Italy from Charlemagne, 340 ; 
 his death, 343. 
 
 Hallam's remarks on the civil and canon 
 laws, 7, 8. 
 
 Ilaroun Alraschid, the ruling caliph of the 
 Abasside dynasty, 515, 522. 
 
 Hasam, son of All, declines the khalifate, 
 599 ; his assassination, 60O. 
 
 Hassan, the Saracenic leader, subdues 
 northern Africa, 6l2. 
 
 Heathen, dramatic spectacles largely pa- 
 tronized by the, 631 — 633. 
 
 Heathenism, failure of, 639, 642. 
 
 Hebrew language,, roots of, verbal, 113. 
 
 Hegira, or Flight, the date of the Moham. 
 medaa era, 593. 
 
 3 
 
 Henry of Burgundy, enters Spain, 563 ; 
 saluted as king of Portugal, 564. 
 
 Heracleids, the, 459. 
 
 Heraclius, the Greek emperor, 221 ; his 
 political difficulties, 222 ; his victories, 
 223, 224; his wise measures, 227 ; em- 
 peror of the East, 594, 595 ; his contests 
 with Mohammed, 595 ; an able prince, 
 • 605. 
 
 Hermenegild, the Visigoth prince, his con- 
 version from Arianism, 5*6 j his martyr- 
 dom, ib. 
 
 Heruli, the, in Attila's array, 193. 
 
 Hilary, of Poitiers, 703. 
 
 Hilderic, the Vandal king, 390 ; incidents 
 of his reign, 393, 396 ; deposed, 397- 
 
 Himilchis, the Lombard lord. 313, 314. 
 
 History, chronology and geography the 
 handmaids of, 108 ; ethnology' the mother 
 of, ib. ; one of the bases of ethnology, 
 111. 
 
 Holy water, compounded from a heathen 
 receipt, 670. 
 
 Honorius, son of Theodosius, empire of, 
 235 ; deposed, S43 ; his death, 248 ; his 
 contentions with Constantine, 533. 
 
 Hosein, son of Ali, 60O. 
 
 Household gods of the old Romans, "Ji. 
 
 Hrings of the Avars, 502, 503 ; captured 
 by the Franks, 505. 
 
 Human progress, the great question of, 495. 
 
 Human species, varieties of the. 111. 
 
 Humanity, the new birth of, as proclaimed 
 by the Christian Church, 420. 
 
 Humeric, the Vandal king, 390. 
 
 Hungary, the Hunnish inhabitants of, 
 229 ; her eventful history, iu. 
 
 Hunniades, John, of Hungary, 229. 
 
 Huns, their destructive career, 148; their 
 fierce characteristics, 149, 150; their ge- 
 neral habits, as described by Ammianu*, 
 150 — 152; irruptions of the, 174; force 
 forward the Goths, 177; their conquests, 
 177, 178; their attack on the Visigoths, 
 183; subdue the Visigoths, 18S; their 
 alliance with Aetius, the Romsn patrician, 
 
 189 ; their conquests and devastating 
 career, 189 et seq., 191 et seq. ; on 
 amicable terms with the Romans, 189, 
 
 190 ; defeated by the Burgundians, 191 ; 
 their ravages, 193 et seq. {s,GeAttila)i 
 dissolution of their empire after the death 
 of Attila, 21 1 ; a tribe of, established on 
 the banks of the Danube, 221 (see Muy- 
 gars) ; their descendants still occupy the 
 valleys of the Don and the Volga, and 
 the steppes of the Caspian and the Black 
 Sea, 229. 
 
 Hunugars (see Huns and Majigars)^ 
 Hyperboreans, the, 154. 
 
 I. 
 
 Iberian tribes, the, 410. 
 
 Iconoclasm, encouraged by the emperor 
 Leo III., 323; opposed by the people 
 325 ; of the Isaurian Leo, 669. 
 
 9 
 
788 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Idolatry, the autochthonous worship of 
 the Arabian peninsula previous to the 
 time of Mohammed, 57; unscrupulous 
 syncretism of, at the period of Moham- 
 med, 5/9 ; Mohammed destroys the idols 
 at Mecca, 594. 
 
 Image- worship, opposed by the emperor 
 Leo III., 323 ; supported by the people, 
 325, 326. 
 
 Immorality, tendencies towards, in the 
 time of Augustus, 76. 
 
 Imperial government of Rome (see 
 Rome). 
 
 Imperialism, modern, a period of irreligion 
 and depravity, 71 ; opposed to Chris- 
 tianity, 72. 
 
 Imports from every part of the world, 
 
 57- 
 
 Indo-European race, its great mnuence on 
 the world of history, 121. 
 
 Indo-European languages, their local ori- 
 gin, 115, 117, 118. 
 
 Informers of Rome, their infamous cha- 
 racter, 86. 
 
 Iran, the plateau of, 117; consists of Up- 
 per and Lower Irania, ib. 
 
 Iranians, migrations of the, 120, 121. 
 
 Irene, the Byzantine empress, 507. 508. 
 
 Irreligion of modern imperialism, 73. 
 
 Isambra, the, 161. 
 
 Isidore of Seville, 541. 
 
 Islam, faith and victory of, 567. 
 
 Islamism, its early progress, 324, 325 ; faith 
 of, 325 ; origin and progress of, 574 et 
 seq. ; morality of, 581 ; accommodated 
 to national prejudices, ib. ; its progress 
 a result of its character, 583 ; cause of 
 its success, 584 ; character of its founder, 
 585; why so successful, 587; secondary 
 causes insufficient to account for its suc- 
 cess, 589 ; the root-principles of, 59 1 
 (see Mohammed) ; gave birth to a bril- 
 liant civilization, 592. 
 
 Ispahan, capture of, 6O8. 
 
 Italian, principally derived from the Latin, 
 5. 
 
 Italy, the code of Justinian taught publicly 
 in, early in the twelfth century, 7 ; muni- 
 cipalities of, 10 ; depopulated by wars of 
 the Empire, 99, 100 ; attempts to colonize 
 her with discharged soldiers, 99; the 
 lands cultivated by slaves, 100, 101 ; the 
 link between the old world and the new, 
 230, 231 ; special features of her history, 
 231 ; important changes in, 232 et seq. ; 
 affairs of un der Odoacer, 2/0 etseq. ; Odoa- 
 cer made king of, 271 ; partition of lands 
 in, 273 ; migration of the Goths to, 288, 
 289; general reflections on, and her poli- 
 tical connection with the foreigner, 303 ; 
 invaded by the Greeks under Belisarius, 
 305 ; reduced to a province, 306 ; under 
 the domination of the Lombards, 314 
 et seq. ; political struggles and intestine 
 quarrels, 319, 320 ; her involved relations 
 with the Papacy, 321 et seq. ; contests 
 in, respecting image-worship, 325, 326 ; 
 
 a new era created by the coronation 
 of Charlemagne as " Emperor of the 
 West," 344; Merovingian Franks in, 
 460, 461. 
 
 J. 
 
 Jantjary, the name derived from the Ro- 
 mans, 13. 
 
 Japhetic languages, their local origin, 115. 
 
 Japhetic race, its great influence on the 
 world of history, 1^21. 
 
 Jerusalem, sacked by the Persians, 222 ; 
 captured by Omar, 606 ; destruction of, 
 760. 
 
 Jewels, importation of, 57. 
 
 Jews, number of, in Rome, 25 ; cruelly 
 persecuted by the Visigoths of Spain, 
 555—558; defeated by Mohammed, 594. 
 
 John the Armenian, defeats the Vandals, 
 401. 
 
 John the Scythian, 283. 
 
 Jornandes, his account of Attila, 207 et 
 seq. ; of Theodoric, 286 ; of Genseric and 
 the Vandals, 368. 
 
 Judaism in the East, crushed by the Ro- 
 mans, 76, 622. 
 
 Julian, his contests with the German 
 Franks, 445 ; counter-revolution of, 653. 
 
 Julian party, their policy to play ofi" the in- 
 terests of the provinces against the tradi- 
 tions of the Republic, 55. 
 
 Julian, Count, the Visigoth governor of 
 Ceuta, 549; his treachery and revenge, 
 549, 560. 
 
 Julius Cajsar, labours for the regeneration 
 of Roman society, 67 ; his assassination, 
 ib. ; his invasion" of Gaul, 412. 
 
 Julius II., emperor of the East, 215. 
 
 Julius Nepos, dethrones Glycerins, 261 ; 
 made emperor, ib. ; dethroned, 262 ; as- 
 sassinated, 265. 
 
 July, the name derived from the Romans, 13. 
 
 Jurisprudence, in the hands of the Church, 
 
 ri7. 
 
 Justin I., prosecutes Arianisra, 304. 
 
 Justinian, Pandects of, 6, 7 ; taught pub- 
 licly in Italy early in the twelfth century, 
 7; taught in Oxford temp. Stephen, ib. ; 
 emperor of the East, 215, 304; his jea- 
 lousy of Belisarius, 306; makes war upon 
 the Vandals in Africa, 397. 
 
 Jutes, the, 179- 
 
 Juvenal, his portraiture of Roman vices, 
 81. 
 
 Kahina, the Moorish queen, 612. 
 
 Kaisers, traditions of the, 12. 
 
 Khadijah, wife of Mohammed, 592, 593. 
 
 Khaled, " the sword of God," his brilliant 
 career, 596, 606. 
 
 Khalifate of the Saracens, history of the, 
 598—602; its foreign conquests and ex- 
 tent of its empire, 603 et seq. ; its per- 
 
INDEX. 
 
 789 
 
 manent influence on the minds of men, 
 
 614. 
 Khorassan, subjugated by the Saracens, 60f?. 
 Koran, " the Book " of Mohammed, 592, 
 
 593 ; composition of the, 580 ; declared 
 
 war against mankind, 583. 
 Koreishites, opposed to Mohammed, 593 ; 
 
 defeated by him, ib. 
 Kymri, their early origin, 407. 
 
 Lactantius, letter of, 417. 
 
 Langobardi, the, 308. 
 
 Languages, three classes of, as represented 
 by the Chinese, the Sanscrit, and the 
 Hebrew, 112, 113. 
 
 Languages of Europe, derived from the 
 Latin, 4, 5. 
 
 Latin, one of the elements of modern civi- 
 lization, 4 ; the different European lan- 
 guages sprung from, 4, 5 ; for many 
 centuries the sole written language of the 
 civilized world, 5 ; its universal influ- 
 ence, 5, 6 ; preserved by the Church of 
 Rome, 6 ; the language of public life at 
 Rome, 40 ; the rival of Greek, 41. 
 
 Latin Christianity, Africa the birthplace 
 and home of, "48. 
 
 Laws of Rome, a basis for half the existing 
 codes of Europe, 6 ; their influence on 
 the legislation of modern nations, 6, 7 ; 
 error of the gravest character in the, 66 ; 
 corruption thence arising, ib. 
 
 Learning, patronized by Charlemagne, 520. 
 
 Legendary history of Charlemagne's reign, 
 521. 
 
 Legions of Rome, 23 ; their powerful im- 
 portance, 48, 49 ; the king-makers, 49 ; 
 Constantino's determination to break up 
 their old constitution, and cripple their 
 power, 50 ; their multiplication, ib. 
 
 Leo, the Greek emperor, enters into a treaty 
 with the Vandals, 387. 
 
 Leo III. (Isauricus), the emperor, 323; 
 opposes image - worship, ib. ; hatred 
 against him, 325. 
 
 Leo I., bishop of Rome ("the Great"), sends 
 an embassy to Attila, 208, 209 ; his high 
 character, 208 ; success of his embassy, 
 209 ; his deputation to Genseric, 25(i. 
 
 Leo III., pope of Rome, crowns Charle- 
 magne as " emperor of the West," 343. 
 
 Leontius, 283. 
 
 Liberty, love of, by the German race, 134. 
 
 Lighted candles, derived from Paganism, 
 670. 
 
 Lions, number of, brought into the circus, 
 88. 
 
 Literature, Charlemagne's patronage of, 
 519, 520; cultivated by the Saracens, 
 602 ; preserved and promoted by the Be- 
 nedictines, 710, 711 ; in the hands of the 
 Church, 717. 
 
 Logos, disputes respecting the word, 634. 
 
 Lombard republics, 10. 
 
 Lombards, migrations of the, 129 ; in At- 
 tila's army, 199 ; their first appearance 
 on the staVe of history, 308, 309 ; their 
 contests with the Gepidie, 3i 9 ; enter 
 Italy, 312 ; extent of their dominion, 314, 
 315 ; exposed to anarchy, 315 ; existence 
 of feudalism among the, 3l6; their code 
 of laws, 319; their turbulent spirit, 322; 
 become enervated, 332 ; their dynasty 
 extinguished by Charlemagne, but their 
 influence on civilization still retained, 341, 
 342 ; more formidable enemies to the 
 Greek emperor than the Ostrogoths, 46l ; 
 their quarrels with the pope, 482, 486, 
 491 ; wars of Charlemagne with the, 506, 
 507; the supporters of Arianism, 749, 
 750. 
 
 Lombardy, attacked by the Avars, ^18, 219 ; 
 cruelties perpetrated in, 219. 
 
 Long, Professor, on the military science of 
 the Romans, 12, 13. 
 
 Lucan, his belief in Thessalian sorceresses, 
 79- 
 
 Lucky and unlucky days, ancient and mo- 
 dern superstitions respecting, 14. 
 
 Luitprand, the Lombard king, 320 ; his 
 high character, ib. ; bis submission to 
 the pope, 327 ; captures Ravenna, 326, 
 327; his death, 330. 
 
 Lupus II., duke of Vasconia, 512. 
 
 Lusitania, one of the ancient divisions of 
 Spain, 532. 
 
 Luxury, eff'ects of, upon the Church, 731, 
 732. 
 
 Lyons, a central point for Roman roads, 
 33. 
 
 MiECENAS, minister of Augustus, 36 ; his 
 advice to Augustus on remodelling the 
 senate, 06 ; frequently repudiates and 
 re-marries his wife, 84. 
 
 Magic, practice of, among the Romans, 
 78. 
 
 Mahomet (see Mohammed), 
 
 Majorian, elected empercr, 255 ; his ener- 
 gies, 256 ; assassinated, 256, 383. 
 
 IManichieans, the, 577. 
 
 Manners, general dissoluteness of, 85. 
 
 Manners and customs of the Romans, 
 transmitted to modern times, 13, 14. 
 
 Marcellinus, his description of the Sara- 
 cens, 570, 571. 
 
 Marcellus, expels the Gauls, 16I. 
 
 March, the name derived from the Romans, 
 13. 
 
 March of Ancona, its first cession to the 
 papal church, 334. 
 
 Marcionites, the, 577' 
 
 Marcomnianni, irruptions of the, 174; the, 
 533. 
 
 Marcus Aurelius, his boundary-line of the 
 city of Rome, 26; slain, 174. 
 
790 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Margus, treaty of, between the Huns and 
 the Romans, 192; the Roman bishop of, 
 193. 
 
 Marius, the Arpinate, defeats the Teutons, 
 163, 164 ; and the Cimbri, 160. 
 
 Warriaj^e, relations of as connected with 
 Christianity, 629, 630. 
 
 Marriage ceremonies, of Roman origin, 
 14. 
 
 Wartel, Charles, his great victory over the 
 Saracens, 338 ; applied to for assistance 
 by Gregory III., 329 ; his death, 330. 
 
 Martin, mayor of Austrasia, 471. 
 
 Massilia. co'lony of, 37; people of founded 
 Marseilles. 408. 
 
 Mathilda, wife of Dagobert, 717- 
 
 Matthias Corvinus, 229. 
 
 Maurice, on the old religion of Rome, 73, 
 74. 
 
 Maurice, the Greek emperor, first intro- 
 duces Frank chieftains and Frank armies 
 into Italy, 303; employs the Franks 
 against the Lombards, 46l. 
 
 Maximus, revolt of, 233. 
 
 Mav-day, derived from the festivals of 
 Flora, 14. 
 
 I\Iaygar8, descendants of the Huns, estab- 
 lished on the Danube, 223 ; the founders 
 of a dynasty, ib. 
 
 Mayors of the Palace, their great authority 
 among the Franks, 465 et seq. 
 
 Mecca, Mohammed's flight to, 593; his 
 sojourn at, 594. 
 
 Medes, their method of fortification, 502 
 note. 
 
 Mediterranean, the great highway of na- 
 tions from ages immemorial, 29; its 
 geographical importance, 30, 32 ; asso- 
 ciated with all the great events of ancient 
 and modern history, ib. ; contentions of 
 different powers on its waters, 31 ; styled 
 "the Great Sea," 32; its extensive 
 communications, ib. 
 
 Merchants of Rome, 28. 
 
 Meroveus, the Frank, 196. 
 
 Merovingian dynasty, history of the, from 
 Clovis to the reign of Pepin, 450—495 ; 
 Clovis its founder, 454 ; one of the most 
 painful poriions of history, 456 ; over- 
 thrown by Pepin-le-Bref, 489, 490. 
 
 Merovingians, their relations with Italy, 
 460 ; their blood-stained annals, 72(i ; 
 protected by the Church, 726, 727 ; the 
 Church subservient to the, 727. 
 
 Merovius, king of the Franks, 446, 447. 
 
 Merwan II., the last of the dynasty of the 
 Ommiades, 60O. 
 
 Mesmeric influence, ancient and modern, 
 belief in, 14. 
 
 Metals, importation of, 57. 
 
 Methodius, missionary among the Slaves, 
 351. 
 
 Migrations into the lands beyond the Indus, 
 and other regions, 118; course of, 11 9 
 et seq. 
 
 Milan, a central point for Roman roads, 
 33; besieged by Odoacer, 293; capture 
 
 of, by Vitiges, and slaughter of its inha- 
 bitants, 3o6 ; the famous edict of, 644, 
 645. 
 
 Military forces of the Roman empire, 23 ; 
 a small number sufficient to insure 
 the tranquillity of the provinces, 63. 
 
 Military innovations effected by Constan- 
 tine, 48 et seq. 
 
 Militarv science, derived from the Romans, 
 12. 
 
 Missi Dominici, of Charlemagne, 517, 518. 
 
 Mi.-sionary labours of the Church, 7I8, ^ 
 719. 
 
 Mitre, a heathen ornament, 67O. 
 
 Moawiyah, the Mohammedan leader, 599; 
 proclaimed khalif in Syria, Palestine, 
 and Egypt, ib. ; takes possession of the 
 khalifate, and founds the dynasty of the 
 Ommiades, 600 (see Ommitides). 
 
 Modern civilization, composed of two ele- 
 ments — the Teuton and the Latin, 4. 
 
 Mohammed, religious system of, 569 ; the 
 people who first accepted it, ib. ; the 
 corrupted state of religion with which he 
 had to deal in Arabia, 5/9, 580 ; his com- 
 position of the Koran, 580 ; doctrines 
 promulgated by him, 580, 581 ; the means 
 by which his doctrines were promulgated 
 and enforced, 582, 586; his personal cha- 
 racter, 585 ; speculations on the triumph 
 of his religion, 587 ; Monotheism of his 
 doctrines, the simple proclamation of the 
 unity of God, 590; his birth and family, 
 
 592 ; his history, 592 et seq.; his flight, 
 
 593 ; his victories, 594 ; his sojourn at 
 Mecca, ib. ; the recognized prophet of 
 God, ib. ; his conquests in the East, 595 ; 
 his death, ib. ; his successors, ib. (see 
 Islamism). 
 
 Mohammedan invasions, 572. 
 
 Mohammedism, the leading sects of, 598. 
 
 Monastic orders, their social influence, 705. 
 
 Monastici«m, derived from ancient Pagan- 
 ism, 67 1, 672. 
 
 Mongols, their origin and early migrations, 
 147. 
 
 Monophysite heretics of Egypt, 6O8. 
 
 Monotheism, the doctrine of Mohammed, 
 590. 
 
 I^Ions Saturnius, of early Rome, 25. 
 
 Months, their names derived from the 
 Romans, 13. 
 
 Bloors, of Africa, in the fifth century, 369 ; 
 join the Vandals against the Roman 
 power, 372 ; subjugated by the Saracens, 
 611,612. 
 
 Moral force, power of Rome chieflv based 
 on, 63, 64. 
 
 Morals, the mission of Christianity under- 
 stood to be a reformation of, 638. 
 
 Moseilama, the Mohammedan impostor, 
 596. 
 
 Municipal institutions, the type of in- 
 herited from Rome, 8 ; their existence in 
 France, ih. ; their establishment during 
 the Middle Ages, ib. ; in Italy, 10. 
 
 Musa, the Caliph's lieutenant, 553. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 791 
 
 N. 
 
 Naebonnese province, ceded by Odoaeer 
 to the Visigoths, 270. 
 
 Narses, defeats Totila, kinpr of the Ostro- 
 goths, 307 ; superseded, 311. 
 
 National spirit, loss of in Gaul, 419. 
 
 Nationalities, New, the Church of Christ 
 V7atched over their childhood, 420. 
 
 Navarre, political foundation of, £62. 
 
 Navy of the Roman empire, 23. 
 
 Nero, provinces of the Roman empire dur- 
 ing his reign, 21, 22. 
 
 Netad, battle of, 211 ; breaks up the power 
 of the Huns, ib. 
 
 Neuri, the, in Attila's army, IQS. 
 
 Neustria, territory of, 458; historical notices 
 of, 4/1, 472. 
 
 Neustrians, contests of the, 724, 725. 
 
 New Society, the Christian Church in its 
 relation to the, 688 et seq. (see Church 
 of Christ). 
 
 Nice, council of, barbarian bishops at the, 
 54 ; presided over by Constantine, 649. 
 
 Niebuhr, his opinion of the old Roman 
 religion, 73. 
 
 Nobility, creation of a new one by Con- 
 stantine, 46, 47; their power destroyed 
 by Augustus, 76. 
 
 Non-Suevic tribes, migrations of the, 128 
 et seq. 
 
 Norman Vikings sweep the seas, 499. 
 
 Novahend, battle of, 608. 
 
 Novum Organon, first given to the world 
 ill Latin, 5. 
 
 Numerals, invented by the Saracens, 602. 
 
 Odd kumbebs, faith in, 14. 
 
 Odoaeer, the Rugian, 252 ; chief of the 
 Heruli, 266 ; his origin and history, 
 266, 267 ; promises partition of lands to 
 the Roman army, 267 ; defeats and de- 
 capitates Orestes, 268 ; made king of 
 Italy, 271 ; his wise administration, 272 ; 
 accepted by the senate, 275 ; historical 
 events connected with, 276 et seq. ; his 
 government, 277 ; invades Rugiland, 
 279; defeated by Theodoric, 290, 291; 
 contest between him and Theodoric, 29 1 ; 
 proclaims that the empire of Rome had 
 passed away, 38" ; assassinated by Theo- 
 doric, 296. 
 
 Offa, king of Mercia, 505. 
 
 Oktar, the Hunnish monarch, defeated by 
 the Burgundians, 191. 
 
 Old Society, the Christian Church in its 
 relation to the, 6l5 et seq. (see Church 
 of Christ). 
 
 Olybrius, supports Ricimer in his attack on 
 Rome. 259; his death, ib. 
 
 Omar, the successor of iMoharamed, 596 ; 
 his brilliant career, 597; captures Jeru- 
 salem, 60d ; his assassination, 597. 
 
 Ommiades, of Spain, 511 ; dynasty of the, 
 founded by Moawiyah, 600 ; Damascus 
 adopted as their capital, ib. ; Merwan II. 
 the last of their dynasty, ib. ; assassina- 
 tion of their chieftains, 6(1 1. 
 
 Oppas, Archbishop, treachery of, 552. 
 
 Orestes, the patrician, 263 ; Thierry's ac- 
 count of, ib. note; refuses partition of 
 lands to his soldiers, 266 ; is defeated and 
 decapitated bv Odoaeer, 268. 
 
 Orso, the first Doge of Venice, 327, 
 
 Ostrogoth legislation, 301. 
 
 Ostrogoths, migrations of the, 129 ; their 
 conquests and power, 182; invaded by the 
 Huns, ib. ; overcome by the Huns, 188; 
 in Attila's army, 199 ; defeated by Theo- 
 dosius, 233 ; their migration to Italy, 288, 
 289 ; their kingdom broken up by IJelisa- 
 rius,306; their revolt put downby Narses, 
 307; the supporters of Arianism, 749. 
 
 Othman, a successor of Mohammed, 597 ; 
 slain, 508. 
 
 Ouar Khouni, assume the name of Avars, 
 213 ; their formidable career, 214 etseq. 
 (see Avars), 
 
 Oxiones, the, 154. 
 
 Paganism, the early religion of Rome, 
 73 ; its simplicity and purity, ib. ; final 
 struggle and fall of, 651 ct seq.; lingers 
 in rural life, 655 ; destroyed by Alaric in 
 Rome, 657 ; several of its external forms 
 appropriated in Christian worship, 666 et 
 seq. ; extinguished at Rome, 6/7 ; its 
 contests with Christianity in Britain, 7.50, 
 751 ; one of the great adversaries of Ca- 
 tholic Christianity, 752 ; the religion of 
 sense, ib. 
 
 Palatini, institution of the, by Constantine, 
 51. 
 
 Palgrave, Sir F., his high estimation of 
 Rome and her policy, 4, 15. 
 
 Pamprepius, 283. 
 
 Pannouia, settlement of the Vandals in, 
 357. 
 
 Pantheism of the East, poured into Rome 
 at the close of the second Punic war, 74. 
 
 Panthers, number of, brought into the cir- 
 cus, 88. 
 
 Pantomimists of Rome, 86, 
 
 Papacy, its early relations with the state, 
 320,321 ; sprang from Gregory the Great, 
 322 ; why did church government deter- 
 mine in ? 753 ; causes of its success, 753 
 et seq. ; the great work it has had to ac- 
 complish, 763. 
 
 Parasites of Rome, 87. 
 
 Parliaments, germs of, among the Teutons, 
 135, 136. 
 
 Parochial perambulations, derived from the 
 Roman terminalia, 14. 
 
 Parthian empire, 19, 34, 35. 
 
 Patriciate of Rome, a degraded race, 43 ; a 
 new one created at Constantinople, 46, 
 
792 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 47; power of destroyed by Augustus, 
 -6. 
 
 Pavia, captured and destroyed by Odoacer, 
 263 ; captured by the Lombards, 312; its 
 importance, ib. 
 
 Peasantry, race of, almost annihilated by 
 the wars of the Empire, 99- 
 
 Pelagio, or Pelagius, his contests with the 
 Saracens, 553, 554 ; lays the foundation 
 of the kingdom of Asturias, 560. 
 
 Pepin-le-Bref, king of the Franks, 330 ; his 
 meeting with the pope, 331 ; marches to 
 his assistance against the Lombards, 
 333 ; presents the spoils of conquest to 
 the Church, 331 ; establishes the tempo- 
 ral power of the popes, 334, 335; his 
 dominions, 484 ; b«;comes sole mayor, 
 486; reconciled to the Church, 48", 488 ; 
 aids the Papacy against the Lombards, 
 487 ; dethrones the Merovingian dynasty, 
 489; proclaimed king of the Franks, 
 490 ; crowned by the pope, 491 ; his 
 struggles with Aquitaine, 492 ; ycleped 
 "the eldest son of the Church," 494; 
 division of the empire between his sons, 
 496; named " king of Italy," 502 ; de- 
 feats the Avars, 505 ; legitimized by the 
 Church, 729; he confirms its privileges, 
 and restores its property, ib. ; his death 
 and character, 493, 494. 
 
 Pepin of Heristai, makes Austrasia the seat 
 of his government, 472 ; defeats the 
 Austrasians, ib. ; duke of the Franks, 
 ib. ; his extraordinary power, 473. 
 
 Pepin-le-Vieus, 467, 468. 
 
 Perfumes, importation of, 57. 
 
 Persepolis, capture of, 6O8. 
 
 Persia, overrun and subdued by the Sata- 
 cens, 607, 603. 
 
 Persian Mithras, devotees of, at Rome, 78. 
 
 Persians, their victorious career under 
 Chosroes, 222 ; besiege Constantinople, 
 ib. ; defeated by the Romans, 223 ; unite 
 with the Avars in attacking Constanti- 
 nople, 224. 
 
 Petronius, the father of romance, a Gaul, 
 169. 
 
 Petronius Maximus, 249 ; slain, 250. 
 
 Pharsalia, battle of, decides the destiny of 
 the Greek and Roman civilizations, 39. 
 
 Philology, one of the bases of ethnology, 
 111, 112; three classes into which the 
 dialects of the human race may be di- 
 vided, 112, 113. 
 
 Philosophers, the Church of Christ unpopu- 
 lar with, 625 ; their early opposition to 
 Christianity, 673 — 676. 
 
 Philosophy, apostolic warning against the 
 vanity of, 672; of Greece and Egypt, 
 674, 675. ^* 
 
 Phocas, the Greek emperor, his vices, 218, 
 221 ; a murderer and usurper, 605. 
 
 Phoenicians, Spain discovered by the, 581, 
 582. 
 
 Physiology, one of the bases of ethnology, 
 111, 112. 
 
 Placidia, empress of Rome, 248. 
 
 Placidia, wife of Ataulphus, the Gothic 
 king, 536. 
 
 Platonic language of Christian teachers, 
 681. 
 
 Pliny, the naturalist, his credulity and 
 superstition, 79. 
 
 Poisoners of Rome, 86. 
 
 Popes, their temporal power established 
 by king Pepin, 334, 335 ; its evils, 335. 
 
 Populace, the Christian Church unpopular 
 with the, 627. 
 
 Population of Rome, 24, 25; diflferent 
 computations respecting the, 26, 27 ; 
 Charapagny's analysis, 27, 28. 
 
 Portugal, origin of the little kingdom of, 564. 
 
 Portuguese, principally derived from the 
 Latin, 5. 
 
 Priests, their impostures and extortions, 
 733, 734. 
 
 Principia, first given to the world in Latin, 
 5. 
 
 Priscus, the Greek general, his successes 
 against the Avars, 218. 
 
 Probus, constructs the " Devil's Wall " 
 from the Danube to the Rhine, 20 ; 
 defeats the Goths, 444 ; grants land to 
 them, ib. ; slain in battle, J 75. 
 
 Procopius, secretary of Belisarius, 240 ; 
 valualile history of, 304. 
 
 Proletarians of Rome. 28. 
 
 Property, tendency of to accumulate in the 
 hands of a privileged few, 463. 
 
 Prosjierity, the Church tried by, 661. 
 
 Protestantism, persecutions ot, 638. 
 
 Provencal troubadours, 509. 
 
 Provinces of the Roman empire, 20, 21 ; 
 policy of Augustus respecting govern- 
 ment of the, 21 ; number of, in Nero's 
 time, 21, 22; annexed by Trajan, 35; 
 interests of the, played off against the 
 traditions of the republic, 55 ; their tran- 
 quillity secured by a few soldiers, 63 ; 
 misgovernment of the, during the sena- 
 torial regime, 65, 66. 
 
 ProvincieelmperatoriseandProvinciseSena- 
 toriee, of the Roman empire, 21 ; govern- 
 ment of the, ib. 
 
 Public games of the circus and the amphi- 
 theatre, 88, 89. 
 
 Pylaa Caspiae et Pj'lse Syrite, 119. 
 
 Pyrenees, their ethnological importance, 
 509, 510. 
 
 QcADi, irruptions of the, 174. 
 Quiniilian, on the state of education, 81, 82. 
 
 R. 
 
 Racks, question of, an element in the 
 problem of modern politics, 109; well- 
 marked and important distinctions be- 
 tween, 109, 110. 
 
 Radagasius, the barbarian leader, 190, 239; 
 
INDEX. 
 
 793 
 
 his invasion of Florence, IQO ; his defeat 
 and death, ib. 
 
 Ravenna, once the capital of Italy, 239, 
 240; descriptions of, 240; captured by 
 Odoacer, 268; blockade of, 295; the 
 capital of the Ostrogoths, 306 ; captured 
 by Belisarius, ib. 
 
 Religion, of the old Roman republic, 73, 74 ; 
 various religions introduced into Rome, 
 74, 75 ; under the old faith grew up the 
 great fabric of Roman glory, 74 ; cor- 
 rupted by foreigners, 75 ; general con- 
 tempt for, 77 ; the various foreign reli- 
 gions imported into Rome, 78 ; of the 
 Teutons, 136, 137 ; state of, at the 
 period when Islamism was introduced 
 into Europe, 576 et seq. ; the four great 
 religions then existing, 576. 
 
 Religions, diversity of, assembled at Alex- 
 andria, 674, 675. 
 
 Religious orders, of the Church, chiefly 
 derived from the Paganism of Rome, 
 671. 
 
 Religious processions, a reproduction of 
 the heathen pageants of Rome, 67O. 
 
 Religious truths, persecutions oi, 638. 
 
 Republic of Rome, power of the army 
 during the, 48, 49; interests of the 
 provinces played off against the tradi- 
 tions of the, 55 ; policy of the, 63 ; 
 religion of the, 73. 
 
 Rhine, a boundary of the Roman empire, 
 19, 20; a Roman intrenchment, 20; 
 never offered any serious obstacle to the 
 inroads of either Celt or Teuton, 421. 
 
 Ricimer, the Sueve, 252 ; dethrones Avitus, 
 and substitutes Majorian, 255 ; his great 
 power, 257 ; supports Olybrius, the 
 Vandal candidate, slays Anthemius, and 
 sacks Rome, 258, 259 ; his death, 259. 
 
 Riparienses, institution of the, by Constan- 
 tine, 51. 
 
 Ripuarian Franks, migrations of the, 131. 
 
 Roads, formed by the Romans, 33 ; their 
 extent and durability, ib. ; in Italy, Gaul, 
 and Ikitain, ib. 
 
 Robertson's opinion of Rome, and the 
 vestiges of her fall, 3 ; his theory unten- 
 able, 4, 5. 
 
 Roderic, the last of the Visigoths, 476, 
 540, 548; his vicious character, 549; 
 defeated by the Saracens, and his king- 
 dom annihilated, 552, 653. 
 
 Rois laineans, 471. 
 
 Roland, the hero of romance, 510, 511. 
 
 Romagna, its first cession to the papal 
 church, 334. 
 
 Romaic peoples, common origin of the, 109. 
 
 Roman empire, the Barbarian races which 
 lay outside of the, 107 et seq. 
 
 Roman government, not tolerant, 623; the 
 Christian Church unpopular with the, 
 622, 623. 
 
 Romans, their sanguinary contests with the 
 Germans, 139—141 ; defeated by the 
 Gauls, 163 ; defeated by the Visigoths 
 at Adrianople, 187; defeat the Persians, 
 
 223 ; repulse the Avars, 225 ; defeated by 
 the Vandals in Spain, 367; their subju- 
 gation of Spain, 531, 532 ; crushed Juda- 
 ism and Druidism, on account of their 
 uncompromising systems of religion, 622; 
 the persecutors of Christianity, 623. 
 Rome, connection of with the modem 
 world, and its importance, 1 et seq. ; 
 opinions of Robertson and of Palgrave on, 
 3, 4 ; that connection shown to exist from 
 her language, laws, municipal institu- 
 tions, arts of war, manners, and customs, 
 &c., 4—15; the imperial image, which 
 long haunted the Seven Hills, 10; the 
 glorious continuity of her history from 
 the era of the Caesars to modern times, 
 15—18; geographical limits of the Em- 
 pire, 16 — 22; provinces of the Empire, 
 21; her armies, 23; her high position, 
 24 ; dimensions of the city, 25 ; her popu- 
 lation, 26, 27; her central situation, 29; 
 her roads, 33 ; the world beyond her em- 
 pire, 35 ; her Greek and Roman civiliza- 
 tions, 36—41 ; her long struggle with 
 Carthage, 38; policy of Diocletian and 
 Constantine, 42, 43 ; her adoption of 
 Christianity, and transfer of the seat of 
 empire to Constantinople, 45 et seq. ; her 
 vast imports, 57 ; means by which her 
 power was created and maintained, 62 ; 
 policy of the Republic, 63, 64 ; broken up 
 in the civil wars, 65 ; revived by Augus- 
 tus, 67; irreligion and depravity of, under 
 modern imperialism, 71 ; the causes of 
 her ruin, 72 ; Paganism the ancient re- 
 ligion of, 73 ; foreign corruption of, 75 ; 
 atheism and superstition of, 77 — 79 ; 
 education, 81 ; divorce, 85 ; gladiatorial 
 shows, 87 ; the amphitheatre, 89 ; slavery 
 in, 91— 98, 101 ; military colonization, 99; 
 proximate causes of her fall, 103 ; uncon- 
 scious of her impending fate from Bar- 
 barian irruptions, 154, 155 ; reasons 
 which delayed her fall before barbarian 
 action, 157; invasions of the Celts, the 
 Teutons, the Huns, and the Avars, 159 
 et seq. ; entered by the Gauls under 
 Brennus, I61, l62; saved from the Teu- 
 tons, and sacked by the Goths under 
 Alaric, 1 88 ; besieged and sacked by 
 Alaric, king of the Goths, 241—245; 
 horrors experienced by the citizens, 245 ; 
 captured by Genseric, king of the Van- 
 dals, 250 ; fast hastening to her fate, 252; 
 list of her last imbecile rulers and states- 
 men, 252, 253 ; sacked by Ricimer, 259 ; 
 entered by Belisarius, 305 ; Church of, its 
 assumption of temporal power under 
 Gregory the Great, 322 ; its support of 
 image- worship, 326 ; a new era created 
 by the coronation of Charlemagne as 
 "emperor of the West," 344; captured 
 and sacked bv Genseric and the Vandals, 
 38 1 ; loss of her provinces, and her rapidly 
 declining power. SS-Z et seq. ; Odoacer 
 proclaims that her empire had passed 
 away, 387 ; misery experienced under the 
 
794 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 imperial government of, 415 ; its author- 
 ity gone with her legions and her eagles, 
 422; its persecutions of Christianity,639 — 
 641; Paganism in destroyed by Alaric, 
 667 ; old religion of extinguished, %^^ ; 
 causes of church government determining 
 in, 756 et seq. 
 
 Romhilda, the Lombard duchess, her 
 treachery, 219; her miserable end, 220. 
 
 Romulus Augustulus, son of Orestes, the 
 last of the Caesars, 265 ; consigned to 
 honourable capthity, 268; the tool of 
 Odoacer, 275. 
 
 Boca, the Hunnish chieftain, 189. 
 
 Roncesvalles, the fatal fight of, 611, 512. 
 
 Rosamond, daughter of Cunimund, king 
 of the Gepidfe, 309. 
 
 , wife of Alboin, the Lombard king, 
 
 313 ; her romantic history, ib. 
 
 Rotharis, the Lombard king, gave to bis 
 subjects their first written code, 319. 
 
 Roxolani, the, 182. 
 
 Rufinus, the Gaul, 183; general-in-chief of 
 the East, 236. 
 
 Rugiland, invaded by Odoacer, 279. 
 
 Ruge, tribe of the, in Attila's army, 198. 
 
 Rustam, the Persian leader, slain, 607. 
 
 Sabaism, its long existence in the East, 
 576. 
 
 Sabbath, observance of the, established as 
 apolitical institution, 649. 
 
 Sabiniarus, 283. 
 
 St. Agnan, of Orleans, 702. 
 
 St. Genevieve, of Paris, 702. 
 
 St. Germain, "02. 
 
 St. Martin, of Tours, his labours, 702, 703. 
 
 St. Peter's pretended autograph letter sent 
 to king Pepin, 333. 
 
 St. Remi, of Rheims, 702. 
 
 Salian Franks, migrations of the, 131 ; share 
 the lands of Gaul alter the reign of 
 Clovis, 456. 
 
 Salvian, his account of the Vandals and the 
 Africans, 375 — 377. 
 
 Samnium, depopulation of, by the wars of 
 the Empire, 100. 
 
 Samo. the Frank leader, effects the emanci- 
 pation of the Slaves, 226, 227 ; the revolt 
 of the Slaves headed by, 360, 351. 
 
 Sanctuary, right of, derived from Paganism, 
 671. 
 
 Sangiban, king of the Alans, 199. 
 
 Sanscrit language, roots of the, mono- 
 syllabic, 112. 
 
 Saracens, their conquests, 324, 325 ; their 
 profession of faith, 325 ; invade western 
 Europe, 475 ; defeated by Charles Mar- 
 tel, 479 ; wars of Charlemagne with the, 
 609—512; Southey's poetical description 
 of their irruption into Spain, 551 ; make 
 themselves masters of Spain, and destroy 
 the Visigoth kingdom, 552, 653 ; causes 
 
 of their success, 555 ; described by I\Iar- 
 cellinus, 570, 571 ; history of the. h^^i et 
 seq.; their victorious career, 598-614; 
 literature and science promoted by the, 
 602 ; their highest point of civilization 
 during the khalifate of Bagdad, 6J2; 
 their foreign conquests, and extent of 
 their empire, G03 et seq. ; overrun Syria 
 and Persia, 605—608 ; subjugate Egypt, 
 6O8, 609 ; their conquests in Africa, 61 1 ; 
 their civilization and arts exercise a per- 
 manent influence on the minds of men, 
 614. 
 
 Saragossa, taken from the Moors, 56l. 
 
 Sarmatians, migrations of the, 120 ; irrup- 
 tions of the 174, 176. 
 
 Sassanides, Persian dynasty of the, 607; 
 the great banner of the, 6. 
 
 Saxons, names of our week-days derived 
 from, 13 ; their migrations, 131 ; wars of 
 Charlemagne with the, 4y9, 604 ; their 
 landing in Britain, and their opposition 
 to Christianity, 750, 751. 
 
 Scandinavian Vikings, their irruption, 31. 
 
 Scandinavians, migrations of the, 409 ; their 
 pantheon absorbed in the practice arising 
 from the contact of Christianity with the 
 Old- World Paganism, 669. 
 
 " School of the Palace," under Charle- 
 magne, 520. 
 
 Schools established by Charlemagne, 520. 
 
 Science, cultivated by the Saracens, 602. 
 
 Sclavonic or Sclavonian races, 109 (see 
 Slaves, or Slavonians). 
 
 Screech-owl, superstitious dread of the, 14. 
 
 Scythians, migrations of, 120 ; in Attila's 
 army, 198. 
 
 Seleucidffi, dynasty of the, 607. 
 
 Semitic Arab, the, 572. 
 
 Semitic languages, roots of, verbal, 113; 
 different dialects of the, 115, II6. 
 
 Semitic races, their migrations, 121. 
 
 Senate of Rome, Gauls admitted into the, 
 55 ; advice of Maecenas respecting the, 
 56. 
 
 Senators of Rome, 27 ; their servility, 86. 
 
 Serfdom, influence cf the Church in effect- 
 ing its emancipation, 715, 716. 
 
 Seronatus, sketch of, 417. 
 
 Servia, origin of, 227. 
 
 Severinus, his high character, 278. 
 
 Severus, rampart of, in Britain, J8; made 
 emperor of Rome, 256. 
 
 Shiites, the Mohammedan Separatists, 598. 
 
 Shrines, of Pagan origin, 671. 
 
 Sidonius Apollinaris, his account of the 
 Turanians, 149 ; his description of Ra- 
 venna, 240 ; made bishop of Rome, 262 ; 
 bis account of the manners and customs 
 of the Visigoths, 433—437; of the 
 Franks, 443 ; his illustration of church 
 life in the fifth century, 743—746. 
 
 Silingi, in Spain, 3G6. 
 
 Silks, importation of, 57. 
 
 Sirmium, the Roman city, besieged by the 
 Huns, 194 ; vases of, 195 ; sacked by the 
 Avars, 216. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Sismondi's remarks on the decline of the 
 Empire, 101. 
 
 Slavery, system of contributed to the fall 
 of the Koman empire, 98 ; necessitated a 
 despotism of the most iron kind, 98, 99 ; 
 the great social evil of the Empire, 102 ; 
 spirit of Christianity directly opposed to, 
 634 ; its abohtion, 650. 
 
 Slaves, number of in Rome, 28; their de- 
 graded position, 91, y6; a regular grada- 
 tion in the social standing, 92; their 
 number, 93, 94 ; their dangerous charac- 
 ter, 94 ; relations of slave and master, 
 95 ; looked upon and treated as inferior 
 animals, 96 ; treated with the most san- 
 guinary cruelties, 9/ ; the lands cultivated 
 by, 100, 101 ; the Church obtains the 
 right of liberating them, 649 ; emancipa- 
 tion of, by Constantine, 704 ; influence of 
 the Church in effecting their emancipa- 
 tion, 714, 715, 716. 
 
 Slaves, Slavonians, or Sclaves, migra- 
 tions of the, 120, 121, 127 et seq., 142; 
 their physical and moral energies, 
 141, 142; their principal representa- 
 tives in modern Europe, 143 ; ori- 
 gin of the name, ib. ; three principal 
 branches, 144; their general characteris- 
 tics, 145; their religious notions, 146; 
 their irruptions, 177; assailed by the 
 Avars, 2l6; their miserable treatment, 
 216, 217 ; their slaughter before the walls 
 of Constantinople, 225 ; effect their 
 emancipation from the Avars, 227 ; their 
 origin, ib. ; settled in South Europe by 
 the Greek emperor, ib.; their orighi and 
 connection with the Goths, Huns, and 
 Avars, 347, 348 ; displaced by the Goths, 
 349; their early settlement, 349, 351 ; 
 their revolt under Samo against the 
 Franks, 350 ; their religion and social 
 condition, 351; wars of Charlemagne 
 against the, 500. 
 
 Slavonians (see Slaves). 
 
 Sneezing, ancient and modern superstition 
 respecting, 14. 
 
 Society, demoralization of, contributes to 
 the fall of the Empire, 103, 104. 
 
 Soldiers, number of, in the Roman em- 
 pire, 23 ; evils arising from their poverty, 
 102. 
 
 Soliraan, Khalif, besieges Constantinople, 
 611. 
 
 Sonnites, the Mohammedan adherents of 
 Othman, 598. 
 
 Soutbey's poetic effusions on the irruption 
 of the Saracens into Spain, 551. 
 
 Spain, progress of Augustus through, 39 ; 
 overrun by the Barbarians, 19O, I9I ; en- 
 tered by the Teutons and the Vandals, 
 363; entirely subject to the Vandals, 
 367; Visigoths in, 431 ; governed by the 
 Ommiades, 511 ; early history of, 628 et 
 seq.; interesting to Englishmen, 528, 
 529; discovered by the Phoenicians, 531, 
 532 ; subjugated by the Romans, ib. ; its 
 provincial subdivisions, 532 ; overrun by 
 
 the Franks and the Visigoths, ib.; agi- 
 tated by struggles of rival candidates for 
 the Empire, 533; invaded from Gaul by 
 the Vandals, Sueves, and Alani, 534, 
 635; conquered for Rome by the Visi- 
 goths, 537 ; invaded by the Saracens, 552 ; 
 the Saracens become masters of, 553 ; 
 isolated in action during the earlier cen- 
 turies of the Christian era, 559 ; state of, 
 after the Saracenic invasion. 56 1 et seq. ; 
 the little monarchies of, 564 ; its social 
 and political condition, 565 ; effects of 
 Arab civilization in, 61 3. 
 
 Spanish language, principally derived from 
 the Latin, 5. 
 
 Spectacles, dramatic, largely patronized by 
 the heathen, 631—633. 
 
 Spices, importation of, 57. 
 
 Spiritual power of the Church, "21. 
 
 Stephen, Pope, his disputes with Astolphus, 
 the Lombard king, 333 ; his " autograph 
 letter" of St. Peter to Pepin, imploring 
 assistance, ib.; his contests with the 
 Lombards, 491. 
 
 Stilicho, defeats Radagasius, 19O; general- 
 in-chief of the Graeco-Roman legions in 
 the West, 236 ; defeats the Goths, 237, 
 238, 239; murder of. 241; his virtues 
 and his valour, 359, 36l. 
 
 Strangers, number ot, in Rome, 28. 
 
 Strategics of the Romans, transmitted to 
 modern times, 12, 13. 
 
 Sueves, or Suevi, migrations of the, 128 et 
 seq. ; established in Spain, 366 ; invade 
 Spain and divide the country, 535 ; over- 
 run Spain, 537 ; their kingdom incorpo- 
 rated with that of the Visigoths, 644, 
 545. 
 
 Suicide, in accordance with the spirit of the 
 age under the imperial dynasty, 79, 80. 
 
 Superstition, of modern imperialism, 73; 
 its prevalence during the age of the 
 Caesars, 77 — 80 ; gross and abominable in 
 proportion to the ignorance and depravity 
 of the people among whom it reigns, 77 ; 
 numerous foreign votaries of, 78 ; its de- 
 basing effects, 79. 
 
 Superstitions, Rome the epitome of all, 77' 
 
 Surplice, derived fiom Egypt, 670. 
 
 Sylvanus, of Sirmium, 195. 
 
 Symmachus, 277 ; executed, 304. 
 
 Synesius, a Platonist, 6S l . 
 
 Syria, the eastern boundary of the Roman 
 empire, 19; invaded by the Saracens, 
 605 ; passes away from the Greek em- 
 pire, 606. 
 
 "Syrian Gates," gave a passage to Alex- 
 aiider into the heart of Asia, 119* 
 
 Tacitus, a believer in presages and 
 dreams, 79 ; on the state of education, 
 82, 83. 
 
 Tarik, the Saracen chief, invades Spain, 
 550, 551 ; his victorious career, 553. 
 
796 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Tarraconensis, one of the ancient divisions 
 of Spain, 532. 
 
 Tartars, the, 147. • 
 
 Tauranian languages, 115, ll6. 
 
 Taxation, excessive pressure of under Dio- 
 cletian, 102, 103. 
 
 Tela, last of the race of Ostrogoth kings, 
 defeated and slain, 307. 
 
 Templars, their cruel extermination, 683. 
 
 Testamentary dispositions extorted by the 
 clergy, 733. 
 
 Testry, battle of, 472. 
 
 Teuton, one of the elements of modem 
 civilization, 4. 
 
 Teutons, 109; migrations of the, 120, 127 
 et seq.; their characteristics, 132. 133 — 
 135 ; their "brotherhood in arms," 135 ; 
 their love of liberty, ib. ; germs of 
 Mritenagemotes and parliaments among 
 the, 135, 136; their religion, 136, 137; 
 defeated by Blarius, l63, l64 ; countries 
 occupied by the, I76; enter Spain, 363 ; 
 the formidable gathering of, at the be- 
 ginning of the filth century, 423, 424 (see 
 Germa7is). 
 
 Theodoric, the Visigothic king, 197 ; cuts 
 to pieces a Roman armv, 378; slain, 
 204. 
 
 Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths, 252, 
 274, 280 ; assails Constantinople, 285 ; 
 his march upon Italy, 238, 289 ; his 
 heroism and skill, 290 ; defeats Odoacer, 
 290, 291 ; his treacherous conduct, 295 ; 
 Btabs Odoacer, 296 ; sole king of Italy, 
 297 ; his abilities and energetic admini- 
 stration, 298 et seq.; an Arian, 302; 
 compared with Genseric, the Vandal, 391 ; 
 his redoubtable career, 432 ; repels the 
 Franks, 454; defeated by theAustrasians, 
 472 ; his commanding genius unites the 
 Ostrogoth on the Tiber and the Visigoth 
 on the Douro, 539. 
 
 Theodoric II., king of the Visigoths, 433 ; 
 his character and habits, 433—437. 
 
 Theodosius the Great, defeats the Ostro- 
 goths, 233 ; his victories, 234, 235 ; his 
 division of the Empire, 235 ; his death, 
 236 ; his destruction of Paganism, 653, 
 654, 656. 
 
 Theolinda, the Lombard queen, 317, 318, 
 750. 
 
 Thermopylae, forced by the Goths, 237. 
 
 Thierry's account of the kingdom of Astu- 
 ria, 560, 561. 
 
 Thorimond, the Visigoth, 204. 
 
 Thursday, the name derived from the Saxon 
 god Thor, 13. 
 
 Tiberius, a believer in astrology, 78; re- 
 volting portraiture of, drawn by Juvenal 
 and Tacitus, 79. 
 
 Tiers-etat of Rome, 28. 
 
 Tolbiac, battle of, 451. 
 
 Toledo, councils of, 540 — 542; their eccle- 
 siastical character, 543 ; their persecution 
 of the .lews, 558 ; dissolved and scat- 
 tered, ib. ; the city taken from the 
 Moors, 561. 
 
 Totila, last of the race of Ostrogoth kings, 
 defeated and slain, 307. 
 
 Tours, battle of, 479 ; one of the decisive 
 battles on which the fate of the modern 
 world depended, 480. 
 
 Towns, origin of, 9. 
 
 Trajan, his extensive conquests, 35 ; games 
 of, 88. 
 
 Trasamund, the Vandal ruler, 395. 
 
 Tribunes of the Roman treasury, 27. 
 
 Tripoli, capture of, 610. 
 
 Trofrus Pompeius, a Gaul. 169. 
 
 Trouv^res of the Langue d'Oui, 509. 
 
 Tsason, the Vandal, defeated by Belisarias, 
 and slain, 401. 
 
 Tudun, the Avar, his subjection to Charle- 
 magne, 505. 
 
 Tufa, a chief of the Heruli, 292 ; his 
 traitorous conduct, ib. 
 
 Turanians, their origin and early migra- 
 tions, 121, 147; their fierce characteris- 
 tics, as described by the prophet Joel, 
 148, 149; countries occupied by the, 1/6; 
 their conquests and devastating career, 
 188 etseq. ; their re-appearance in Europe 
 under the name of Avars, 211 ; expelled 
 from European soil, 228. 
 
 Turcilingians, in Attila's army, 198. 
 
 Turks, migrations of the, 147, 148; pursue 
 the Avars, 213 ; their first appearance in 
 the capital of the Eastern empire, 214. 
 
 Tyranny of the princes and magistrates of 
 the Empire, 101. 
 
 U. 
 
 Ugrians, the, 147. 
 
 Ulphilas, the Gothic bishop, 183 ; con- 
 structs a Gothic alphabet, and translates 
 the Scriptures, 184; adopts the Arian 
 confession, 185. 
 
 Valamik, general of the Ostrogoths, 204. 
 
 Valens, the Greek emperor, a Christian 
 convert, 1 84 ; defeated and slain by the 
 Visigoths, 187. 
 
 Valentinian, expelled from Italy, 233; re- 
 stored, 234; assassinated, 231, 249. 
 
 Vandals, migrations of the, 129; their ir- 
 ruptions, 174; besiege and capture Rome, 
 250 ; carry off their spoils and captives to 
 Africa, 250 (see Genseric) ; eternal infamy 
 stamped on the name, 257 ; defeated by 
 Belisarius, 305 ; historical notices of the, 
 352 et seq.; whether of Slavish or Teu- 
 tonic origin ? 353 ; their early emigra- 
 tions until settled in Pannonia, 354 — 
 357 ; converted to Christianity, 359 ; 
 pass the Rhine into Gaul, 36 1 ; their 
 frightful devastations, 362 ; pass the 
 Pyrenees into Spain, 363 ; their con- 
 tests with the Goths, 365 ; their absolute 
 
INDEX. 
 
 797 
 
 domination in Spain, 3G7, 533, 537 ; Gen- 
 seric, their king, 369; cross over into 
 Africa, 371 ; their contests, 372 ; 
 make peace with Valentinian, 373; seize 
 Carthage, 375 ; description of a foray by 
 the, 379; capture Rome, 381; destroy 
 the great Byzantine expedition, 385 ; 
 their treaty with the Greek emperor, 
 387; death of their king, Genseric, 389; 
 their decadence under the successors of 
 Genseric, 390 et seq. ; subdued by Belisa- 
 rius, 400, 401; vast amount of their 
 treasures, 402 ; their utter dispersion, 
 404, 405 ; the supporters of Arianism, 
 748. 
 
 Varus, defeated by the Germans, 170, 171'' 
 
 Vascones, the, 475 ; attack the Frank army 
 under Charlemagne, 512. 
 
 Vaughan, Professor, on the Roman em- 
 pire, 11. 
 
 Vendes, descendants of the Avar and 
 Slave races, 226, 227. 
 
 Veneti, the. 143, 144. 
 
 Venice, her first appearance in history, 327. 
 
 Verres, despotism of. 66. 
 
 Vespasian, a Gaul, 169. 
 
 Vices, of Roman society, 80, 81 ; remarks 
 of Quintilian and Tacitus on, 81 — 83. 
 
 Vienna, its early importance, 503. 
 
 Vikings, the Norman, 499. 
 
 Vindex, who dethroned Nero, a Gaul, 169. 
 
 Visigoths, migrations of the, 129; cross the 
 Danube, 173, 185 ; countries occupied 
 by them, 180; their conquests and 
 ravages, 180, 181; their intestine con- 
 tests, 183 ; treacherously used by the 
 Romans, 185, 186; their vengeful retali- 
 ation, 186 ; defeat the Romans at Adria- 
 nople, 187 ; direct their attention to the 
 West, and cross the Alps, 188; found 
 by the Hunnish hordes upon the Eastern 
 empire, ib. ; take arms against the Huns, 
 200 ; defeat the Ostrogoths at Chalons, 
 204 ; their flight, 232 ; their power in the 
 fifth century, -loi ; early effected perma- 
 nent settlements in Gaul, 422, 426 ; 
 kingdom of the, 429, 432; historical 
 notices of the, 429, 430 ; in Gaul and 
 Spain, 431 ; their manners and customs, 
 434 et seq. ; attacked by the Franks, 439; 
 subdued by Clovis, 453, 539 ; kingdom of, 
 founded in the south of France, 538 ; 
 cross the Pyrenees and subjugate all 
 Spain, 538, 539 ; their dreary annals, 
 
 540 ; conquer the Suevi, 544, 545 ; con- 
 verted from Arianism, 546, 547 ; their 
 vices and feuds at the height in the reign 
 of Witika, 548 ; their kingdom annihi- 
 lated by the Saracens, 553 ; causes of 
 their fall, 554. 555; their isolation, 559. 
 
 Vitiges, chief of the Ostrogoths, 305 ; his 
 sanguinary career, 306. 
 
 Votive tablets, derived from Paganism, 671. 
 
 W. 
 
 Wall of Antonine, in Britain, 18. 
 
 Wallia, king of the Goths, 365 ; undertakes 
 to reduce the Spanish provinces to sub- 
 mission, 537; founds the Visigoth king- 
 dom in the south of France, 538. 
 
 War, art of, taught us by the Romans, 12. 
 
 " War of the Ditch," 594. 
 
 Wars of the Empire, almost depopulated 
 Italy, 99; results of, 100, 101. 
 
 Wealth, effects of upon the Church, 731, 
 732. 
 
 Wednesday, the name derived from the 
 Saxon god Woden, 13. 
 
 Week-days, of Roman and Teutonic origin, 
 13. 
 
 Witenagemotes, germs of among the 
 Teutons, 135, 136. 
 
 Witika, the Visigoth king, deposed, 548; 
 rebellion in his favour, 549. 
 
 Women of the Teutonic tribes, 138. 
 
 World, the, beyond the Empire, 34, 35. 
 
 Xeres, battle of, 552. 
 
 Yathreb, city of the Prophet, 593. 
 Yermouk, battle of, 606. 
 
 Zachary, Pope, 'confirms the sovereignty 
 
 of Pepin-le-Bref, 489, 490; his death, 
 
 493, 
 Zeno, the Eastern emperor, 258; dethroned 
 
 and banished, 274 ; restored, ib. ; liis 
 
 critical situation, 282, 234. 
 Zoumi, the, 176. 
 
 cox AXD avvmax, pri.vters, great queex street, lo.vdox. 
 
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