History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire — Volume 4
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Title: History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire — Volume 4
Author: Edward Gibbon
Commentator: Henry Hart Milman
Release date: June 7, 2008 [eBook #734]
Most recently updated: February 1, 2022
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/734
Credits: David Reed and David Widger
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HISTORY OF THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE — VOLUME 4 ***
HISTORY OF THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE
Edward Gibbon, Esq.
With notes by the Rev. H. H. Milman
Vol. 4
1782 (Written), 1845 (Revised)
Contents
Chapter XXXIX: Gothic Kingdom Of Italy.—Part I.
Zeno And Anastasius, Emperors Of The East.—Birth, Education, And First
Exploits Of Theodoric The Ostrogoth.—His Invasion And Conquest Of
Italy.—The Gothic Kingdom Of Italy.—State Of The West.—Military And
Civil Government.—The Senator Boethius.—Last Acts And Death Of
Theodoric.
Chapter XXXIX: Gothic Kingdom Of Italy.—Part II.
Chapter XXXIX: Gothic Kingdom Of Italy.—Part III.
Chapter XL: Reign Of Justinian.—Part I.
Elevation Of Justin The Elder.—Reign Of Justinian.—I. The Empress
Theodora.—II. Factions Of The Circus, And Sedition Of
Constantinople.—III. Trade And Manufacture Of Silk.—IV. Finances And
Taxes.—V. Edifices Of Justinian.—Church Of St. Sophia.—Fortifications
And Frontiers Of The Eastern Empire.—Abolition Of The Schools Of
Athens, And The Consulship Of Rome.
Chapter XL: Reign Of Justinian.—Part II.
Chapter XL: Reign Of Justinian.—Part III.
Chapter XL: Reign Of Justinian.—Part IV.
Chapter XL: Reign Of Justinian.—Part V.
Chapter XLI: Conquests Of Justinian, Character Of Balisarius.—Part I.
Conquests Of Justinian In The West.—Character And First Campaigns Of
Belisarius—He Invades And Subdues The Vandal Kingdom Of Africa—His
Triumph.—The Gothic War.—He Recovers Sicily, Naples, And Rome.—Siege Of
Rome By The Goths.—Their Retreat And Losses.—Surrender Of
Ravenna.—Glory Of Belisarius.—His Domestic Shame And Misfortunes.
Chapter XLI: Conquests Of Justinian, Character Of Balisarius.—Part II.
Chapter XLI: Conquests Of Justinian, Character Of Balisarius.—Part III.
Chapter XLI: Conquests Of Justinian, Character Of Balisarius.—Part IV.
Chapter XLI: Conquests Of Justinian, Character Of Balisarius.—Part V.
Chapter XLII: State Of The Barbaric World.—Part I.
State Of The Barbaric World.—Establishment Of The Lombards On the
Danube.—Tribes And Inroads Of The Sclavonians.—Origin, Empire, And
Embassies Of The Turks.—The Flight Of The Avars.—Chosroes I, Or
Nushirvan, King Of Persia.—His Prosperous Reign And Wars With The
Romans.—The Colchian Or Lazic War.—The Æthiopians.
Chapter XLII: State Of The Barbaric World.—Part II.
Chapter XLII: State Of The Barbaric World.—Part III.
Chapter XLII: State Of The Barbaric World.—Part IV.
Chapter XLIII: Last Victory And Death Of Belisarius, Death Of
Justinian.—Part I.
Rebellions Of Africa.—Restoration Of The Gothic Kingdom By Totila.—Loss
And Recovery Of Rome.—Final Conquest Of Italy By Narses.—Extinction Of
The Ostrogoths.—Defeat Of The Franks And Alemanni.—Last Victory,
Disgrace, And Death Of Belisarius.—Death And Character Of
Justinian.—Comet, Earthquakes, And Plague.
Chapter XLIII: Last Victory And Death Of Belisarius, Death OF
Justinian.—Part II.
Chapter XLIII: Last Victory And Death Of Belisarius, Death Of
Justinian.—Part III.
Chapter XLIII: Last Victory And Death Of Belisarius, Death Of
Justinian.—Part IV.
Chapter XLIV: Idea Of The Roman Jurisprudence.—Part I.
Idea Of The Roman Jurisprudence.—The Laws Of The Kings—The Twelve Of
The Decemvirs.—The Laws Of The People.—The Decrees Of The Senate.—The
Edicts Of The Magistrates And Emperors—Authority Of The
Civilians.—Code, Pandects, Novels, And Institutes Of Justinian:—I.
Rights Of Persons.—II. Rights Of Things.—III. Private Injuries And
Actions.—IV. Crimes And Punishments.
Chapter XLIV: Idea Of The Roman Jurisprudence.—Part II.
Chapter XLIV: Idea Of The Roman Jurisprudence.—Part III.
Chapter XLIV: Idea Of The Roman Jurisprudence.—Part IV.
Chapter XLIV: Idea Of The Roman Jurisprudence.—Part V.
Chapter XLIV: Idea Of The Roman Jurisprudence.—Part VI.
Chapter XLIV: Idea Of The Roman Jurisprudence.—Part VII.
Chapter XLIV: Idea Of The Roman Jurisprudence.—Part VIII.
Chapter XLV: State Of Italy Under The Lombards.—Part I.
Reign Of The Younger Justin.—Embassy Of The Avars.—Their Settlement On
The Danube.—Conquest Of Italy By The Lombards.—Adoption And Reign Of
Tiberius.—Of Maurice.—State Of Italy Under The Lombards And The
Exarchs.—Of Ravenna.—Distress Of Rome.—Character And Pontificate Of
Gregory The First.
Chapter XLV: State Of Italy Under The Lombards.—Part II.
Chapter XLV: State Of Italy Under The Lombards.—Part III.
Chapter XLVI: Troubles In Persia.—Part I.
Revolutions On Persia After The Death Of Chosroes On Nushirvan.—His Son
Hormouz, A Tyrant, Is Deposed.—Usurpation Of Baharam.—Flight And
Restoration Of Chosroes II.—His Gratitude To The Romans.—The Chagan Of
The Avars.—Revolt Of The Army Against Maurice.—His Death.—Tyranny Of
Phocas.—Elevation Of Heraclius.—The Persian War.—Chosroes Subdues
Syria, Egypt, And Asia Minor.—Siege Of Constantinople By The Persians
And Avars.—Persian Expeditions.—Victories And Triumph Of Heraclius.
Chapter XLVI: Troubles In Persia.—Part II.
Chapter XLVI: Troubles In Persia.—Part III.
Chapter XLVI: Troubles In Persia.—Part IV.
Chapter XLVII: Ecclesiastical Discord.—Part I.
Theological History Of The Doctrine Of The Incarnation.—The Human And
Divine Nature Of Christ.—Enmity Of The Patriarchs Of Alexandria And
Constantinople.—St. Cyril And Nestorius. —Third General Council Of
Ephesus.—Heresy Of Eutyches.—Fourth General Council Of Chalcedon.—Civil
And Ecclesiastical Discord.—Intolerance Of Justinian.—The Three
Chapters.—The Monothelite Controversy.—State Of The Oriental Sects:—I.
The Nestorians.—II. The Jacobites.—III. The Maronites.—IV. The
Armenians.—V. The Copts And Abyssinians.
Chapter XLVII: Ecclesiastical Discord.—Part II.
Chapter XLVII: Ecclesiastical Discord.—Part III.
Chapter XLVII: Ecclesiastical Discord.—Part IV.
Chapter XLVII: Ecclesiastical Discord.—Part V.
Chapter XLVII: Ecclesiastical Discord.—Part VI.
Chapter XLVIII: Succession And Characters Of The Greek Emperors.—Part
I.
Plan Of The Two Last Volumes.—Succession And Characters Of The Greek
Emperors Of Constantinople, From The Time Of Heraclius To The Latin
Conquest.
Chapter XLVIII: Succession And Characters Of The Greek Emperors.—Part
II.
Chapter XLVIII: Succession And Characters Of The Greek Emperors.—Part
III.
Chapter XLVIII: Succession And Characters Of The Greek Emperors.—Part
IV.
Chapter XLVIII: Succession And Characters Of The Greek Emperors.—Part
V.
Chapter XXXIX: Gothic Kingdom Of Italy.—Part I.
Zeno And Anastasius, Emperors Of The East.—Birth, Education, And First
Exploits Of Theodoric The Ostrogoth.—His Invasion And Conquest Of
Italy.—The Gothic Kingdom Of Italy.—State Of The West.—Military And
Civil Government.—The Senator Boethius.—Last Acts And Death Of
Theodoric.
After the fall of the Roman empire in the West, an interval of
fifty years, till the memorable reign of Justinian, is faintly
marked by the obscure names and imperfect annals of Zeno,
Anastasius, and Justin, who successively ascended to the throne
of Constantinople. During the same period, Italy revived and
flourished under the government of a Gothic king, who might have
deserved a statue among the best and bravest of the ancient
Romans.
Theodoric the Ostrogoth, the fourteenth in lineal descent of the
royal line of the Amali, 1 was born in the neighborhood of Vienna
2 two years after the death of Attila. 2111 A recent victory had
restored the independence of the Ostrogoths; and the three
brothers, Walamir, Theodemir, and Widimir, who ruled that warlike
nation with united counsels, had separately pitched their
habitations in the fertile though desolate province of Pannonia.
The Huns still threatened their revolted subjects, but their
hasty attack was repelled by the single forces of Walamir, and
the news of his victory reached the distant camp of his brother
in the same auspicious moment that the favorite concubine of
Theodemir was delivered of a son and heir. In the eighth year of
his age, Theodoric was reluctantly yielded by his father to the
public interest, as the pledge of an alliance which Leo, emperor
of the East, had consented to purchase by an annual subsidy of
three hundred pounds of gold. The royal hostage was educated at
Constantinople with care and tenderness. His body was formed to
all the exercises of war, his mind was expanded by the habits of
liberal conversation; he frequented the schools of the most
skilful masters; but he disdained or neglected the arts of
Greece, and so ignorant did he always remain of the first
elements of science, that a rude mark was contrived to represent
the signature of the illiterate king of Italy. 3 As soon as he
had attained the age of eighteen, he was restored to the wishes
of the Ostrogoths, whom the emperor aspired to gain by liberality
and confidence. Walamir had fallen in battle; the youngest of the
brothers, Widimir, had led away into Italy and Gaul an army of
Barbarians, and the whole nation acknowledged for their king the
father of Theodoric. His ferocious subjects admired the strength
and stature of their young prince; 4 and he soon convinced them
that he had not degenerated from the valor of his ancestors. At
the head of six thousand volunteers, he secretly left the camp in
quest of adventures, descended the Danube as far as Singidunum,
or Belgrade, and soon returned to his father with the spoils of a
Sarmatian king whom he had vanquished and slain. Such triumphs,
however, were productive only of fame, and the invincible
Ostrogoths were reduced to extreme distress by the want of
clothing and food. They unanimously resolved to desert their
Pannonian encampments, and boldly to advance into the warm and
wealthy neighborhood of the Byzantine court, which already
maintained in pride and luxury so many bands of confederate
Goths. After proving, by some acts of hostility, that they could
be dangerous, or at least troublesome, enemies, the Ostrogoths
sold at a high price their reconciliation and fidelity, accepted
a donative of lands and money, and were intrusted with the
defence of the Lower Danube, under the command of Theodoric, who
succeeded after his father’s death to the hereditary throne of
the Amali. 5
1 (return) [ Jornandes (de Rebus Geticis, c. 13, 14, p. 629, 630,
edit. Grot.) has drawn the pedigree of Theodoric from Gapt, one
of the Anses or Demigods, who lived about the time of Domitian.
Cassiodorus, the first who celebrates the royal race of the
Amali, (Viriar. viii. 5, ix. 25, x. 2, xi. 1,) reckons the
grandson of Theodoric as the xviith in descent. Peringsciold (the
Swedish commentator of Cochloeus, Vit. Theodoric. p. 271, &c.,
Stockholm, 1699) labors to connect this genealogy with the
legends or traditions of his native country. * Note: Amala was a
name of hereditary sanctity and honor among the Visigoths. It
enters into the names of Amalaberga, Amala suintha, (swinther
means strength,) Amalafred, Amalarich. In the poem of the
Nibelungen written three hundred years later, the Ostrogoths are
called the Amilungen. According to Wachter it means, unstained,
from the privative a, and malo a stain. It is pure Sanscrit,
Amala, immaculatus. Schlegel. Indische Bibliothek, 1. p. 233.—M.]
2 (return) [ More correctly on the banks of the Lake Pelso,
(Nieusiedler-see,) near Carnuntum, almost on the same spot where
Marcus Antoninus composed his meditations, Jornandes, c. 52, p.
659. Severin. Pannonia Illustrata, p. 22. Cellarius, Geograph.
Antiq. (tom. i. p. 350.)]
2111 (return) [ The date of Theodoric’s birth is not accurately
determined. We can hardly err, observes Manso, in placing it
between the years 453 and 455, Manso, Geschichte des Ost
Gothischen Reichs, p. 14.—M.]
3 (return) [ The four first letters of his name were inscribed on
a gold plate, and when it was fixed on the paper, the king drew
his pen through the intervals (Anonym. Valesian. ad calcem Amm.
Marcellin p. 722.) This authentic fact, with the testimony of
Procopius, or at least of the contemporary Goths, (Gothic. 1. i.
c. 2, p. 311,) far outweighs the vague praises of Ennodius
(Sirmond Opera, tom. i. p. 1596) and Theophanes, (Chronograph. p.
112.) * Note: Le Beau and his Commentator, M. St. Martin,
support, though with no very satisfactory evidence, the opposite
opinion. But Lord Mahon (Life of Belisarius, p. 19) urges the
much stronger argument, the Byzantine education of Theodroic.—M.]
4 (return) [ Statura est quae resignet proceritate regnantem,
(Ennodius, p. 1614.) The bishop of Pavia (I mean the ecclesiastic
who wished to be a bishop) then proceeds to celebrate the
complexion, eyes, hands, &c, of his sovereign.]
5 (return) [ The state of the Ostrogoths, and the first years of
Theodoric, are found in Jornandes, (c. 52—56, p. 689—696) and
Malchus, (Excerpt. Legat. p. 78—80,) who erroneously styles him
the son of Walamir.]
A hero, descended from a race of kings, must have despised the
base Isaurian who was invested with the Roman purple, without any
endowment of mind or body, without any advantages of royal birth,
or superior qualifications. After the failure of the Theodosian
line, the choice of Pulcheria and of the senate might be
justified in some measure by the characters of Martin and Leo,
but the latter of these princes confirmed and dishonored his
reign by the perfidious murder of Aspar and his sons, who too
rigorously exacted the debt of gratitude and obedience. The
inheritance of Leo and of the East was peaceably devolved on his
infant grandson, the son of his daughter Ariadne; and her
Isaurian husband, the fortunate Trascalisseus, exchanged that
barbarous sound for the Grecian appellation of Zeno. After the
decease of the elder Leo, he approached with unnatural respect
the throne of his son, humbly received, as a gift, the second
rank in the empire, and soon excited the public suspicion on the
sudden and premature death of his young colleague, whose life
could no longer promote the success of his ambition. But the
palace of Constantinople was ruled by female influence, and
agitated by female passions: and Verina, the widow of Leo,
claiming his empire as her own, pronounced a sentence of
deposition against the worthless and ungrateful servant on whom
she alone had bestowed the sceptre of the East. 6 As soon as she
sounded a revolt in the ears of Zeno, he fled with precipitation
into the mountains of Isauria, and her brother Basiliscus,
already infamous by his African expedition, 7 was unanimously
proclaimed by the servile senate. But the reign of the usurper
was short and turbulent. Basiliscus presumed to assassinate the
lover of his sister; he dared to offend the lover of his wife,
the vain and insolent Harmatius, who, in the midst of Asiatic
luxury, affected the dress, the demeanor, and the surname of
Achilles. 8 By the conspiracy of the malcontents, Zeno was
recalled from exile; the armies, the capital, the person, of
Basiliscus, were betrayed; and his whole family was condemned to
the long agony of cold and hunger by the inhuman conqueror, who
wanted courage to encounter or to forgive his enemies. 811 The
haughty spirit of Verina was still incapable of submission or
repose. She provoked the enmity of a favorite general, embraced
his cause as soon as he was disgraced, created a new emperor in
Syria and Egypt, 812 raised an army of seventy thousand men, and
persisted to the last moment of her life in a fruitless
rebellion, which, according to the fashion of the age, had been
predicted by Christian hermits and Pagan magicians. While the
East was afflicted by the passions of Verina, her daughter
Ariadne was distinguished by the female virtues of mildness and
fidelity; she followed her husband in his exile, and after his
restoration, she implored his clemency in favor of her mother. On
the decease of Zeno, Ariadne, the daughter, the mother, and the
widow of an emperor, gave her hand and the Imperial title to
Anastasius, an aged domestic of the palace, who survived his
elevation above twenty-seven years, and whose character is
attested by the acclamation of the people, “Reign as you have
lived!” 9 912
6 (return) [ Theophanes (p. 111) inserts a copy of her sacred
letters to the provinces. Such female pretensions would have
astonished the slaves of the first Caesars.]
7 (return) [ Vol. iii. p. 504—508.]
8 (return) [ Suidas, tom. i. p. 332, 333, edit. Kuster.]
811 (return) [ Joannes Lydus accuses Zeno of timidity, or,
rather, of cowardice; he purchased an ignominious peace from the
enemies of the empire, whom he dared not meet in battle; and
employed his whole time at home in confiscations and executions.
Lydus, de Magist. iii. 45, p. 230.—M.]
812 (return) [ Named Illus.—M.]
9 (return) [ The contemporary histories of Malchus and Candidus
are lost; but some extracts or fragments have been saved by
Photius, (lxxviii. lxxix. p. 100—102,) Constantine
Porphyrogenitus, (Excerpt. Leg. p. 78—97,) and in various
articles of the Lexicon of Suidas. The Chronicles of Marcellinus
(Imago Historiae) are originals for the reigns of Zeno and
Anastasius; and I must acknowledge, almost for the last time, my
obligations to the large and accurate collections of Tillemont,
(Hist. des Emp. tom. vi. p. 472—652).]
912 (return) [ The Panegyric of Procopius of Gaza, (edited by
Villoison in his Anecdota Graeca, and reprinted in the new
edition of the Byzantine historians by Niebuhr, in the same vol.
with Dexippus and Eunapius, viii. p. 488 516,) was unknown to
Gibbon. It is vague and pedantic, and contains few facts. The
same criticism will apply to the poetical panegyric of Priscian
edited from the Ms. of Bobbio by Ang. Mai. Priscian, the gram
marian, Niebuhr argues from this work, must have been born in the
African, not in either of the Asiatic Caesareas. Pref. p. xi.—M.]
Whatever fear or affection could bestow, was profusely lavished
by Zeno on the king of the Ostrogoths; the rank of patrician and
consul, the command of the Palatine troops, an equestrian statue,
a treasure in gold and silver of many thousand pounds, the name
of son, and the promise of a rich and honorable wife. As long as
Theodoric condescended to serve, he supported with courage and
fidelity the cause of his benefactor; his rapid march contributed
to the restoration of Zeno; and in the second revolt, the
Walamirs, as they were called, pursued and pressed the Asiatic
rebels, till they left an easy victory to the Imperial troops. 10
But the faithful servant was suddenly converted into a formidable
enemy, who spread the flames of war from Constantinople to the
Adriatic; many flourishing cities were reduced to ashes, and the
agriculture of Thrace was almost extirpated by the wanton cruelty
of the Goths, who deprived their captive peasants of the right
hand that guided the plough. 11 On such occasions, Theodoric
sustained the loud and specious reproach of disloyalty, of
ingratitude, and of insatiate avarice, which could be only
excused by the hard necessity of his situation. He reigned, not
as the monarch, but as the minister of a ferocious people, whose
spirit was unbroken by slavery, and impatient of real or
imaginary insults. Their poverty was incurable; since the most
liberal donatives were soon dissipated in wasteful luxury, and
the most fertile estates became barren in their hands; they
despised, but they envied, the laborious provincials; and when
their subsistence had failed, the Ostrogoths embraced the
familiar resources of war and rapine. It had been the wish of
Theodoric (such at least was his declaration) to lead a peaceful,
obscure, obedient life on the confines of Scythia, till the
Byzantine court, by splendid and fallacious promises, seduced him
to attack a confederate tribe of Goths, who had been engaged in
the party of Basiliscus. He marched from his station in Maesia,
on the solemn assurance that before he reached Adrianople, he
should meet a plentiful convoy of provisions, and a reenforcement
of eight thousand horse and thirty thousand foot, while the
legions of Asia were encamped at Heraclea to second his
operations. These measures were disappointed by mutual jealousy.
As he advanced into Thrace, the son of Theodemir found an
inhospitable solitude, and his Gothic followers, with a heavy
train of horses, of mules, and of wagons, were betrayed by their
guides among the rocks and precipices of Mount Sondis, where he
was assaulted by the arms and invectives of Theodoric the son of
Triarius. From a neighboring height, his artful rival harangued
the camp of the Walamirs, and branded their leader with the
opprobrious names of child, of madman, of perjured traitor, the
enemy of his blood and nation. “Are you ignorant,” exclaimed the
son of Triarius, “that it is the constant policy of the Romans to
destroy the Goths by each other’s swords? Are you insensible that
the victor in this unnatural contest will be exposed, and justly
exposed, to their implacable revenge? Where are those warriors,
my kinsmen and thy own, whose widows now lament that their lives
were sacrificed to thy rash ambition? Where is the wealth which
thy soldiers possessed when they were first allured from their
native homes to enlist under thy standard? Each of them was then
master of three or four horses; they now follow thee on foot,
like slaves, through the deserts of Thrace; those men who were
tempted by the hope of measuring gold with a bushel, those brave
men who are as free and as noble as thyself.” A language so well
suited to the temper of the Goths excited clamor and discontent;
and the son of Theodemir, apprehensive of being left alone, was
compelled to embrace his brethren, and to imitate the example of
Roman perfidy. 12 1211
10 (return) [ In ipsis congressionis tuae foribus cessit invasor,
cum profugo per te sceptra redderentur de salute dubitanti.
Ennodius then proceeds (p. 1596, 1597, tom. i. Sirmond.) to
transport his hero (on a flying dragon?) into Aethiopia, beyond
the tropic of Cancer. The evidence of the Valesian Fragment, (p.
717,) Liberatus, (Brev. Eutych. c. 25 p. 118,) and Theophanes,
(p. 112,) is more sober and rational.]
11 (return) [ This cruel practice is specially imputed to the
Triarian Goths, less barbarous, as it should seem, than the
Walamirs; but the son of Theodemir is charged with the ruin of
many Roman cities, (Malchus, Excerpt. Leg. p. 95.)]
12 (return) [ Jornandes (c. 56, 57, p. 696) displays the services
of Theodoric, confesses his rewards, but dissembles his revolt,
of which such curious details have been preserved by Malchus,
(Excerpt. Legat. p. 78—97.) Marcellinus, a domestic of Justinian,
under whose ivth consulship (A.D. 534) he composed his Chronicle,
(Scaliger, Thesaurus Temporum, P. ii, p. 34—57,) betrays his
prejudice and passion: in Graeciam debacchantem ...Zenonis
munificentia pene pacatus...beneficiis nunquam satiatus, &c.]
1211 (return) [ Gibbon has omitted much of the complicated
intrigues of the Byzantine court with the two Theodorics. The
weak emperor attempted to play them one against the other, and
was himself in turn insulted, and the empire ravaged, by both.
The details of the successive alliance and revolt, of hostility
and of union, between the two Gothic chieftains, to dictate terms
to the emperor, may be found in Malchus.—M.]
In every state of his fortune, the prudence and firmness of
Theodoric were equally conspicuous; whether he threatened
Constantinople at the head of the confederate Goths, or retreated
with a faithful band to the mountains and sea-coast of Epirus. At
length the accidental death of the son of Triarius 13 destroyed
the balance which the Romans had been so anxious to preserve, the
whole nation acknowledged the supremacy of the Amali, and the
Byzantine court subscribed an ignominious and oppressive treaty.
14 The senate had already declared, that it was necessary to
choose a party among the Goths, since the public was unequal to
the support of their united forces; a subsidy of two thousand
pounds of gold, with the ample pay of thirteen thousand men, were
required for the least considerable of their armies; 15 and the
Isaurians, who guarded not the empire but the emperor, enjoyed,
besides the privilege of rapine, an annual pension of five
thousand pounds. The sagacious mind of Theodoric soon perceived
that he was odious to the Romans, and suspected by the
Barbarians: he understood the popular murmur, that his subjects
were exposed in their frozen huts to intolerable hardships, while
their king was dissolved in the luxury of Greece, and he
prevented the painful alternative of encountering the Goths, as
the champion, or of leading them to the field, as the enemy, of
Zeno. Embracing an enterprise worthy of his courage and ambition,
Theodoric addressed the emperor in the following words: “Although
your servant is maintained in affluence by your liberality,
graciously listen to the wishes of my heart! Italy, the
inheritance of your predecessors, and Rome itself, the head and
mistress of the world, now fluctuate under the violence and
oppression of Odoacer the mercenary. Direct me, with my national
troops, to march against the tyrant. If I fall, you will be
relieved from an expensive and troublesome friend: if, with the
divine permission, I succeed, I shall govern in your name, and to
your glory, the Roman senate, and the part of the republic
delivered from slavery by my victorious arms.” The proposal of
Theodoric was accepted, and perhaps had been suggested, by the
Byzantine court. But the forms of the commission, or grant,
appear to have been expressed with a prudent ambiguity, which
might be explained by the event; and it was left doubtful,
whether the conqueror of Italy should reign as the lieutenant,
the vassal, or the ally, of the emperor of the East.16
13 (return) [ As he was riding in his own camp, an unruly horse
threw him against the point of a spear which hung before a tent,
or was fixed on a wagon, (Marcellin. in Chron. Evagrius, l. iii.
c. 25.)]
14 (return) [ See Malchus (p. 91) and Evagrius, (l. iii. c. 35.)]
15 (return) [ Malchus, p. 85. In a single action, which was
decided by the skill and discipline of Sabinian, Theodoric could
lose 5000 men.] [Footnote 16: Jornandes (c. 57, p. 696, 697) has
abridged the great history of Cassiodorus. See, compare, and
reconcile Procopius, (Gothic. l. i. c. i.,) the Valesian
Fragment, (p. 718,) Theophanes, (p. 113,) and Marcellinus, (in
Chron.)]
16 (return) [ Jordanes (c. 57, p. 696, 697) has abridged the
great history of Cassiodorus. See, compare, and reconcile,
Procopius (Gothic. 1. i. c. i.), the Valesian Fragment (p.718),
Theophanes (p. 113), and Marcellinus (in Chron.).]
The reputation both of the leader and of the war diffused a
universal ardor; the Walamirs were multiplied by the Gothic
swarms already engaged in the service, or seated in the
provinces, of the empire; and each bold Barbarian, who had heard
of the wealth and beauty of Italy, was impatient to seek, through
the most perilous adventures, the possession of such enchanting
objects. The march of Theodoric must be considered as the
emigration of an entire people; the wives and children of the
Goths, their aged parents, and most precious effects, were
carefully transported; and some idea may be formed of the heavy
baggage that now followed the camp, by the loss of two thousand
wagons, which had been sustained in a single action in the war of
Epirus. For their subsistence, the Goths depended on the
magazines of corn which was ground in portable mills by the hands
of their women; on the milk and flesh of their flocks and herds;
on the casual produce of the chase, and upon the contributions
which they might impose on all who should presume to dispute the
passage, or to refuse their friendly assistance. Notwithstanding
these precautions, they were exposed to the danger, and almost to
the distress, of famine, in a march of seven hundred miles, which
had been undertaken in the depth of a rigorous winter. Since the
fall of the Roman power, Dacia and Pannonia no longer exhibited
the rich prospect of populous cities, well-cultivated fields, and
convenient highways: the reign of barbarism and desolation was
restored, and the tribes of Bulgarians, Gepidae, and Sarmatians,
who had occupied the vacant province, were prompted by their
native fierceness, or the solicitations of Odoacer, to resist the
progress of his enemy. In many obscure though bloody battles,
Theodoric fought and vanquished; till at length, surmounting
every obstacle by skilful conduct and persevering courage, he
descended from the Julian Alps, and displayed his invincible
banners on the confines of Italy. 17
17 (return) [ Theodoric’s march is supplied and illustrated by
Ennodius, (p. 1598—1602,) when the bombast of the oration is
translated into the language of common sense.]
Odoacer, a rival not unworthy of his arms, had already occupied
the advantageous and well-known post of the River Sontius, near
the ruins of Aquileia, at the head of a powerful host, whose
independent kings 18 or leaders disdained the duties of
subordination and the prudence of delays. No sooner had Theodoric
gained a short repose and refreshment to his wearied cavalry,
than he boldly attacked the fortifications of the enemy; the
Ostrogoths showed more ardor to acquire, than the mercenaries to
defend, the lands of Italy; and the reward of the first victory
was the possession of the Venetian province as far as the walls
of Verona. In the neighborhood of that city, on the steep banks
of the rapid Adige, he was opposed by a new army, reenforced in
its numbers, and not impaired in its courage: the contest was
more obstinate, but the event was still more decisive; Odoacer
fled to Ravenna, Theodoric advanced to Milan, and the vanquished
troops saluted their conqueror with loud acclamations of respect
and fidelity. But their want either of constancy or of faith soon
exposed him to the most imminent danger; his vanguard, with
several Gothic counts, which had been rashly intrusted to a
deserter, was betrayed and destroyed near Faenza by his double
treachery; Odoacer again appeared master of the field, and the
invader, strongly intrenched in his camp of Pavia, was reduced to
solicit the aid of a kindred nation, the Visigoths of Gaul. In
the course of this History, the most voracious appetite for war
will be abundantly satiated; nor can I much lament that our dark
and imperfect materials do not afford a more ample narrative of
the distress of Italy, and of the fierce conflict, which was
finally decided by the abilities, experience, and valor of the
Gothic king. Immediately before the battle of Verona, he visited
the tent of his mother 19 and sister, and requested, that on a
day, the most illustrious festival of his life, they would adorn
him with the rich garments which they had worked with their own
hands. “Our glory,” said he, “is mutual and inseparable. You are
known to the world as the mother of Theodoric; and it becomes me
to prove, that I am the genuine offspring of those heroes from
whom I claim my descent.” The wife or concubine of Theodemir was
inspired with the spirit of the German matrons, who esteemed
their sons’ honor far above their safety; and it is reported,
that in a desperate action, when Theodoric himself was hurried
along by the torrent of a flying crowd, she boldly met them at
the entrance of the camp, and, by her generous reproaches, drove
them back on the swords of the enemy. 20
18 (return) [ Tot reges, &c., (Ennodius, p. 1602.) We must
recollect how much the royal title was multiplied and degraded,
and that the mercenaries of Italy were the fragments of many
tribes and nations.]
19 (return) [ See Ennodius, p. 1603, 1604. Since the orator, in
the king’s presence, could mention and praise his mother, we may
conclude that the magnanimity of Theodoric was not hurt by the
vulgar reproaches of concubine and bastard. * Note: Gibbon here
assumes that the mother of Theodoric was the concubine of
Theodemir, which he leaves doubtful in the text.—M.]
20 (return) [ This anecdote is related on the modern but
respectable authority of Sigonius, (Op. tom. i. p. 580. De
Occident. Impl. l. xv.:) his words are curious: “Would you
return?” &c. She presented and almost displayed the original
recess. * Note: The authority of Sigonius would scarcely have
weighed with Gibbon except for an indecent anecdote. I have a
recollection of a similar story in some of the Italian wars.—M.]
From the Alps to the extremity of Calabria, Theodoric reigned by
the right of conquest; the Vandal ambassadors surrendered the
Island of Sicily, as a lawful appendage of his kingdom; and he
was accepted as the deliverer of Rome by the senate and people,
who had shut their gates against the flying usurper. 21 Ravenna
alone, secure in the fortifications of art and nature, still
sustained a siege of almost three years; and the daring sallies
of Odoacer carried slaughter and dismay into the Gothic camp. At
length, destitute of provisions and hopeless of relief, that
unfortunate monarch yielded to the groans of his subjects and the
clamors of his soldiers. A treaty of peace was negotiated by the
bishop of Ravenna; the Ostrogoths were admitted into the city,
and the hostile kings consented, under the sanction of an oath,
to rule with equal and undivided authority the provinces of
Italy. The event of such an agreement may be easily foreseen.
After some days had been devoted to the semblance of joy and
friendship, Odoacer, in the midst of a solemn banquet, was
stabbed by the hand, or at least by the command, of his rival.
Secret and effectual orders had been previously despatched; the
faithless and rapacious mercenaries, at the same moment, and
without resistance, were universally massacred; and the royalty
of Theodoric was proclaimed by the Goths, with the tardy,
reluctant, ambiguous consent of the emperor of the East. The
design of a conspiracy was imputed, according to the usual forms,
to the prostrate tyrant; but his innocence, and the guilt of his
conqueror, 22 are sufficiently proved by the advantageous treaty
which force would not sincerely have granted, nor weakness have
rashly infringed. The jealousy of power, and the mischiefs of
discord, may suggest a more decent apology, and a sentence less
rigorous may be pronounced against a crime which was necessary to
introduce into Italy a generation of public felicity. The living
author of this felicity was audaciously praised in his own
presence by sacred and profane orators; 23 but history (in his
time she was mute and inglorious) has not left any just
representation of the events which displayed, or of the defects
which clouded, the virtues of Theodoric. 24 One record of his
fame, the volume of public epistles composed by Cassiodorus in
the royal name, is still extant, and has obtained more implicit
credit than it seems to deserve. 25 They exhibit the forms,
rather than the substance, of his government; and we should
vainly search for the pure and spontaneous sentiments of the
Barbarian amidst the declamation and learning of a sophist, the
wishes of a Roman senator, the precedents of office, and the
vague professions, which, in every court, and on every occasion,
compose the language of discreet ministers. The reputation of
Theodoric may repose with more confidence on the visible peace
and prosperity of a reign of thirty-three years; the unanimous
esteem of his own times, and the memory of his wisdom and
courage, his justice and humanity, which was deeply impressed on
the minds of the Goths and Italians.
21 (return) [ Hist. Miscell. l. xv., a Roman history from Janus
to the ixth century, an Epitome of Eutropius, Paulus Diaconus,
and Theophanes which Muratori has published from a Ms. in the
Ambrosian library, (Script. Rerum Italicarum, tom. i. p. 100.)]
22 (return) [ Procopius (Gothic. l. i. c. i.) approves himself an
impartial sceptic. Cassiodorus (in Chron.) and Ennodius (p. 1604)
are loyal and credulous, and the testimony of the Valesian
Fragment (p. 718) may justify their belief. Marcellinus spits the
venom of a Greek subject—perjuriis illectus, interfectusque est,
(in Chron.)]
23 (return) [ The sonorous and servile oration of Ennodius was
pronounced at Milan or Ravenna in the years 507 or 508, (Sirmond,
tom. i. p. 615.) Two or three years afterwards, the orator was
rewarded with the bishopric of Pavia, which he held till his
death in the year 521. (Dupin, Bibliot. Eccles. tom. v. p. 11-14.
See Saxii Onomasticon, tom. ii. p. 12.)]
24 (return) [ Our best materials are occasional hints from
Procopius and the Valesian Fragment, which was discovered by
Sirmond, and is published at the end of Ammianus Marcellinus. The
author’s name is unknown, and his style is barbarous; but in his
various facts he exhibits the knowledge, without the passions, of
a contemporary. The president Montesquieu had formed the plan of
a history of Theodoric, which at a distance might appear a rich
and interesting subject.]
25 (return) [ The best edition of the Variarum Libri xii. is that
of Joh. Garretius, (Rotomagi, 1679, in Opp. Cassiodor. 2 vols. in
fol.;) but they deserved and required such an editor as the
Marquis Scipio Maffei, who thought of publishing them at Verona.
The Barbara Eleganza (as it is ingeniously named by Tiraboschi)
is never simple, and seldom perspicuous]
The partition of the lands of Italy, of which Theodoric assigned
the third part to his soldiers, is honorably arraigned as the
sole injustice of his life. 2511 And even this act may be fairly
justified by the example of Odoacer, the rights of conquest, the
true interest of the Italians, and the sacred duty of subsisting
a whole people, who, on the faith of his promises, had
transported themselves into a distant land. 26 Under the reign of
Theodoric, and in the happy climate of Italy, the Goths soon
multiplied to a formidable host of two hundred thousand men, 27
and the whole amount of their families may be computed by the
ordinary addition of women and children. Their invasion of
property, a part of which must have been already vacant, was
disguised by the generous but improper name of hospitality; these
unwelcome guests were irregularly dispersed over the face of
Italy, and the lot of each Barbarian was adequate to his birth
and office, the number of his followers, and the rustic wealth
which he possessed in slaves and cattle. The distinction of noble
and plebeian were acknowledged; 28 but the lands of every freeman
were exempt from taxes, 2811 and he enjoyed the inestimable
privilege of being subject only to the laws of his country. 29
Fashion, and even convenience, soon persuaded the conquerors to
assume the more elegant dress of the natives, but they still
persisted in the use of their mother-tongue; and their contempt
for the Latin schools was applauded by Theodoric himself, who
gratified their prejudices, or his own, by declaring, that the
child who had trembled at a rod, would never dare to look upon a
sword. 30 Distress might sometimes provoke the indigent Roman to
assume the ferocious manners which were insensibly relinquished
by the rich and luxurious Barbarian; 31 but these mutual
conversions were not encouraged by the policy of a monarch who
perpetuated the separation of the Italians and Goths; reserving
the former for the arts of peace, and the latter for the service
of war. To accomplish this design, he studied to protect his
industrious subjects, and to moderate the violence, without
enervating the valor, of his soldiers, who were maintained for
the public defence. They held their lands and benefices as a
military stipend: at the sound of the trumpet, they were prepared
to march under the conduct of their provincial officers; and the
whole extent of Italy was distributed into the several quarters
of a well-regulated camp. The service of the palace and of the
frontiers was performed by choice or by rotation; and each
extraordinary fatigue was recompensed by an increase of pay and
occasional donatives. Theodoric had convinced his brave
companions, that empire must be acquired and defended by the same
arts. After his example, they strove to excel in the use, not
only of the lance and sword, the instruments of their victories,
but of the missile weapons, which they were too much inclined to
neglect; and the lively image of war was displayed in the daily
exercise and annual reviews of the Gothic cavalry. A firm though
gentle discipline imposed the habits of modesty, obedience, and
temperance; and the Goths were instructed to spare the people, to
reverence the laws, to understand the duties of civil society,
and to disclaim the barbarous license of judicial combat and
private revenge. 32
2511 (return) [ Compare Gibbon, ch. xxxvi. vol. iii. p. 459,
&c.—Manso observes that this division was conducted not in a
violent and irregular, but in a legal and orderly, manner. The
Barbarian, who could not show a title of grant from the officers
of Theodoric appointed for the purpose, or a prescriptive right
of thirty years, in case he had obtained the property before the
Ostrogothic conquest, was ejected from the estate. He conceives
that estates too small to bear division paid a third of their
produce.—Geschichte des Os Gothischen Reiches, p. 82.—M.]
26 (return) [ Procopius, Gothic, l. i. c. i. Variarum, ii. Maffei
(Verona Illustrata, P. i. p. 228) exaggerates the injustice of
the Goths, whom he hated as an Italian noble. The plebeian
Muratori crouches under their oppression.]
27 (return) [ Procopius, Goth. l. iii. c. 421. Ennodius describes
(p. 1612, 1613) the military arts and increasing numbers of the
Goths.]
28 (return) [ When Theodoric gave his sister to the king of the
Vandals she sailed for Africa with a guard of 1000 noble Goths,
each of whom was attended by five armed followers, (Procop.
Vandal. l. i. c. 8.) The Gothic nobility must have been as
numerous as brave.]
2811 (return) [ Manso (p. 100) quotes two passages from
Cassiodorus to show that the Goths were not exempt from the
fiscal claims.—Cassiodor, i. 19, iv. 14—M.]
29 (return) [ See the acknowledgment of Gothic liberty, (Var. v.
30.)]
30 (return) [ Procopius, Goth. l. i. c. 2. The Roman boys learnt
the language (Var. viii. 21) of the Goths. Their general
ignorance is not destroyed by the exceptions of Amalasuntha, a
female, who might study without shame, or of Theodatus, whose
learning provoked the indignation and contempt of his
countrymen.]
31 (return) [ A saying of Theodoric was founded on experience:
“Romanus miser imitatur Gothum; ut utilis (dives) Gothus imitatur
Romanum.” (See the Fragment and Notes of Valesius, p. 719.)]
32 (return) [ The view of the military establishment of the Goths
in Italy is collected from the Epistles of Cassiodorus (Var. i.
24, 40; iii. 3, 24, 48; iv. 13, 14; v. 26, 27; viii. 3, 4, 25.)
They are illustrated by the learned Mascou, (Hist. of the
Germans, l. xi. 40—44, Annotation xiv.) Note: Compare Manso,
Geschichte des Ost Gothischen Reiches, p. 114.—M.]
Chapter XXXIX: Gothic Kingdom Of Italy.—Part II.
Among the Barbarians of the West, the victory of Theodoric had
spread a general alarm. But as soon as it appeared that he was
satisfied with conquest and desirous of peace, terror was changed
into respect, and they submitted to a powerful mediation, which
was uniformly employed for the best purposes of reconciling their
quarrels and civilizing their manners. 33 The ambassadors who
resorted to Ravenna from the most distant countries of Europe,
admired his wisdom, magnificence, 34 and courtesy; and if he
sometimes accepted either slaves or arms, white horses or strange
animals, the gift of a sun-dial, a water-clock, or a musician,
admonished even the princes of Gaul of the superior art and
industry of his Italian subjects. His domestic alliances, 35 a
wife, two daughters, a sister, and a niece, united the family of
Theodoric with the kings of the Franks, the Burgundians, the
Visigoths, the Vandals, and the Thuringians, and contributed to
maintain the harmony, or at least the balance, of the great
republic of the West. 36 It is difficult in the dark forests of
Germany and Poland to pursue the emigrations of the Heruli, a
fierce people who disdained the use of armor, and who condemned
their widows and aged parents not to survive the loss of their
husbands, or the decay of their strength. 37 The king of these
savage warriors solicited the friendship of Theodoric, and was
elevated to the rank of his son, according to the barbaric rites
of a military adoption. 38 From the shores of the Baltic, the
Aestians or Livonians laid their offerings of native amber 39 at
the feet of a prince, whose fame had excited them to undertake an
unknown and dangerous journey of fifteen hundred miles. With the
country 40 from whence the Gothic nation derived their origin, he
maintained a frequent and friendly correspondence: the Italians
were clothed in the rich sables 41 of Sweden; and one of its
sovereigns, after a voluntary or reluctant abdication, found a
hospitable retreat in the palace of Ravenna. He had reigned over
one of the thirteen populous tribes who cultivated a small
portion of the great island or peninsula of Scandinavia, to which
the vague appellation of Thule has been sometimes applied. That
northern region was peopled, or had been explored, as high as the
sixty-eighth degree of latitude, where the natives of the polar
circle enjoy and lose the presence of the sun at each summer and
winter solstice during an equal period of forty days. 42 The long
night of his absence or death was the mournful season of distress
and anxiety, till the messengers, who had been sent to the
mountain tops, descried the first rays of returning light, and
proclaimed to the plain below the festival of his resurrection.
43
33 (return) [ See the clearness and vigor of his negotiations in
Ennodius, (p. 1607,) and Cassiodorus, (Var. iii. 1, 2, 3, 4; iv.
13; v. 43, 44,) who gives the different styles of friendship,
counsel expostulation, &c.]
34 (return) [ Even of his table (Var. vi. 9) and palace, (vii.
5.) The admiration of strangers is represented as the most
rational motive to justify these vain expenses, and to stimulate
the diligence of the officers to whom these provinces were
intrusted.]
35 (return) [ See the public and private alliances of the Gothic
monarch, with the Burgundians, (Var. i. 45, 46,) with the Franks,
(ii. 40,) with the Thuringians, (iv. 1,) and with the Vandals,
(v. 1;) each of these epistles affords some curious knowledge of
the policy and manners of the Barbarians.]
36 (return) [ His political system may be observed in
Cassiodorus, (Var. iv. l ix. l,) Jornandes, (c. 58, p. 698, 699,)
and the Valesian Fragment, (p. 720, 721.) Peace, honorable peace,
was the constant aim of Theodoric.]
37 (return) [ The curious reader may contemplate the Heruli of
Procopius, (Goth. l. ii. c. 14,) and the patient reader may
plunge into the dark and minute researches of M. de Buat, (Hist.
des Peuples Anciens, tom. ix. p. 348—396. * Note: Compare Manso,
Ost Gothische Reich. Beylage, vi. Malte-Brun brings them from
Scandinavia: their names, the only remains of their language, are
Gothic. “They fought almost naked, like the Icelandic Berserkirs
their bravery was like madness: few in number, they were mostly
of royal blood. What ferocity, what unrestrained license, sullied
their victories! The Goth respects the church, the priests, the
senate; the Heruli mangle all in a general massacre: there is no
pity for age, no refuge for chastity. Among themselves there is
the same ferocity: the sick and the aged are put to death. at
their own request, during a solemn festival; the widow ends her
days by hanging herself upon the tree which shadows her husband’s
tomb. All these circumstances, so striking to a mind familiar
with Scandinavian history, lead us to discover among the Heruli
not so much a nation as a confederacy of princes and nobles,
bound by an oath to live and die together with their arms in
their hands. Their name, sometimes written Heruli or Eruli.
sometimes Aeruli, signified, according to an ancient author,
(Isid. Hispal. in gloss. p. 24, ad calc. Lex. Philolog. Martini,
ll,) nobles, and appears to correspond better with the
Scandinavian word iarl or earl, than with any of those numerous
derivations proposed by etymologists.” Malte-Brun, vol. i. p.
400, (edit. 1831.) Of all the Barbarians who threw themselves on
the ruins of the Roman empire, it is most difficult to trace the
origin of the Heruli. They seem never to have been very powerful
as a nation, and branches of them are found in countries very
remote from each other. In my opinion they belong to the Gothic
race, and have a close affinity with the Scyrri or Hirri. They
were, possibly, a division of that nation. They are often mingled
and confounded with the Alani. Though brave and formidable. they
were never numerous. nor did they found any state.—St. Martin,
vol. vi. p. 375.—M. Schafarck considers them descendants of the
Hirri. of which Heruli is a diminutive,—Slawische Alter
thinner—M. 1845.]
38 (return) [ Variarum, iv. 2. The spirit and forms of this
martial institution are noticed by Cassiodorus; but he seems to
have only translated the sentiments of the Gothic king into the
language of Roman eloquence.]
39 (return) [ Cassiodorus, who quotes Tacitus to the Aestians,
the unlettered savages of the Baltic, (Var. v. 2,) describes the
amber for which their shores have ever been famous, as the gum of
a tree, hardened by the sun, and purified and wafted by the
waves. When that singular substance is analyzed by the chemists,
it yields a vegetable oil and a mineral acid.]
40 (return) [ Scanzia, or Thule, is described by Jornandes (c. 3,
p. 610—613) and Procopius, (Goth. l. ii. c. 15.) Neither the Goth
nor the Greek had visited the country: both had conversed with
the natives in their exile at Ravenna or Constantinople.]
41 (return) [ Sapherinas pelles. In the time of Jornandes they
inhabited Suethans, the proper Sweden; but that beautiful race of
animals has gradually been driven into the eastern parts of
Siberia. See Buffon, (Hist. Nat. tom. xiii. p. 309—313, quarto
edition;) Pennant, (System of Quadrupeds, vol. i. p. 322—328;)
Gmelin, (Hist. Gen des. Voyages, tom. xviii. p. 257, 258;) and
Levesque, (Hist. de Russie, tom. v. p. 165, 166, 514, 515.)]
42 (return) [ In the system or romance of Mr. Bailly, (Lettres
sur les Sciences et sur l’Atlantide, tom. i. p. 249—256, tom. ii.
p. 114—139,) the phoenix of the Edda, and the annual death and
revival of Adonis and Osiris, are the allegorical symbols of the
absence and return of the sun in the Arctic regions. This
ingenious writer is a worthy disciple of the great Buffon; nor is
it easy for the coldest reason to withstand the magic of their
philosophy.]
43 (return) [ Says Procopius. At present a rude Manicheism
(generous enough) prevails among the Samoyedes in Greenland and
in Lapland, (Hist. des Voyages, tom. xviii. p. 508, 509, tom.
xix. p. 105, 106, 527, 528;) yet, according to Orotius Samojutae
coelum atque astra adorant, numina haud aliis iniquiora, (de
Rebus Belgicis, l. iv. p. 338, folio edition) a sentence which
Tacitus would not have disowned.]
The life of Theodoric represents the rare and meritorious example
of a Barbarian, who sheathed his sword in the pride of victory
and the vigor of his age. A reign of three and thirty years was
consecrated to the duties of civil government, and the
hostilities, in which he was sometimes involved, were speedily
terminated by the conduct of his lieutenants, the discipline of
his troops, the arms of his allies, and even by the terror of his
name. He reduced, under a strong and regular government, the
unprofitable countries of Rhaetia, Noricum, Dalmatia, and
Pannonia, from the source of the Danube and the territory of the
Bavarians, 44 to the petty kingdom erected by the Gepidae on the
ruins of Sirmium. His prudence could not safely intrust the
bulwark of Italy to such feeble and turbulent neighbors; and his
justice might claim the lands which they oppressed, either as a
part of his kingdom, or as the inheritance of his father. The
greatness of a servant, who was named perfidious because he was
successful, awakened the jealousy of the emperor Anastasius; and
a war was kindled on the Dacian frontier, by the protection which
the Gothic king, in the vicissitude of human affairs, had granted
to one of the descendants of Attila. Sabinian, a general
illustrious by his own and father’s merit, advanced at the head
of ten thousand Romans; and the provisions and arms, which filled
a long train of wagons, were distributed to the fiercest of the
Bulgarian tribes. But in the fields of Margus, the eastern powers
were defeated by the inferior forces of the Goths and Huns; the
flower and even the hope of the Roman armies was irretrievably
destroyed; and such was the temperance with which Theodoric had
inspired his victorious troops, that, as their leader had not
given the signal of pillage, the rich spoils of the enemy lay
untouched at their feet. 45 Exasperated by this disgrace, the
Byzantine court despatched two hundred ships and eight thousand
men to plunder the sea-coast of Calabria and Apulia: they
assaulted the ancient city of Tarentum, interrupted the trade and
agriculture of a happy country, and sailed back to the
Hellespont, proud of their piratical victory over a people whom
they still presumed to consider as their Roman brethren. 46 Their
retreat was possibly hastened by the activity of Theodoric; Italy
was covered by a fleet of a thousand light vessels, 47 which he
constructed with incredible despatch; and his firm moderation was
soon rewarded by a solid and honorable peace. He maintained, with
a powerful hand, the balance of the West, till it was at length
overthrown by the ambition of Clovis; and although unable to
assist his rash and unfortunate kinsman, the king of the
Visigoths, he saved the remains of his family and people, and
checked the Franks in the midst of their victorious career. I am
not desirous to prolong or repeat 48 this narrative of military
events, the least interesting of the reign of Theodoric; and
shall be content to add, that the Alemanni were protected, 49
that an inroad of the Burgundians was severely chastised, and
that the conquest of Arles and Marseilles opened a free
communication with the Visigoths, who revered him as their
national protector, and as the guardian of his grandchild, the
infant son of Alaric. Under this respectable character, the king
of Italy restored the praetorian præfecture of the Gauls,
reformed some abuses in the civil government of Spain, and
accepted the annual tribute and apparent submission of its
military governor, who wisely refused to trust his person in the
palace of Ravenna. 50 The Gothic sovereignty was established from
Sicily to the Danube, from Sirmium or Belgrade to the Atlantic
Ocean; and the Greeks themselves have acknowledged that Theodoric
reigned over the fairest portion of the Western empire. 51
44 (return) [ See the Hist. des Peuples Anciens, &c., tom. ix. p.
255—273, 396—501. The count de Buat was French minister at the
court of Bavaria: a liberal curiosity prompted his inquiries into
the antiquities of the country, and that curiosity was the germ
of twelve respectable volumes.]
45 (return) [ See the Gothic transactions on the Danube and the
Illyricum, in Jornandes, (c. 58, p. 699;) Ennodius, (p.
1607-1610;) Marcellmus (in Chron. p. 44, 47, 48;) and
Cassiodorus, in (in Chron and Var. iii. 29 50, iv. 13, vii. 4 24,
viii. 9, 10, 11, 21, ix. 8, 9.)]
46 (return) [ I cannot forbear transcribing the liberal and
classic style of Count Marcellinus: Romanus comes domesticorum,
et Rusticus comes scholariorum cum centum armatis navibus,
totidemque dromonibus, octo millia militum armatorum secum
ferentibus, ad devastanda Italiae littora processerunt, ut usque
ad Tarentum antiquissimam civitatem aggressi sunt; remensoque
mari in honestam victoriam quam piratico ausu Romani ex Romanis
rapuerunt, Anastasio Caesari reportarunt, (in Chron. p. 48.) See
Variar. i. 16, ii. 38.]
47 (return) [ See the royal orders and instructions, (Var. iv.
15, v. 16—20.) These armed boats should be still smaller than the
thousand vessels of Agamemnon at the siege of Troy. (Manso, p.
121.)]
48 (return) [ Vol. iii. p. 581—585.]
49 (return) [ Ennodius (p. 1610) and Cassiodorus, in the royal
name, (Var. ii 41,) record his salutary protection of the
Alemanni.]
50 (return) [ The Gothic transactions in Gaul and Spain are
represented with some perplexity in Cassiodorus, (Var. iii. 32,
38, 41, 43, 44, v. 39.) Jornandes, (c. 58, p. 698, 699,) and
Procopius, (Goth. l. i. c. 12.) I will neither hear nor reconcile
the long and contradictory arguments of the Abbe Dubos and the
Count de Buat, about the wars of Burgundy.]
51 (return) [ Theophanes, p. 113.]
The union of the Goths and Romans might have fixed for ages the
transient happiness of Italy; and the first of nations, a new
people of free subjects and enlightened soldiers, might have
gradually arisen from the mutual emulation of their respective
virtues. But the sublime merit of guiding or seconding such a
revolution was not reserved for the reign of Theodoric: he wanted
either the genius or the opportunities of a legislator; 52 and
while he indulged the Goths in the enjoyment of rude liberty, he
servilely copied the institutions, and even the abuses, of the
political system which had been framed by Constantine and his
successors. From a tender regard to the expiring prejudices of
Rome, the Barbarian declined the name, the purple, and the
diadem, of the emperors; but he assumed, under the hereditary
title of king, the whole substance and plenitude of Imperial
prerogative. 53 His addresses to the eastern throne were
respectful and ambiguous: he celebrated, in pompous style, the
harmony of the two republics, applauded his own government as the
perfect similitude of a sole and undivided empire, and claimed
above the kings of the earth the same preeminence which he
modestly allowed to the person or rank of Anastasius. The
alliance of the East and West was annually declared by the
unanimous choice of two consuls; but it should seem that the
Italian candidate who was named by Theodoric accepted a formal
confirmation from the sovereign of Constantinople. 54 The Gothic
palace of Ravenna reflected the image of the court of Theodosius
or Valentinian. The Praetorian præfect, the præfect of Rome, the
quaestor, the master of the offices, with the public and
patrimonial treasurers, 5411 whose functions are painted in gaudy
colors by the rhetoric of Cassiodorus, still continued to act as
the ministers of state. And the subordinate care of justice and
the revenue was delegated to seven consulars, three correctors,
and five presidents, who governed the fifteen regions of Italy
according to the principles, and even the forms, of Roman
jurisprudence. 55 The violence of the conquerors was abated or
eluded by the slow artifice of judicial proceedings; the civil
administration, with its honors and emoluments, was confined to
the Italians; and the people still preserved their dress and
language, their laws and customs, their personal freedom, and two
thirds of their landed property. 5511 It had been the object of
Augustus to conceal the introduction of monarchy; it was the
policy of Theodoric to disguise the reign of a Barbarian. 56 If
his subjects were sometimes awakened from this pleasing vision of
a Roman government, they derived more substantial comfort from
the character of a Gothic prince, who had penetration to discern,
and firmness to pursue, his own and the public interest.
Theodoric loved the virtues which he possessed, and the talents
of which he was destitute. Liberius was promoted to the office of
Praetorian præfect for his unshaken fidelity to the unfortunate
cause of Odoacer. The ministers of Theodoric, Cassiodorus, 57 and
Boethius, have reflected on his reign the lustre of their genius
and learning. More prudent or more fortunate than his colleague,
Cassiodorus preserved his own esteem without forfeiting the royal
favor; and after passing thirty years in the honors of the world,
he was blessed with an equal term of repose in the devout and
studious solitude of Squillace. 5711
52 (return) [ Procopius affirms that no laws whatsoever were
promulgated by Theodoric and the succeeding kings of Italy,
(Goth. l. ii. c. 6.) He must mean in the Gothic language. A Latin
edict of Theodoric is still extant, in one hundred and fifty-four
articles. * Note: See Manso, 92. Savigny, vol. ii. p. 164, et
seq.—M.]
53 (return) [ The image of Theodoric is engraved on his coins:
his modest successors were satisfied with adding their own name
to the head of the reigning emperor, (Muratori, Antiquitat.
Italiae Medii Aevi, tom. ii. dissert. xxvii. p. 577—579.
Giannone, Istoria Civile di Napoli tom. i. p. 166.)]
54 (return) [ The alliance of the emperor and the king of Italy
are represented by Cassiodorus (Var. i. l, ii. 1, 2, 3, vi. l)
and Procopius, (Goth. l. ii. c. 6, l. iii. c. 21,) who celebrate
the friendship of Anastasius and Theodoric; but the figurative
style of compliment was interpreted in a very different sense at
Constantinople and Ravenna.]
5411 (return) [ All causes between Roman and Roman were judged by
the old Roman courts. The comes Gothorum judged between Goth and
Goth; between Goths and Romans, (without considering which was
the plaintiff.) the comes Gothorum, with a Roman jurist as his
assessor, making a kind of mixed jurisdiction, but with a natural
predominance to the side of the Goth Savigny, vol. i. p. 290.—M.]
55 (return) [ To the xvii. provinces of the Notitia, Paul
Warnefrid the deacon (De Reb. Longobard. l. ii. c. 14—22) has
subjoined an xviiith, the Apennine, (Muratori, Script. Rerum
Italicarum, tom. i. p. 431—443.) But of these Sardinia and
Corsica were possessed by the Vandals, and the two Rhaetias, as
well as the Cottian Alps, seem to have been abandoned to a
military government. The state of the four provinces that now
form the kingdom of Naples is labored by Giannone (tom. i. p.
172, 178) with patriotic diligence.]
5511 (return) [ Manso enumerates and develops at some length the
following sources of the royal revenue of Theodoric: 1. A domain,
either by succession to that of Odoacer, or a part of the third
of the lands was reserved for the royal patrimony. 1. Regalia,
including mines, unclaimed estates, treasure-trove, and
confiscations. 3. Land tax. 4. Aurarium, like the Chrysargyrum, a
tax on certain branches of trade. 5. Grant of Monopolies. 6.
Siliquaticum, a small tax on the sale of all kinds of
commodities. 7. Portoria, customs Manso, 96, 111. Savigny (i.
285) supposes that in many cases the property remained in the
original owner, who paid his tertia, a third of the produce to
the crown, vol. i. p. 285.—M.]
56 (return) [ See the Gothic history of Procopius, (l. i. c. 1,
l. ii. c. 6,) the Epistles of Cassiodorus, passim, but especially
the vth and vith books, which contain the formulae, or patents of
offices,) and the Civil History of Giannone, (tom. i. l. ii.
iii.) The Gothic counts, which he places in every Italian city,
are annihilated, however, by Maffei, (Verona Illustrata, P. i. l.
viii. p. 227; for those of Syracuse and Naples (Var vi. 22, 23)
were special and temporary commissions.]
57 (return) [ Two Italians of the name of Cassiodorus, the father
(Var. i. 24, 40) and the son, (ix. 24, 25,) were successively
employed in the administration of Theodoric. The son was born in
the year 479: his various epistles as quaestor, master of the
offices, and Praetorian præfect, extend from 509 to 539, and he
lived as a monk about thirty years, (Tiraboschi Storia della
Letteratura Italiana, tom. iii. p. 7—24. Fabricius, Bibliot. Lat.
Med. Aevi, tom. i. p. 357, 358, edit. Mansi.)]
5711 (return) [ Cassiodorus was of an ancient and honorable
family; his grandfather had distinguished himself in the defence
of Sicily against the ravages of Genseric; his father held a high
rank at the court of Valentinian III., enjoyed the friendship of
Aetius, and was one of the ambassadors sent to arrest the
progress of Attila. Cassiodorus himself was first the treasurer
of the private expenditure to Odoacer, afterwards “count of the
sacred largesses.” Yielding with the rest of the Romans to the
dominion of Theodoric, he was instrumental in the peaceable
submission of Sicily; was successively governor of his native
provinces of Bruttium and Lucania, quaestor, magister, palatii,
Praetorian præfect, patrician, consul, and private secretary,
and, in fact, first minister of the king. He was five times
Praetorian præfect under different sovereigns, the last time in
the reign of Vitiges. This is the theory of Manso, which is not
unencumbered with difficulties. M. Buat had supposed that it was
the father of Cassiodorus who held the office first named.
Compare Manso, p. 85, &c., and Beylage, vii. It certainly appears
improbable that Cassiodorus should have been count of the sacred
largesses at twenty years old.—M.]
As the patron of the republic, it was the interest and duty of
the Gothic king to cultivate the affections of the senate 58 and
people. The nobles of Rome were flattered by sonorous epithets
and formal professions of respect, which had been more justly
applied to the merit and authority of their ancestors. The people
enjoyed, without fear or danger, the three blessings of a
capital, order, plenty, and public amusements. A visible
diminution of their numbers may be found even in the measure of
liberality; 59 yet Apulia, Calabria, and Sicily, poured their
tribute of corn into the granaries of Rome; an allowance of bread
and meat was distributed to the indigent citizens; and every
office was deemed honorable which was consecrated to the care of
their health and happiness. The public games, such as the Greek
ambassador might politely applaud, exhibited a faint and feeble
copy of the magnificence of the Caesars: yet the musical, the
gymnastic, and the pantomime arts, had not totally sunk in
oblivion; the wild beasts of Africa still exercised in the
amphitheatre the courage and dexterity of the hunters; and the
indulgent Goth either patiently tolerated or gently restrained
the blue and green factions, whose contests so often filled the
circus with clamor and even with blood. 60 In the seventh year of
his peaceful reign, Theodoric visited the old capital of the
world; the senate and people advanced in solemn procession to
salute a second Trajan, a new Valentinian; and he nobly supported
that character by the assurance of a just and legal government,
61 in a discourse which he was not afraid to pronounce in public,
and to inscribe on a tablet of brass. Rome, in this august
ceremony, shot a last ray of declining glory; and a saint, the
spectator of this pompous scene, could only hope, in his pious
fancy, that it was excelled by the celestial splendor of the new
Jerusalem. 62 During a residence of six months, the fame, the
person, and the courteous demeanor of the Gothic king, excited
the admiration of the Romans, and he contemplated, with equal
curiosity and surprise, the monuments that remained of their
ancient greatness. He imprinted the footsteps of a conqueror on
the Capitoline hill, and frankly confessed that each day he
viewed with fresh wonder the forum of Trajan and his lofty
column. The theatre of Pompey appeared, even in its decay, as a
huge mountain artificially hollowed, and polished, and adorned by
human industry; and he vaguely computed, that a river of gold
must have been drained to erect the colossal amphitheatre of
Titus. 63 From the mouths of fourteen aqueducts, a pure and
copious stream was diffused into every part of the city; among
these the Claudian water, which arose at the distance of
thirty-eight miles in the Sabine mountains, was conveyed along a
gentle though constant declivity of solid arches, till it
descended on the summit of the Aventine hill. The long and
spacious vaults which had been constructed for the purpose of
common sewers, subsisted, after twelve centuries, in their
pristine strength; and these subterraneous channels have been
preferred to all the visible wonders of Rome. 64 The Gothic
kings, so injuriously accused of the ruin of antiquity, were
anxious to preserve the monuments of the nation whom they had
subdued. 65 The royal edicts were framed to prevent the abuses,
the neglect, or the depredations of the citizens themselves; and
a professed architect, the annual sum of two hundred pounds of
gold, twenty-five thousand tiles, and the receipt of customs from
the Lucrine port, were assigned for the ordinary repairs of the
walls and public edifices. A similar care was extended to the
statues of metal or marble of men or animals. The spirit of the
horses, which have given a modern name to the Quirinal, was
applauded by the Barbarians; 66 the brazen elephants of the Via
sacra were diligently restored; 67 the famous heifer of Myron
deceived the cattle, as they were driven through the forum of
peace; 68 and an officer was created to protect those works of
art, which Theodoric considered as the noblest ornament of his
kingdom.
58 (return) [ See his regard for the senate in Cochlaeus, (Vit.
Theod. viii. p. 72—80.)]
59 (return) [ No more than 120,000 modii, or four thousand
quarters, (Anonym. Valesian. p. 721, and Var. i. 35, vi. 18, xi.
5, 39.)]
60 (return) [ See his regard and indulgence for the spectacles of
the circus, the amphitheatre, and the theatre, in the Chronicle
and Epistles of Cassiodorus, (Var. i. 20, 27, 30, 31, 32, iii.
51, iv. 51, illustrated by the xivth Annotation of Mascou’s
History), who has contrived to sprinkle the subject with
ostentatious, though agreeable, learning.]
61 (return) [ Anonym. Vales. p. 721. Marius Aventicensis in
Chron. In the scale of public and personal merit, the Gothic
conqueror is at least as much above Valentinian, as he may seem
inferior to Trajan.]
62 (return) [ Vit. Fulgentii in Baron. Annal. Eccles. A.D. 500,
No. 10.]
63 (return) [ Cassiodorus describes in his pompous style the
Forum of Trajan (Var. vii. 6,) the theatre of Marcellus, (iv.
51,) and the amphitheatre of Titus, (v. 42;) and his descriptions
are not unworthy of the reader’s perusal. According to the modern
prices, the Abbe Barthelemy computes that the brick work and
masonry of the Coliseum would now cost twenty millions of French
livres, (Mem. de l’Academie des Inscriptions, tom. xxviii. p.
585, 586.) How small a part of that stupendous fabric!]
64 (return) [ For the aqueducts and cloacae, see Strabo, (l. v.
p. 360;) Pliny, (Hist. Natur. xxxvi. 24; Cassiodorus, Var. iii.
30, 31, vi. 6;) Procopius, (Goth. l. i. c. 19;) and Nardini,
(Roma Antica, p. 514—522.) How such works could be executed by a
king of Rome, is yet a problem. Note: See Niebuhr, vol. i. p.
402. These stupendous works are among the most striking
confirmations of Niebuhr’s views of the early Roman history; at
least they appear to justify his strong sentence—“These works and
the building of the Capitol attest with unquestionable evidence
that this Rome of the later kings was the chief city of a great
state.”—Page 110—M.]
65 (return) [ For the Gothic care of the buildings and statues,
see Cassiodorus (Var. i. 21, 25, ii. 34, iv. 30, vii. 6, 13, 15)
and the Valesian Fragment, (p. 721.)]
66 (return) [ Var. vii. 15. These horses of Monte Cavallo had
been transported from Alexandria to the baths of Constantine,
(Nardini, p. 188.) Their sculpture is disdained by the Abbe
Dubos, (Reflexions sur la Poesie et sur la Peinture, tom. i.
section 39,) and admired by Winkelman, (Hist. de l’Art, tom. ii.
p. 159.)]
67 (return) [ Var. x. 10. They were probably a fragment of some
triumphal car, (Cuper de Elephantis, ii. 10.)]
68 (return) [ Procopius (Goth. l. iv. c. 21) relates a foolish
story of Myron’s cow, which is celebrated by the false wit of
thirty-six Greek epigrams, (Antholog. l. iv. p. 302—306, edit.
Hen. Steph.; Auson. Epigram. xiii.—lxviii.)]
Chapter XXXIX: Gothic Kingdom Of Italy.—Part III.
After the example of the last emperors, Theodoric preferred the
residence of Ravenna, where he cultivated an orchard with his own
hands. 69 As often as the peace of his kingdom was threatened
(for it was never invaded) by the Barbarians, he removed his
court to Verona 70 on the northern frontier, and the image of his
palace, still extant on a coin, represents the oldest and most
authentic model of Gothic architecture. These two capitals, as
well as Pavia, Spoleto, Naples, and the rest of the Italian
cities, acquired under his reign the useful or splendid
decorations of churches, aqueducts, baths, porticos, and palaces.
71 But the happiness of the subject was more truly conspicuous in
the busy scene of labor and luxury, in the rapid increase and
bold enjoyment of national wealth. From the shades of Tibur and
Praeneste, the Roman senators still retired in the winter season
to the warm sun, and salubrious springs of Baiae; and their
villas, which advanced on solid moles into the Bay of Naples,
commanded the various prospect of the sky, the earth, and the
water. On the eastern side of the Adriatic, a new Campania was
formed in the fair and fruitful province of Istria, which
communicated with the palace of Ravenna by an easy navigation of
one hundred miles. The rich productions of Lucania and the
adjacent provinces were exchanged at the Marcilian fountain, in a
populous fair annually dedicated to trade, intemperance, and
superstition. In the solitude of Comum, which had once been
animated by the mild genius of Pliny, a transparent basin above
sixty miles in length still reflected the rural seats which
encompassed the margin of the Larian lake; and the gradual ascent
of the hills was covered by a triple plantation of olives, of
vines, and of chestnut trees. 72 Agriculture revived under the
shadow of peace, and the number of husbandmen was multiplied by
the redemption of captives. 73 The iron mines of Dalmatia, a gold
mine in Bruttium, were carefully explored, and the Pomptine
marshes, as well as those of Spoleto, were drained and cultivated
by private undertakers, whose distant reward must depend on the
continuance of the public prosperity. 74 Whenever the seasons
were less propitious, the doubtful precautions of forming
magazines of corn, fixing the price, and prohibiting the
exportation, attested at least the benevolence of the state; but
such was the extraordinary plenty which an industrious people
produced from a grateful soil, that a gallon of wine was
sometimes sold in Italy for less than three farthings, and a
quarter of wheat at about five shillings and sixpence. 75 A
country possessed of so many valuable objects of exchange soon
attracted the merchants of the world, whose beneficial traffic
was encouraged and protected by the liberal spirit of Theodoric.
The free intercourse of the provinces by land and water was
restored and extended; the city gates were never shut either by
day or by night; and the common saying, that a purse of gold
might be safely left in the fields, was expressive of the
conscious security of the inhabitants.
69 (return) [See an epigram of Ennodius (ii. 3, p. 1893, 1894) on
this garden and the royal gardener.]
70 (return) [ His affection for that city is proved by the
epithet of “Verona tua,” and the legend of the hero; under the
barbarous name of Dietrich of Bern, (Peringsciold and Cochloeum,
p. 240,) Maffei traces him with knowledge and pleasure in his
native country, (l. ix. p. 230—236.)]
71 (return) [ See Maffei, (Verona Illustrata, Part i. p. 231,
232, 308, &c.) His amputes Gothic architecture, like the
corruption of language, writing &c., not to the Barbarians, but
to the Italians themselves. Compare his sentiments with those of
Tiraboschi, (tom. iii. p. 61.) * Note: Mr. Hallam (vol. iii. p.
432) observes that “the image of Theodoric’s palace” is
represented in Maffei, not from a coin, but from a seal. Compare
D’Agincourt (Storia dell’arte, Italian Transl., Arcitecttura,
Plate xvii. No. 2, and Pittura, Plate xvi. No. 15,) where there
is likewise an engraving from a mosaic in the church of St.
Apollinaris in Ravenna, representing a building ascribed to
Theodoric in that city. Neither of these, as Mr. Hallam justly
observes, in the least approximates to what is called the Gothic
style. They are evidently the degenerate Roman architecture, and
more resemble the early attempts of our architects to get back
from our national Gothic into a classical Greek style. One of
them calls to mind Inigo Jones inner quadrangle in St. John’s
College Oxford. Compare Hallam and D’Agincon vol. i. p.
140—145.—M]
72 (return) [ The villas, climate, and landscape of Baiae, (Var.
ix. 6; see Cluver Italia Antiq. l. iv. c. 2, p. 1119, &c.,)
Istria, (Var. xii. 22, 26,) and Comum, (Var. xi. 14; compare with
Pliny’s two villas, ix. 7,) are agreeably painted in the Epistles
of Cassiodorus.]
73 (return) [ In Liguria numerosa agricolarum progenies,
(Ennodius, p. 1678, 1679, 1680.) St. Epiphanius of Pavia redeemed
by prayer or ransom 6000 captives from the Burgundians of Lyons
and Savoy. Such deeds are the best of miracles.]
74 (return) [ The political economy of Theodoric (see Anonym.
Vales. p. 721, and Cassiodorus, in Chron.) may be distinctly
traced under the following heads: iron mine, (Var. iii. 23;) gold
mine, (ix. 3;) Pomptine marshes, (ii. 32, 33;) Spoleto, (ii. 21;)
corn, (i. 34, x. 27, 28, xi. 11, 12;) trade, (vi. 7, vii. 9, 23;)
fair of Leucothoe or St. Cyprian in Lucania, (viii. 33;) plenty,
(xii. 4;) the cursus, or public post, (i. 29, ii. 31, iv. 47, v.
5, vi 6, vii. 33;) the Flaminian way, (xii. 18.) * Note: The
inscription commemorative of the draining of the Pomptine marshes
may be found in many works; in Gruter, Inscript. Ant. Heidelberg,
p. 152, No. 8. With variations, in Nicolai De’ bonificamenti
delle terre Pontine, p. 103. In Sartorius, in his prize essay on
the reign of Theodoric, and Manse Beylage, xi.—M.]
75 (return) [ LX modii tritici in solidum ipsius tempore fuerunt,
et vinum xxx amphoras in solidum, (Fragment. Vales.) Corn was
distributed from the granaries at xv or xxv modii for a piece of
gold, and the price was still moderate.]
A difference of religion is always pernicious, and often fatal,
to the harmony of the prince and people: the Gothic conqueror had
been educated in the profession of Arianism, and Italy was
devoutly attached to the Nicene faith. But the persuasion of
Theodoric was not infected by zeal; and he piously adhered to the
heresy of his fathers, without condescending to balance the
subtile arguments of theological metaphysics. Satisfied with the
private toleration of his Arian sectaries, he justly conceived
himself to be the guardian of the public worship, and his
external reverence for a superstition which he despised, may have
nourished in his mind the salutary indifference of a statesman or
philosopher. The Catholics of his dominions acknowledged, perhaps
with reluctance, the peace of the church; their clergy, according
to the degrees of rank or merit, were honorably entertained in
the palace of Theodoric; he esteemed the living sanctity of
Caesarius 76 and Epiphanius, 77 the orthodox bishops of Arles and
Pavia; and presented a decent offering on the tomb of St. Peter,
without any scrupulous inquiry into the creed of the apostle. 78
His favorite Goths, and even his mother, were permitted to retain
or embrace the Athanasian faith, and his long reign could not
afford the example of an Italian Catholic, who, either from
choice or compulsion, had deviated into the religion of the
conqueror. 79 The people, and the Barbarians themselves, were
edified by the pomp and order of religious worship; the
magistrates were instructed to defend the just immunities of
ecclesiastical persons and possessions; the bishops held their
synods, the metropolitans exercised their jurisdiction, and the
privileges of sanctuary were maintained or moderated according to
the spirit of the Roman jurisprudence. 80 With the protection,
Theodoric assumed the legal supremacy, of the church; and his
firm administration restored or extended some useful prerogatives
which had been neglected by the feeble emperors of the West. He
was not ignorant of the dignity and importance of the Roman
pontiff, to whom the venerable name of Pope was now appropriated.
The peace or the revolt of Italy might depend on the character of
a wealthy and popular bishop, who claimed such ample dominion
both in heaven and earth; who had been declared in a numerous
synod to be pure from all sin, and exempt from all judgment. 81
When the chair of St. Peter was disputed by Symmachus and
Laurence, they appeared at his summons before the tribunal of an
Arian monarch, and he confirmed the election of the most worthy
or the most obsequious candidate. At the end of his life, in a
moment of jealousy and resentment, he prevented the choice of the
Romans, by nominating a pope in the palace of Ravenna. The danger
and furious contests of a schism were mildly restrained, and the
last decree of the senate was enacted to extinguish, if it were
possible, the scandalous venality of the papal elections. 82
76 (return) [ See the life of St. Caesarius in Baronius, (A.D.
508, No. 12, 13, 14.) The king presented him with 300 gold
solidi, and a discus of silver of the weight of sixty pounds.]
77 (return) [ Ennodius in Vit. St. Epiphanii, in Sirmond, Op.
tom. i. p. 1672—1690. Theodoric bestowed some important favors on
this bishop, whom he used as a counsellor in peace and war.]
78 (return) [ Devotissimus ac si Catholicus, (Anonym. Vales. p.
720;) yet his offering was no more than two silver candlesticks
(cerostrata) of the weight of seventy pounds, far inferior to the
gold and gems of Constantinople and France, (Anastasius in Vit.
Pont. in Hormisda, p. 34, edit. Paris.)]
79 (return) [ The tolerating system of his reign (Ennodius, p.
1612. Anonym. Vales. p. 719. Procop. Goth. l. i. c. 1, l. ii. c.
6) may be studied in the Epistles of Cassiodorous, under the
following heads: bishops, (Var. i. 9, vii. 15, 24, xi. 23;)
immunities, (i. 26, ii. 29, 30;) church lands (iv. 17, 20;)
sanctuaries, (ii. 11, iii. 47;) church plate, (xii. 20;)
discipline, (iv. 44;) which prove, at the same time, that he was
the head of the church as well as of the state. * Note: He
recommended the same toleration to the emperor Justin.—M.]
80 (return) [ We may reject a foolish tale of his beheading a
Catholic deacon who turned Arian, (Theodor. Lector. No. 17.) Why
is Theodoric surnamed After? From Vafer? (Vales. ad loc.) A light
conjecture.]
81 (return) [ Ennodius, p. 1621, 1622, 1636, 1638. His libel was
approved and registered (synodaliter) by a Roman council,
(Baronius, A.D. 503, No. 6, Franciscus Pagi in Breviar. Pont.
Rom. tom. i. p. 242.)]
82 (return) [ See Cassiodorus, (Var. viii. 15, ix. 15, 16,)
Anastasius, (in Symmacho, p. 31,) and the xviith Annotation of
Mascou. Baronius, Pagi, and most of the Catholic doctors,
confess, with an angry growl, this Gothic usurpation.]
I have descanted with pleasure on the fortunate condition of
Italy; but our fancy must not hastily conceive that the golden
age of the poets, a race of men without vice or misery, was
realized under the Gothic conquest. The fair prospect was
sometimes overcast with clouds; the wisdom of Theodoric might be
deceived, his power might be resisted and the declining age of
the monarch was sullied with popular hatred and patrician blood.
In the first insolence of victory, he had been tempted to deprive
the whole party of Odoacer of the civil and even the natural
rights of society; 83 a tax unseasonably imposed after the
calamities of war, would have crushed the rising agriculture of
Liguria; a rigid preemption of corn, which was intended for the
public relief, must have aggravated the distress of Campania.
These dangerous projects were defeated by the virtue and
eloquence of Epiphanius and Boethius, who, in the presence of
Theodoric himself, successfully pleaded the cause of the people:
84 but if the royal ear was open to the voice of truth, a saint
and a philosopher are not always to be found at the ear of kings.
The privileges of rank, or office, or favor, were too frequently
abused by Italian fraud and Gothic violence, and the avarice of
the king’s nephew was publicly exposed, at first by the
usurpation, and afterwards by the restitution of the estates
which he had unjustly extorted from his Tuscan neighbors. Two
hundred thousand Barbarians, formidable even to their master,
were seated in the heart of Italy; they indignantly supported the
restraints of peace and discipline; the disorders of their march
were always felt and sometimes compensated; and where it was
dangerous to punish, it might be prudent to dissemble, the
sallies of their native fierceness. When the indulgence of
Theodoric had remitted two thirds of the Ligurian tribute, he
condescended to explain the difficulties of his situation, and to
lament the heavy though inevitable burdens which he imposed on
his subjects for their own defence. 85 These ungrateful subjects
could never be cordially reconciled to the origin, the religion,
or even the virtues of the Gothic conqueror; past calamities were
forgotten, and the sense or suspicion of injuries was rendered
still more exquisite by the present felicity of the times.
83 (return) [ He disabled them—alicentia testandi; and all Italy
mourned—lamentabili justitio. I wish to believe, that these
penalties were enacted against the rebels who had violated their
oath of allegiance; but the testimony of Ennodius (p. 1675-1678)
is the more weighty, as he lived and died under the reign of
Theodoric.]
84 (return) [ Ennodius, in Vit. Epiphan. p. 1589, 1690. Boethius
de Consolatione Philosphiae, l. i. pros. iv. p. 45, 46, 47.
Respect, but weigh the passions of the saint and the senator; and
fortify and alleviate their complaints by the various hints of
Cassiodorus, (ii. 8, iv. 36, viii. 5.)]
85 (return) [ Immanium expensarum pondus...pro ipsorum salute,
&c.; yet these are no more than words.]
Even the religious toleration which Theodoric had the glory of
introducing into the Christian world, was painful and offensive
to the orthodox zeal of the Italians. They respected the armed
heresy of the Goths; but their pious rage was safely pointed
against the rich and defenceless Jews, who had formed their
establishments at Naples, Rome, Ravenna, Milan, and Genoa, for
the benefit of trade, and under the sanction of the laws. 86
Their persons were insulted, their effects were pillaged, and
their synagogues were burned by the mad populace of Ravenna and
Rome, inflamed, as it should seem, by the most frivolous or
extravagant pretences. The government which could neglect, would
have deserved such an outrage. A legal inquiry was instantly
directed; and as the authors of the tumult had escaped in the
crowd, the whole community was condemned to repair the damage;
and the obstinate bigots, who refused their contributions, were
whipped through the streets by the hand of the executioner. 8611
This simple act of justice exasperated the discontent of the
Catholics, who applauded the merit and patience of these holy
confessors. Three hundred pulpits deplored the persecution of the
church; and if the chapel of St. Stephen at Verona was demolished
by the command of Theodoric, it is probable that some miracle
hostile to his name and dignity had been performed on that sacred
theatre. At the close of a glorious life, the king of Italy
discovered that he had excited the hatred of a people whose
happiness he had so assiduously labored to promote; and his mind
was soured by indignation, jealousy, and the bitterness of
unrequited love. The Gothic conqueror condescended to disarm the
unwarlike natives of Italy, interdicting all weapons of offence,
and excepting only a small knife for domestic use. The deliverer
of Rome was accused of conspiring with the vilest informers
against the lives of senators whom he suspected of a secret and
treasonable correspondence with the Byzantine court. 87 After the
death of Anastasius, the diadem had been placed on the head of a
feeble old man; but the powers of government were assumed by his
nephew Justinian, who already meditated the extirpation of
heresy, and the conquest of Italy and Africa. A rigorous law,
which was published at Constantinople, to reduce the Arians by
the dread of punishment within the pale of the church, awakened
the just resentment of Theodoric, who claimed for his distressed
brethren of the East the same indulgence which he had so long
granted to the Catholics of his dominions. 8711 At his stern
command, the Roman pontiff, with four illustrious senators,
embarked on an embassy, of which he must have alike dreaded the
failure or the success. The singular veneration shown to the
first pope who had visited Constantinople was punished as a crime
by his jealous monarch; the artful or peremptory refusal of the
Byzantine court might excuse an equal, and would provoke a
larger, measure of retaliation; and a mandate was prepared in
Italy, to prohibit, after a stated day, the exercise of the
Catholic worship. By the bigotry of his subjects and enemies, the
most tolerant of princes was driven to the brink of persecution;
and the life of Theodoric was too long, since he lived to condemn
the virtue of Boethius and Symmachus. 88
86 (return) [ The Jews were settled at Naples, (Procopius, Goth.
l. i. c. 8,) at Genoa, (Var. ii. 28, iv. 33,) Milan, (v. 37,)
Rome, (iv. 43.) See likewise Basnage, Hist. des Juifs, tom. viii.
c. 7, p. 254.]
8611 (return) [ See History of the Jews vol. iii. p. 217.—M.]
87 (return) [ Rex avidus communis exitii, &c., (Boethius, l. i.
p. 59:) rex colum Romanis tendebat, (Anonym. Vales. p. 723.)
These are hard words: they speak the passions of the Italians and
those (I fear) of Theodoric himself.]
8711 (return) [ Gibbon should not have omitted the golden words
of Theodoric in a letter which he addressed to Justin: That to
pretend to a dominion over the conscience is to usurp the
prerogative of God; that by the nature of things the power of
sovereigns is confined to external government; that they have no
right of punishment but over those who disturb the public peace,
of which they are the guardians; that the most dangerous heresy
is that of a sovereign who separates from himself a part of his
subjects because they believe not according to his belief.
Compare Le Beau, vol viii. p. 68.—M]
88 (return) [ I have labored to extract a rational narrative from
the dark, concise, and various hints of the Valesian Fragment,
(p. 722, 723, 724,) Theophanes, (p. 145,) Anastasius, (in
Johanne, p. 35,) and the Hist Miscella, (p. 103, edit. Muratori.)
A gentle pressure and paraphrase of their words is no violence.
Consult likewise Muratori (Annali d’ Italia, tom. iv. p.
471-478,) with the Annals and Breviary (tom. i. p. 259—263) of
the two Pagis, the uncle and the nephew.]
The senator Boethius 89 is the last of the Romans whom Cato or
Tully could have acknowledged for their countryman. As a wealthy
orphan, he inherited the patrimony and honors of the Anician
family, a name ambitiously assumed by the kings and emperors of
the age; and the appellation of Manlius asserted his genuine or
fabulous descent from a race of consuls and dictators, who had
repulsed the Gauls from the Capitol, and sacrificed their sons to
the discipline of the republic. In the youth of Boethius the
studies of Rome were not totally abandoned; a Virgil 90 is now
extant, corrected by the hand of a consul; and the professors of
grammar, rhetoric, and jurisprudence, were maintained in their
privileges and pensions by the liberality of the Goths. But the
erudition of the Latin language was insufficient to satiate his
ardent curiosity: and Boethius is said to have employed eighteen
laborious years in the schools of Athens, 91 which were supported
by the zeal, the learning, and the diligence of Proclus and his
disciples. The reason and piety of their Roman pupil were
fortunately saved from the contagion of mystery and magic, which
polluted the groves of the academy; but he imbibed the spirit,
and imitated the method, of his dead and living masters, who
attempted to reconcile the strong and subtile sense of Aristotle
with the devout contemplation and sublime fancy of Plato. After
his return to Rome, and his marriage with the daughter of his
friend, the patrician Symmachus, Boethius still continued, in a
palace of ivory and marble, to prosecute the same studies. 92 The
church was edified by his profound defence of the orthodox creed
against the Arian, the Eutychian, and the Nestorian heresies; and
the Catholic unity was explained or exposed in a formal treatise
by the indifference of three distinct though consubstantial
persons. For the benefit of his Latin readers, his genius
submitted to teach the first elements of the arts and sciences of
Greece. The geometry of Euclid, the music of Pythagoras, the
arithmetic of Nicomachus, the mechanics of Archimedes, the
astronomy of Ptolemy, the theology of Plato, and the logic of
Aristotle, with the commentary of Porphyry, were translated and
illustrated by the indefatigable pen of the Roman senator. And he
alone was esteemed capable of describing the wonders of art, a
sun-dial, a water-clock, or a sphere which represented the
motions of the planets. From these abstruse speculations,
Boethius stooped, or, to speak more truly, he rose to the social
duties of public and private life: the indigent were relieved by
his liberality; and his eloquence, which flattery might compare
to the voice of Demosthenes or Cicero, was uniformly exerted in
the cause of innocence and humanity. Such conspicuous merit was
felt and rewarded by a discerning prince: the dignity of Boethius
was adorned with the titles of consul and patrician, and his
talents were usefully employed in the important station of master
of the offices. Notwithstanding the equal claims of the East and
West, his two sons were created, in their tender youth, the
consuls of the same year. 93 On the memorable day of their
inauguration, they proceeded in solemn pomp from their palace to
the forum amidst the applause of the senate and people; and their
joyful father, the true consul of Rome, after pronouncing an
oration in the praise of his royal benefactor, distributed a
triumphal largess in the games of the circus. Prosperous in his
fame and fortunes, in his public honors and private alliances, in
the cultivation of science and the consciousness of virtue,
Boethius might have been styled happy, if that precarious epithet
could be safely applied before the last term of the life of man.
89 (return) [ Le Clerc has composed a critical and philosophical
life of Anicius Manlius Severinus Boetius, (Bibliot. Choisie,
tom. xvi. p. 168—275;) and both Tiraboschi (tom. iii.) and
Fabricius (Bibliot Latin.) may be usefully consulted. The date of
his birth may be placed about the year 470, and his death in 524,
in a premature old age, (Consol. Phil. Metrica. i. p. 5.)]
90 (return) [ For the age and value of this Ms., now in the
Medicean library at Florence, see the Cenotaphia Pisana (p.
430-447) of Cardinal Noris.]
91 (return) [ The Athenian studies of Boethius are doubtful,
(Baronius, A.D. 510, No. 3, from a spurious tract, De Disciplina
Scholarum,) and the term of eighteen years is doubtless too long:
but the simple fact of a visit to Athens is justified by much
internal evidence, (Brucker, Hist. Crit. Philosoph. tom. iii. p.
524—527,) and by an expression (though vague and ambiguous) of
his friend Cassiodorus, (Var. i. 45,) “longe positas Athenas
intrioisti.”]
92 (return) [ Bibliothecae comptos ebore ac vitro * parietes,
&c., (Consol. Phil. l. i. pros. v. p. 74.) The Epistles of
Ennodius (vi. 6, vii. 13, viii. 1 31, 37, 40) and Cassiodorus
(Var. i. 39, iv. 6, ix. 21) afford many proofs of the high
reputation which he enjoyed in his own times. It is true, that
the bishop of Pavia wanted to purchase of him an old house at
Milan, and praise might be tendered and accepted in part of
payment. * Note: Gibbon translated vitro, marble; under the
impression, no doubt that glass was unknown.—M.]
93 (return) [ Pagi, Muratori, &c., are agreed that Boethius
himself was consul in the year 510, his two sons in 522, and in
487, perhaps, his father. A desire of ascribing the last of these
consulships to the philosopher had perplexed the chronology of
his life. In his honors, alliances, children, he celebrates his
own felicity—his past felicity, (p. 109 110)]
A philosopher, liberal of his wealth and parsimonious of his
time, might be insensible to the common allurements of ambition,
the thirst of gold and employment. And some credit may be due to
the asseveration of Boethius, that he had reluctantly obeyed the
divine Plato, who enjoins every virtuous citizen to rescue the
state from the usurpation of vice and ignorance. For the
integrity of his public conduct he appeals to the memory of his
country. His authority had restrained the pride and oppression of
the royal officers, and his eloquence had delivered Paulianus
from the dogs of the palace. He had always pitied, and often
relieved, the distress of the provincials, whose fortunes were
exhausted by public and private rapine; and Boethius alone had
courage to oppose the tyranny of the Barbarians, elated by
conquest, excited by avarice, and, as he complains, encouraged by
impunity. In these honorable contests his spirit soared above the
consideration of danger, and perhaps of prudence; and we may
learn from the example of Cato, that a character of pure and
inflexible virtue is the most apt to be misled by prejudice, to
be heated by enthusiasm, and to confound private enmities with
public justice. The disciple of Plato might exaggerate the
infirmities of nature, and the imperfections of society; and the
mildest form of a Gothic kingdom, even the weight of allegiance
and gratitude, must be insupportable to the free spirit of a
Roman patriot. But the favor and fidelity of Boethius declined in
just proportion with the public happiness; and an unworthy
colleague was imposed to divide and control the power of the
master of the offices. In the last gloomy season of Theodoric, he
indignantly felt that he was a slave; but as his master had only
power over his life, he stood without arms and without fear
against the face of an angry Barbarian, who had been provoked to
believe that the safety of the senate was incompatible with his
own. The senator Albinus was accused and already convicted on the
presumption of hoping, as it was said, the liberty of Rome. “If
Albinus be criminal,” exclaimed the orator, “the senate and
myself are all guilty of the same crime. If we are innocent,
Albinus is equally entitled to the protection of the laws.” These
laws might not have punished the simple and barren wish of an
unattainable blessing; but they would have shown less indulgence
to the rash confession of Boethius, that, had he known of a
conspiracy, the tyrant never should. 94 The advocate of Albinus
was soon involved in the danger and perhaps the guilt of his
client; their signature (which they denied as a forgery) was
affixed to the original address, inviting the emperor to deliver
Italy from the Goths; and three witnesses of honorable rank,
perhaps of infamous reputation, attested the treasonable designs
of the Roman patrician. 95 Yet his innocence must be presumed,
since he was deprived by Theodoric of the means of justification,
and rigorously confined in the tower of Pavia, while the senate,
at the distance of five hundred miles, pronounced a sentence of
confiscation and death against the most illustrious of its
members. At the command of the Barbarians, the occult science of
a philosopher was stigmatized with the names of sacrilege and
magic. 96 A devout and dutiful attachment to the senate was
condemned as criminal by the trembling voices of the senators
themselves; and their ingratitude deserved the wish or prediction
of Boethius, that, after him, none should be found guilty of the
same offence. 97
94 (return) [ Si ego scissem tu nescisses. Beothius adopts this
answer (l. i. pros. 4, p. 53) of Julius Canus, whose philosophic
death is described by Seneca, (De Tranquillitate Animi, c. 14.)]
95 (return) [ The characters of his two delators, Basilius (Var.
ii. 10, 11, iv. 22) and Opilio, (v. 41, viii. 16,) are
illustrated, not much to their honor, in the Epistles of
Cassiodorus, which likewise mention Decoratus, (v. 31,) the
worthless colleague of Beothius, (l. iii. pros. 4, p. 193.)]
96 (return) [ A severe inquiry was instituted into the crime of
magic, (Var. iv 22, 23, ix. 18;) and it was believed that many
necromancers had escaped by making their jailers mad: for mad I
should read drunk.]
97 (return) [ Boethius had composed his own Apology, (p. 53,)
perhaps more interesting than his Consolation. We must be content
with the general view of his honors, principles, persecution,
&c., (l. i. pros. 4, p. 42—62,) which may be compared with the
short and weighty words of the Valesian Fragment, (p. 723.) An
anonymous writer (Sinner, Catalog. Mss. Bibliot. Bern. tom. i. p.
287) charges him home with honorable and patriotic treason.]
While Boethius, oppressed with fetters, expected each moment the
sentence or the stroke of death, he composed, in the tower of
Pavia, the Consolation of Philosophy; a golden volume not
unworthy of the leisure of Plato or Tully, but which claims
incomparable merit from the barbarism of the times and the
situation of the author. The celestial guide, whom he had so long
invoked at Rome and Athens, now condescended to illumine his
dungeon, to revive his courage, and to pour into his wounds her
salutary balm. She taught him to compare his long prosperity and
his recent distress, and to conceive new hopes from the
inconstancy of fortune. Reason had informed him of the precarious
condition of her gifts; experience had satisfied him of their
real value; he had enjoyed them without guilt; he might resign
them without a sigh, and calmly disdain the impotent malice of
his enemies, who had left him happiness, since they had left him
virtue. From the earth, Boethius ascended to heaven in search of
the Supreme Good; explored the metaphysical labyrinth of chance
and destiny, of prescience and free will, of time and eternity;
and generously attempted to reconcile the perfect attributes of
the Deity with the apparent disorders of his moral and physical
government. Such topics of consolation so obvious, so vague, or
so abstruse, are ineffectual to subdue the feelings of human
nature. Yet the sense of misfortune may be diverted by the labor
of thought; and the sage who could artfully combine in the same
work the various riches of philosophy, poetry, and eloquence,
must already have possessed the intrepid calmness which he
affected to seek. Suspense, the worst of evils, was at length
determined by the ministers of death, who executed, and perhaps
exceeded, the inhuman mandate of Theodoric. A strong cord was
fastened round the head of Boethius, and forcibly tightened, till
his eyes almost started from their sockets; and some mercy may be
discovered in the milder torture of beating him with clubs till
he expired. 98 But his genius survived to diffuse a ray of
knowledge over the darkest ages of the Latin world; the writings
of the philosopher were translated by the most glorious of the
English kings, 99 and the third emperor of the name of Otho
removed to a more honorable tomb the bones of a Catholic saint,
who, from his Arian persecutors, had acquired the honors of
martyrdom, and the fame of miracles. 100 In the last hours of
Boethius, he derived some comfort from the safety of his two
sons, of his wife, and of his father-in-law, the venerable
Symmachus. But the grief of Symmachus was indiscreet, and perhaps
disrespectful: he had presumed to lament, he might dare to
revenge, the death of an injured friend. He was dragged in chains
from Rome to the palace of Ravenna; and the suspicions of
Theodoric could only be appeased by the blood of an innocent and
aged senator. 101
98 (return) [ He was executed in Agro Calventiano, (Calvenzano,
between Marignano and Pavia,) Anonym. Vales. p. 723, by order of
Eusebius, count of Ticinum or Pavia. This place of confinement is
styled the baptistery, an edifice and name peculiar to
cathedrals. It is claimed by the perpetual tradition of the
church of Pavia. The tower of Boethius subsisted till the year
1584, and the draught is yet preserved, (Tiraboschi, tom. iii. p.
47, 48.)]
99 (return) [ See the Biographia Britannica, Alfred, tom. i. p.
80, 2d edition. The work is still more honorable if performed
under the learned eye of Alfred by his foreign and domestic
doctors. For the reputation of Boethius in the middle ages,
consult Brucker, (Hist. Crit. Philosoph. tom. iii. p. 565, 566.)]
100 (return) [ The inscription on his new tomb was composed by
the preceptor of Otho III., the learned Pope Silvester II., who,
like Boethius himself, was styled a magician by the ignorance of
the times. The Catholic martyr had carried his head in his hands
a considerable way, (Baronius, A.D. 526, No. 17, 18;) and yet on
a similar tale, a lady of my acquaintance once observed, “La
distance n’y fait rien; il n’y a que lo remier pas qui coute.”
Note: Madame du Deffand. This witticism referred to the miracle
of St. Denis.—G.]
101 (return) [ Boethius applauds the virtues of his
father-in-law, (l. i. pros. 4, p. 59, l. ii. pros. 4, p. 118.)
Procopius, (Goth. l. i. c. i.,) the Valesian Fragment, (p. 724,)
and the Historia Miscella, (l. xv. p. 105,) agree in praising the
superior innocence or sanctity of Symmachus; and in the
estimation of the legend, the guilt of his murder is equal to the
imprisonment of a pope.]
Humanity will be disposed to encourage any report which testifies
the jurisdiction of conscience and the remorse of kings; and
philosophy is not ignorant that the most horrid spectres are
sometimes created by the powers of a disordered fancy, and the
weakness of a distempered body. After a life of virtue and glory,
Theodoric was now descending with shame and guilt into the grave;
his mind was humbled by the contrast of the past, and justly
alarmed by the invisible terrors of futurity. One evening, as it
is related, when the head of a large fish was served on the royal
table, 102 he suddenly exclaimed, that he beheld the angry
countenance of Symmachus, his eyes glaring fury and revenge, and
his mouth armed with long sharp teeth, which threatened to devour
him. The monarch instantly retired to his chamber, and, as he
lay, trembling with aguish cold, under a weight of bed-clothes,
he expressed, in broken murmurs to his physician Elpidius, his
deep repentance for the murders of Boethius and Symmachus. 103
His malady increased, and after a dysentery which continued three
days, he expired in the palace of Ravenna, in the thirty-third,
or, if we compute from the invasion of Italy, in the
thirty-seventh year of his reign. Conscious of his approaching
end, he divided his treasures and provinces between his two
grandsons, and fixed the Rhone as their common boundary. 104
Amalaric was restored to the throne of Spain. Italy, with all the
conquests of the Ostrogoths, was bequeathed to Athalaric; whose
age did not exceed ten years, but who was cherished as the last
male offspring of the line of Amali, by the short-lived marriage
of his mother Amalasuntha with a royal fugitive of the same
blood. 105 In the presence of the dying monarch, the Gothic
chiefs and Italian magistrates mutually engaged their faith and
loyalty to the young prince, and to his guardian mother; and
received, in the same awful moment, his last salutary advice, to
maintain the laws, to love the senate and people of Rome, and to
cultivate with decent reverence the friendship of the emperor.
106 The monument of Theodoric was erected by his daughter
Amalasuntha, in a conspicuous situation, which commanded the city
of Ravenna, the harbor, and the adjacent coast. A chapel of a
circular form, thirty feet in diameter, is crowned by a dome of
one entire piece of granite: from the centre of the dome four
columns arose, which supported, in a vase of porphyry, the
remains of the Gothic king, surrounded by the brazen statues of
the twelve apostles. 107 His spirit, after some previous
expiation, might have been permitted to mingle with the
benefactors of mankind, if an Italian hermit had not been
witness, in a vision, to the damnation of Theodoric, 108 whose
soul was plunged, by the ministers of divine vengeance, into the
volcano of Lipari, one of the flaming mouths of the infernal
world. 109
102 (return) [ In the fanciful eloquence of Cassiodorus, the
variety of sea and river fish are an evidence of extensive
dominion; and those of the Rhine, of Sicily, and of the Danube,
were served on the table of Theodoric, (Var. xii. 14.) The
monstrous turbot of Domitian (Juvenal Satir. iii. 39) had been
caught on the shores of the Adriatic.]
103 (return) [ Procopius, Goth. l. i. c. 1. But he might have
informed us, whether he had received this curious anecdote from
common report or from the mouth of the royal physician.]
104 (return) [ Procopius, Goth. l. i. c. 1, 2, 12, 13. This
partition had been directed by Theodoric, though it was not
executed till after his death, Regni hereditatem superstes
reliquit, (Isidor. Chron. p. 721, edit. Grot.)]
105 (return) [ Berimund, the third in descent from Hermanric,
king of the Ostrogoths, had retired into Spain, where he lived
and died in obscurity, (Jornandes, c. 33, p. 202, edit.
Muratori.) See the discovery, nuptials, and death of his grandson
Eutharic, (c. 58, p. 220.) His Roman games might render him
popular, (Cassiodor. in Chron.,) but Eutharic was asper in
religione, (Anonym. Vales. p. 723.)]
106 (return) [ See the counsels of Theodoric, and the professions
of his successor, in Procopius, (Goth. l. i. c. 1, 2,) Jornandes,
(c. 59, p. 220, 221,) and Cassiodorus, (Var. viii. 1—7.) These
epistles are the triumph of his ministerial eloquence.]
107 (return) [ Anonym. Vales. p. 724. Agnellus de Vitis. Pont.
Raven. in Muratori Script. Rerum Ital. tom. ii. P. i. p. 67.
Alberti Descrittione d’ Italia, p. 311. * Note: The Mausoleum of
Theodoric, now Sante Maria della Rotonda, is engraved in
D’Agincourt, Histoire de l’Art, p xviii. of the Architectural
Prints.—M]
108 (return) [ This legend is related by Gregory I., (Dialog. iv.
36,) and approved by Baronius, (A.D. 526, No. 28;) and both the
pope and cardinal are grave doctors, sufficient to establish a
probable opinion.]
109 (return) [ Theodoric himself, or rather Cassiodorus, had
described in tragic strains the volcanos of Lipari (Cluver.
Sicilia, p. 406—410) and Vesuvius, (v 50.)]
Chapter XL: Reign Of Justinian.—Part I.
Elevation Of Justin The Elder.—Reign Of Justinian.—I. The Empress
Theodora.—II. Factions Of The Circus, And Sedition Of
Constantinople.—III. Trade And Manufacture Of Silk.—IV. Finances And
Taxes.—V. Edifices Of Justinian.—Church Of St. Sophia.—Fortifications
And Frontiers Of The Eastern Empire.—Abolition Of The Schools Of
Athens, And The Consulship Of Rome.
The emperor Justinian was born 1 near the ruins of Sardica, (the
modern Sophia,) of an obscure race 2 of Barbarians, 3 the
inhabitants of a wild and desolate country, to which the names of
Dardania, of Dacia, and of Bulgaria, have been successively
applied. His elevation was prepared by the adventurous spirit of
his uncle Justin, who, with two other peasants of the same
village, deserted, for the profession of arms, the more useful
employment of husbandmen or shepherds. 4 On foot, with a scanty
provision of biscuit in their knapsacks, the three youths
followed the high road of Constantinople, and were soon enrolled,
for their strength and stature, among the guards of the emperor
Leo. Under the two succeeding reigns, the fortunate peasant
emerged to wealth and honors; and his escape from some dangers
which threatened his life was afterwards ascribed to the guardian
angel who watches over the fate of kings. His long and laudable
service in the Isaurian and Persian wars would not have preserved
from oblivion the name of Justin; yet they might warrant the
military promotion, which in the course of fifty years he
gradually obtained; the rank of tribune, of count, and of
general; the dignity of senator, and the command of the guards,
who obeyed him as their chief, at the important crisis when the
emperor Anastasius was removed from the world. The powerful
kinsmen whom he had raised and enriched were excluded from the
throne; and the eunuch Amantius, who reigned in the palace, had
secretly resolved to fix the diadem on the head of the most
obsequious of his creatures. A liberal donative, to conciliate
the suffrage of the guards, was intrusted for that purpose in the
hands of their commander. But these weighty arguments were
treacherously employed by Justin in his own favor; and as no
competitor presumed to appear, the Dacian peasant was invested
with the purple by the unanimous consent of the soldiers, who
knew him to be brave and gentle, of the clergy and people, who
believed him to be orthodox, and of the provincials, who yielded
a blind and implicit submission to the will of the capital. The
elder Justin, as he is distinguished from another emperor of the
same family and name, ascended the Byzantine throne at the age of
sixty-eight years; and, had he been left to his own guidance,
every moment of a nine years’ reign must have exposed to his
subjects the impropriety of their choice. His ignorance was
similar to that of Theodoric; and it is remarkable that in an age
not destitute of learning, two contemporary monarchs had never
been instructed in the knowledge of the alphabet. 411 But the
genius of Justin was far inferior to that of the Gothic king: the
experience of a soldier had not qualified him for the government
of an empire; and though personally brave, the consciousness of
his own weakness was naturally attended with doubt, distrust, and
political apprehension. But the official business of the state
was diligently and faithfully transacted by the quaestor Proclus;
5 and the aged emperor adopted the talents and ambition of his
nephew Justinian, an aspiring youth, whom his uncle had drawn
from the rustic solitude of Dacia, and educated at
Constantinople, as the heir of his private fortune, and at length
of the Eastern empire.
1 (return) [ There is some difficulty in the date of his birth
(Ludewig in Vit. Justiniani, p. 125;) none in the place—the
district Bederiana—the village Tauresium, which he afterwards
decorated with his name and splendor, (D’Anville, Hist. de
l’Acad. &c., tom. xxxi. p. 287—292.)]
2 (return) [ The names of these Dardanian peasants are Gothic,
and almost English: Justinian is a translation of uprauda,
(upright;) his father Sabatius (in Graeco-barbarous language
stipes) was styled in his village Istock, (Stock;) his mother
Bigleniza was softened into Vigilantia.]
3 (return) [ Ludewig (p. 127—135) attempts to justify the Anician
name of Justinian and Theodora, and to connect them with a family
from which the house of Austria has been derived.]
4 (return) [ See the anecdotes of Procopius, (c. 6,) with the
notes of N. Alemannus. The satirist would not have sunk, in the
vague and decent appellation of Zonaras. Yet why are those names
disgraceful?—and what German baron would not be proud to descend
from the Eumaeus of the Odyssey! Note: It is whimsical enough
that, in our own days, we should have, even in jest, a claimant
to lineal descent from the godlike swineherd not in the person of
a German baron, but in that of a professor of the Ionian
University. Constantine Koliades, or some malicious wit under
this name, has written a tall folio to prove Ulysses to be Homer,
and himself the descendant, the heir (?), of the Eumaeus of the
Odyssey.—M]
411 (return) [ St. Martin questions the fact in both cases. The
ignorance of Justin rests on the secret history of Procopius,
vol. viii. p. 8. St. Martin’s notes on Le Beau.—M]
5 (return) [ His virtues are praised by Procopius, (Persic. l. i.
c. 11.) The quaestor Proclus was the friend of Justinian, and the
enemy of every other adoption.]
Since the eunuch Amantius had been defrauded of his money, it
became necessary to deprive him of his life. The task was easily
accomplished by the charge of a real or fictitious conspiracy;
and the judges were informed, as an accumulation of guilt, that
he was secretly addicted to the Manichaean heresy. 6 Amantius
lost his head; three of his companions, the first domestics of
the palace, were punished either with death or exile; and their
unfortunate candidate for the purple was cast into a deep
dungeon, overwhelmed with stones, and ignominiously thrown,
without burial, into the sea. The ruin of Vitalian was a work of
more difficulty and danger. That Gothic chief had rendered
himself popular by the civil war which he boldly waged against
Anastasius for the defence of the orthodox faith, and after the
conclusion of an advantageous treaty, he still remained in the
neighborhood of Constantinople at the head of a formidable and
victorious army of Barbarians. By the frail security of oaths, he
was tempted to relinquish this advantageous situation, and to
trust his person within the walls of a city, whose inhabitants,
particularly the blue faction, were artfully incensed against him
by the remembrance even of his pious hostilities. The emperor and
his nephew embraced him as the faithful and worthy champion of
the church and state; and gratefully adorned their favorite with
the titles of consul and general; but in the seventh month of his
consulship, Vitalian was stabbed with seventeen wounds at the
royal banquet; 7 and Justinian, who inherited the spoil, was
accused as the assassin of a spiritual brother, to whom he had
recently pledged his faith in the participation of the Christian
mysteries. 8 After the fall of his rival, he was promoted,
without any claim of military service, to the office of
master-general of the Eastern armies, whom it was his duty to
lead into the field against the public enemy. But, in the pursuit
of fame, Justinian might have lost his present dominion over the
age and weakness of his uncle; and instead of acquiring by
Scythian or Persian trophies the applause of his countrymen, 9
the prudent warrior solicited their favor in the churches, the
circus, and the senate, of Constantinople. The Catholics were
attached to the nephew of Justin, who, between the Nestorian and
Eutychian heresies, trod the narrow path of inflexible and
intolerant orthodoxy. 10 In the first days of the new reign, he
prompted and gratified the popular enthusiasm against the memory
of the deceased emperor. After a schism of thirty-four years, he
reconciled the proud and angry spirit of the Roman pontiff, and
spread among the Latins a favorable report of his pious respect
for the apostolic see. The thrones of the East were filled with
Catholic bishops, devoted to his interest, the clergy and the
monks were gained by his liberality, and the people were taught
to pray for their future sovereign, the hope and pillar of the
true religion. The magnificence of Justinian was displayed in the
superior pomp of his public spectacles, an object not less sacred
and important in the eyes of the multitude than the creed of Nice
or Chalcedon: the expense of his consulship was esteemed at two
hundred and twenty-eight thousand pieces of gold; twenty lions,
and thirty leopards, were produced at the same time in the
amphitheatre, and a numerous train of horses, with their rich
trappings, was bestowed as an extraordinary gift on the
victorious charioteers of the circus. While he indulged the
people of Constantinople, and received the addresses of foreign
kings, the nephew of Justin assiduously cultivated the friendship
of the senate. That venerable name seemed to qualify its members
to declare the sense of the nation, and to regulate the
succession of the Imperial throne: the feeble Anastasius had
permitted the vigor of government to degenerate into the form or
substance of an aristocracy; and the military officers who had
obtained the senatorial rank were followed by their domestic
guards, a band of veterans, whose arms or acclamations might fix
in a tumultuous moment the diadem of the East. The treasures of
the state were lavished to procure the voices of the senators,
and their unanimous wish, that he would be pleased to adopt
Justinian for his colleague, was communicated to the emperor. But
this request, which too clearly admonished him of his approaching
end, was unwelcome to the jealous temper of an aged monarch,
desirous to retain the power which he was incapable of
exercising; and Justin, holding his purple with both his hands,
advised them to prefer, since an election was so profitable, some
older candidate. Not withstanding this reproach, the senate
proceeded to decorate Justinian with the royal epithet of
nobilissimus; and their decree was ratified by the affection or
the fears of his uncle. After some time the languor of mind and
body, to which he was reduced by an incurable wound in his thigh,
indispensably required the aid of a guardian. He summoned the
patriarch and senators; and in their presence solemnly placed the
diadem on the head of his nephew, who was conducted from the
palace to the circus, and saluted by the loud and joyful applause
of the people. The life of Justin was prolonged about four
months; but from the instant of this ceremony, he was considered
as dead to the empire, which acknowledged Justinian, in the
forty-fifth year of his age, for the lawful sovereign of the
East. 11
6 (return) [ Manichaean signifies Eutychian. Hear the furious
acclamations of Constantinople and Tyre, the former no more than
six days after the decease of Anastasius. They produced, the
latter applauded, the eunuch’s death, (Baronius, A.D. 518, P. ii.
No. 15. Fleury, Hist Eccles. tom. vii. p. 200, 205, from the
Councils, tom. v. p. 182, 207.)]
7 (return) [ His power, character, and intentions, are perfectly
explained by the court de Buat, (tom. ix. p. 54—81.) He was
great-grandson of Aspar, hereditary prince in the Lesser Scythia,
and count of the Gothic foederati of Thrace. The Bessi, whom he
could influence, are the minor Goths of Jornandes, (c. 51.)]
8 (return) [ Justiniani patricii factione dicitur interfectus
fuisse, (Victor Tu nunensis, Chron. in Thesaur. Temp. Scaliger,
P. ii. p. 7.) Procopius (Anecdot. c. 7) styles him a tyrant, but
acknowledges something which is well explained by Alemannus.]
9 (return) [ In his earliest youth (plane adolescens) he had
passed some time as a hostage with Theodoric. For this curious
fact, Alemannus (ad Procop. Anecdot. c. 9, p. 34, of the first
edition) quotes a Ms. history of Justinian, by his preceptor
Theophilus. Ludewig (p. 143) wishes to make him a soldier.]
10 (return) [ The ecclesiastical history of Justinian will be
shown hereafter. See Baronius, A.D. 518—521, and the copious
article Justinianas in the index to the viith volume of his
Annals.]
11 (return) [ The reign of the elder Justin may be found in the
three Chronicles of Marcellinus, Victor, and John Malala, (tom.
ii. p. 130—150,) the last of whom (in spite of Hody, Prolegom.
No. 14, 39, edit. Oxon.) lived soon after Justinian, (Jortin’s
Remarks, &c., vol. iv p. 383:) in the Ecclesiastical History of
Evagrius, (l. iv. c. 1, 2, 3, 9,) and the Excerpta of Theodorus
Lector, (No. 37,) and in Cedrenus, (p. 362—366,) and Zonaras, (l.
xiv. p. 58—61,) who may pass for an original. * Note: Dindorf, in
his preface to the new edition of Malala, p. vi., concurs with
this opinion of Gibbon, which was also that of Reiske, as to the
age of the chronicler.—M.]
From his elevation to his death, Justinian governed the Roman
empire thirty-eight years, seven months, and thirteen days.
The events of his reign, which excite our curious attention by
their number, variety, and importance, are diligently related by
the secretary of Belisarius, a rhetorician, whom eloquence had
promoted to the rank of senator and præfect of Constantinople.
According to the vicissitudes of courage or servitude, of favor
or disgrace, Procopius 12 successively composed the history, the
panegyric, and the satire of his own times. The eight books of
the Persian, Vandalic, and Gothic wars, 13 which are continued in
the five books of Agathias, deserve our esteem as a laborious and
successful imitation of the Attic, or at least of the Asiatic,
writers of ancient Greece. His facts are collected from the
personal experience and free conversation of a soldier, a
statesman, and a traveller; his style continually aspires, and
often attains, to the merit of strength and elegance; his
reflections, more especially in the speeches, which he too
frequently inserts, contain a rich fund of political knowledge;
and the historian, excited by the generous ambition of pleasing
and instructing posterity, appears to disdain the prejudices of
the people, and the flattery of courts. The writings of Procopius
14 were read and applauded by his contemporaries: 15 but,
although he respectfully laid them at the foot of the throne, the
pride of Justinian must have been wounded by the praise of a
hero, who perpetually eclipses the glory of his inactive
sovereign. The conscious dignity of independence was subdued by
the hopes and fears of a slave; and the secretary of Belisarius
labored for pardon and reward in the six books of the Imperial
edifices. He had dexterously chosen a subject of apparent
splendor, in which he could loudly celebrate the genius, the
magnificence, and the piety of a prince, who, both as a conqueror
and legislator, had surpassed the puerile virtues of Themistocles
and Cyrus. 16 Disappointment might urge the flatterer to secret
revenge; and the first glance of favor might again tempt him to
suspend and suppress a libel, 17 in which the Roman Cyrus is
degraded into an odious and contemptible tyrant, in which both
the emperor and his consort Theodora are seriously represented as
two daemons, who had assumed a human form for the destruction of
mankind. 18 Such base inconsistency must doubtless sully the
reputation, and detract from the credit, of Procopius: yet, after
the venom of his malignity has been suffered to exhale, the
residue of the anecdotes, even the most disgraceful facts, some
of which had been tenderly hinted in his public history, are
established by their internal evidence, or the authentic
monuments of the times. 19 1911 From these various materials, I
shall now proceed to describe the reign of Justinian, which will
deserve and occupy an ample space. The present chapter will
explain the elevation and character of Theodora, the factions of
the circus, and the peaceful administration of the sovereign of
the East. In the three succeeding chapters, I shall relate the
wars of Justinian, which achieved the conquest of Africa and
Italy; and I shall follow the victories of Belisarius and Narses,
without disguising the vanity of their triumphs, or the hostile
virtue of the Persian and Gothic heroes. The series of this and
the following volume will embrace the jurisprudence and theology
of the emperor; the controversies and sects which still divide
the Oriental church; the reformation of the Roman law which is
obeyed or respected by the nations of modern Europe.
12 (return) [ See the characters of Procopius and Agathias in La
Mothe le Vayer, (tom. viii. p. 144—174,) Vossius, (de Historicis
Graecis, l. ii. c. 22,) and Fabricius, (Bibliot. Graec. l. v. c.
5, tom. vi. p. 248—278.) Their religion, an honorable problem,
betrays occasional conformity, with a secret attachment to
Paganism and Philosophy.]
13 (return) [ In the seven first books, two Persic, two Vandalic,
and three Gothic, Procopius has borrowed from Appian the division
of provinces and wars: the viiith book, though it bears the name
of Gothic, is a miscellaneous and general supplement down to the
spring of the year 553, from whence it is continued by Agathias
till 559, (Pagi, Critica, A.D. 579, No. 5.)]
14 (return) [ The literary fate of Procopius has been somewhat
unlucky.
1. His book de Bello Gothico were stolen by Leonard Aretin, and
published (Fulginii, 1470, Venet. 1471, apud Janson. Mattaire,
Annal Typograph. tom. i. edit. posterior, p. 290, 304, 279, 299,)
in his own name, (see Vossius de Hist. Lat. l. iii. c. 5, and the
feeble defence of the Venice Giornale de Letterati, tom. xix. p.
207.)
2. His works were mutilated by the first Latin translators,
Christopher Persona, (Giornale, tom. xix. p. 340—348,) and
Raphael de Volaterra, (Huet, de Claris Interpretibus, p. 166,)
who did not even consult the Ms. of the Vatican library, of which
they were præfects, (Aleman. in Praefat Anecdot.) 3. The Greek
text was not printed till 1607, by Hoeschelius of Augsburg,
(Dictionnaire de Bayle, tom. ii. p. 782.)
4. The Paris edition was imperfectly executed by Claude Maltret,
a Jesuit of Toulouse, (in 1663,) far distant from the Louvre
press and the Vatican Ms., from which, however, he obtained some
supplements. His promised commentaries, &c., have never appeared.
The Agathias of Leyden (1594) has been wisely reprinted by the
Paris editor, with the Latin version of Bonaventura Vulcanius, a
learned interpreter, (Huet, p. 176.)
* Note: Procopius forms a part of the new Byzantine collection
under the superintendence of Dindorf.—M.]
15 (return) [ Agathias in Praefat. p. 7, 8, l. iv. p. 137.
Evagrius, l. iv. c. 12. See likewise Photius, cod. lxiii. p. 65.]
16 (return) [ Says, he, Praefat. ad l. de Edificiis is no more
than a pun! In these five books, Procopius affects a Christian as
well as a courtly style.]
17 (return) [ Procopius discloses himself, (Praefat. ad Anecdot.
c. 1, 2, 5,) and the anecdotes are reckoned as the ninth book by
Suidas, (tom. iii. p. 186, edit. Kuster.) The silence of Evagrius
is a poor objection. Baronius (A.D. 548, No. 24) regrets the loss
of this secret history: it was then in the Vatican library, in
his own custody, and was first published sixteen years after his
death, with the learned, but partial notes of Nicholas Alemannus,
(Lugd. 1623.)]
18 (return) [ Justinian an ass—the perfect likeness of
Domitian—Anecdot. c. 8.—Theodora’s lovers driven from her bed by
rival daemons—her marriage foretold with a great daemon—a monk
saw the prince of the daemons, instead of Justinian, on the
throne—the servants who watched beheld a face without features, a
body walking without a head, &c., &c. Procopius declares his own
and his friends’ belief in these diabolical stories, (c. 12.)]
19 (return) [ Montesquieu (Considerations sur la Grandeur et la
Decadence des Romains, c. xx.) gives credit to these anecdotes,
as connected, 1. with the weakness of the empire, and, 2. with
the instability of Justinian’s laws.]
1911 (return) [ The Anecdota of Procopius, compared with the
former works of the same author, appear to me the basest and most
disgraceful work in literature. The wars, which he has described
in the former volumes as glorious or necessary, are become
unprofitable and wanton massacres; the buildings which he
celebrated, as raised to the immortal honor of the great emperor,
and his admirable queen, either as magnificent embellishments of
the city, or useful fortifications for the defence of the
frontier, are become works of vain prodigality and useless
ostentation. I doubt whether Gibbon has made sufficient allowance
for the “malignity” of the Anecdota; at all events, the extreme
and disgusting profligacy of Theodora’s early life rests entirely
on this viratent libel—M.]
I. In the exercise of supreme power, the first act of Justinian
was to divide it with the woman whom he loved, the famous
Theodora, 20 whose strange elevation cannot be applauded as the
triumph of female virtue. Under the reign of Anastasius, the care
of the wild beasts maintained by the green faction at
Constantinople was intrusted to Acacius, a native of the Isle of
Cyprus, who, from his employment, was surnamed the master of the
bears. This honorable office was given after his death to another
candidate, notwithstanding the diligence of his widow, who had
already provided a husband and a successor. Acacius had left
three daughters, Comito, 21 Theodora, and Anastasia, the eldest
of whom did not then exceed the age of seven years. On a solemn
festival, these helpless orphans were sent by their distressed
and indignant mother, in the garb of suppliants, into the midst
of the theatre: the green faction received them with contempt,
the blues with compassion; and this difference, which sunk deep
into the mind of Theodora, was felt long afterwards in the
administration of the empire. As they improved in age and beauty,
the three sisters were successively devoted to the public and
private pleasures of the Byzantine people: and Theodora, after
following Comito on the stage, in the dress of a slave, with a
stool on her head, was at length permitted to exercise her
independent talents. She neither danced, nor sung, nor played on
the flute; her skill was confined to the pantomime arts; she
excelled in buffoon characters, and as often as the comedian
swelled her cheeks, and complained with a ridiculous tone and
gesture of the blows that were inflicted, the whole theatre of
Constantinople resounded with laughter and applause. The beauty
of Theodora 22 was the subject of more flattering praise, and the
source of more exquisite delight. Her features were delicate and
regular; her complexion, though somewhat pale, was tinged with a
natural color; every sensation was instantly expressed by the
vivacity of her eyes; her easy motions displayed the graces of a
small but elegant figure; and either love or adulation might
proclaim, that painting and poetry were incapable of delineating
the matchless excellence of her form. But this form was degraded
by the facility with which it was exposed to the public eye, and
prostituted to licentious desire. Her venal charms were abandoned
to a promiscuous crowd of citizens and strangers of every rank,
and of every profession: the fortunate lover who had been
promised a night of enjoyment, was often driven from her bed by a
stronger or more wealthy favorite; and when she passed through
the streets, her presence was avoided by all who wished to escape
either the scandal or the temptation. The satirical historian has
not blushed 23 to describe the naked scenes which Theodora was
not ashamed to exhibit in the theatre. 24 After exhausting the
arts of sensual pleasure, 25 she most ungratefully murmured
against the parsimony of Nature; 26 but her murmurs, her
pleasures, and her arts, must be veiled in the obscurity of a
learned language. After reigning for some time, the delight and
contempt of the capital, she condescended to accompany Ecebolus,
a native of Tyre, who had obtained the government of the African
Pentapolis. But this union was frail and transient; Ecebolus soon
rejected an expensive or faithless concubine; she was reduced at
Alexandria to extreme distress; and in her laborious return to
Constantinople, every city of the East admired and enjoyed the
fair Cyprian, whose merit appeared to justify her descent from
the peculiar island of Venus. The vague commerce of Theodora, and
the most detestable precautions, preserved her from the danger
which she feared; yet once, and once only, she became a mother.
The infant was saved and educated in Arabia, by his father, who
imparted to him on his death-bed, that he was the son of an
empress. Filled with ambitious hopes, the unsuspecting youth
immediately hastened to the palace of Constantinople, and was
admitted to the presence of his mother. As he was never more
seen, even after the decease of Theodora, she deserves the foul
imputation of extinguishing with his life a secret so offensive
to her Imperial virtue. 2611
20 (return) [ For the life and manners of the empress Theodora
see the Anecdotes; more especially c. 1—5, 9, 10—15, 16, 17, with
the learned notes of Alemannus—a reference which is always
implied.]
21 (return) [ Comito was afterwards married to Sittas, duke of
Armenia, the father, perhaps, at least she might be the mother,
of the empress Sophia. Two nephews of Theodora may be the sons of
Anastasia, (Aleman. p. 30, 31.)]
22 (return) [ Her statute was raised at Constantinople, on a
porphyry column. See Procopius, (de Edif. l. i. c. 11,) who gives
her portrait in the Anecdotes, (c. 10.) Aleman. (p. 47) produces
one from a Mosaic at Ravenna, loaded with pearls and jewels, and
yet handsome.]
23 (return) [ A fragment of the Anecdotes, (c. 9,) somewhat too
naked, was suppressed by Alemannus, though extant in the Vatican
Ms.; nor has the defect been supplied in the Paris or Venice
editions. La Mothe le Vayer (tom. viii. p. 155) gave the first
hint of this curious and genuine passage, (Jortin’s Remarks, vol.
iv. p. 366,) which he had received from Rome, and it has been
since published in the Menagiana (tom. iii. p. 254—259) with a
Latin version.]
24 (return) [ After the mention of a narrow girdle, (as none
could appear stark naked in the theatre,) Procopius thus
proceeds. I have heard that a learned prelate, now deceased, was
fond of quoting this passage in conversation.]
25 (return) [ Theodora surpassed the Crispa of Ausonius, (Epigram
lxxi.,) who imitated the capitalis luxus of the females of Nola.
See Quintilian Institut. viii. 6, and Torrentius ad Horat.
Sermon. l. i. sat. 2, v. 101. At a memorable supper, thirty
slaves waited round the table ten young men feasted with
Theodora. Her charity was universal. Et lassata viris, necdum
satiata, recessit.]
26 (return) [ She wished for a fourth altar, on which she might
pour libations to the god of love.]
2611 (return) [ Gibbon should have remembered the axiom which he
quotes in another piece, scelera ostendi oportet dum puniantur
abscondi flagitia.—M.]
In the most abject state of her fortune, and reputation, some
vision, either of sleep or of fancy, had whispered to Theodora
the pleasing assurance that she was destined to become the spouse
of a potent monarch. Conscious of her approaching greatness, she
returned from Paphlagonia to Constantinople; assumed, like a
skilful actress, a more decent character; relieved her poverty by
the laudable industry of spinning wool; and affected a life of
chastity and solitude in a small house, which she afterwards
changed into a magnificent temple. 27 Her beauty, assisted by art
or accident, soon attracted, captivated, and fixed, the patrician
Justinian, who already reigned with absolute sway under the name
of his uncle. Perhaps she contrived to enhance the value of a
gift which she had so often lavished on the meanest of mankind;
perhaps she inflamed, at first by modest delays, and at last by
sensual allurements, the desires of a lover, who, from nature or
devotion, was addicted to long vigils and abstemious diet. When
his first transports had subsided, she still maintained the same
ascendant over his mind, by the more solid merit of temper and
understanding. Justinian delighted to ennoble and enrich the
object of his affection; the treasures of the East were poured at
her feet, and the nephew of Justin was determined, perhaps by
religious scruples, to bestow on his concubine the sacred and
legal character of a wife. But the laws of Rome expressly
prohibited the marriage of a senator with any female who had been
dishonored by a servile origin or theatrical profession: the
empress Lupicina, or Euphemia, a Barbarian of rustic manners, but
of irreproachable virtue, refused to accept a prostitute for her
niece; and even Vigilantia, the superstitious mother of
Justinian, though she acknowledged the wit and beauty of
Theodora, was seriously apprehensive, lest the levity and
arrogance of that artful paramour might corrupt the piety and
happiness of her son. These obstacles were removed by the
inflexible constancy of Justinian. He patiently expected the
death of the empress; he despised the tears of his mother, who
soon sunk under the weight of her affliction; and a law was
promulgated in the name of the emperor Justin, which abolished
the rigid jurisprudence of antiquity. A glorious repentance (the
words of the edict) was left open for the unhappy females who had
prostituted their persons on the theatre, and they were permitted
to contract a legal union with the most illustrious of the
Romans. 28 This indulgence was speedily followed by the solemn
nuptials of Justinian and Theodora; her dignity was gradually
exalted with that of her lover, and, as soon as Justin had
invested his nephew with the purple, the patriarch of
Constantinople placed the diadem on the heads of the emperor and
empress of the East. But the usual honors which the severity of
Roman manners had allowed to the wives of princes, could not
satisfy either the ambition of Theodora or the fondness of
Justinian. He seated her on the throne as an equal and
independent colleague in the sovereignty of the empire, and an
oath of allegiance was imposed on the governors of the provinces
in the joint names of Justinian and Theodora. 29 The Eastern
world fell prostrate before the genius and fortune of the
daughter of Acacius. The prostitute who, in the presence of
innumerable spectators, had polluted the theatre of
Constantinople, was adored as a queen in the same city, by grave
magistrates, orthodox bishops, victorious generals, and captive
monarchs. 30
27 (return) [ Anonym. de Antiquitat. C. P. l. iii. 132, in
Banduri Imperium Orient. tom. i. p. 48. Ludewig (p. 154) argues
sensibly that Theodora would not have immortalized a brothel: but
I apply this fact to her second and chaster residence at
Constantinople.]
28 (return) [ See the old law in Justinian’s Code, (l. v. tit. v.
leg. 7, tit. xxvii. leg. 1,) under the years 336 and 454. The new
edict (about the year 521 or 522, Aleman. p. 38, 96) very
awkwardly repeals no more than the clause of mulieres scenicoe,
libertinae, tabernariae. See the novels 89 and 117, and a Greek
rescript from Justinian to the bishops, (Aleman. p. 41.)]
29 (return) [ I swear by the Father, &c., by the Virgin Mary, by
the four Gospels, quae in manibus teneo, and by the Holy
Archangels Michael and Gabriel, puram conscientiam germanumque
servitium me servaturum, sacratissimis DDNN. Justiniano et
Theodorae conjugi ejus, (Novell. viii. tit. 3.) Would the oath
have been binding in favor of the widow? Communes tituli et
triumphi, &c., (Aleman. p. 47, 48.)]
30 (return) [ “Let greatness own her, and she’s mean no more,”
&c. Without Warburton’s critical telescope, I should never have
seen, in this general picture of triumphant vice, any personal
allusion to Theodora.]
Chapter XL: Reign Of Justinian.—Part II.
Those who believe that the female mind is totally depraved by the
loss of chastity, will eagerly listen to all the invectives of
private envy, or popular resentment which have dissembled the
virtues of Theodora, exaggerated her vices, and condemned with
rigor the venal or voluntary sins of the youthful harlot. From a
motive of shame, or contempt, she often declined the servile
homage of the multitude, escaped from the odious light of the
capital, and passed the greatest part of the year in the palaces
and gardens which were pleasantly seated on the sea-coast of the
Propontis and the Bosphorus. Her private hours were devoted to
the prudent as well as grateful care of her beauty, the luxury of
the bath and table, and the long slumber of the evening and the
morning. Her secret apartments were occupied by the favorite
women and eunuchs, whose interests and passions she indulged at
the expense of justice; the most illustrious personages of the
state were crowded into a dark and sultry antechamber, and when
at last, after tedious attendance, they were admitted to kiss the
feet of Theodora, they experienced, as her humor might suggest,
the silent arrogance of an empress, or the capricious levity of a
comedian. Her rapacious avarice to accumulate an immense
treasure, may be excused by the apprehension of her husband’s
death, which could leave no alternative between ruin and the
throne; and fear as well as ambition might exasperate Theodora
against two generals, who, during the malady of the emperor, had
rashly declared that they were not disposed to acquiesce in the
choice of the capital. But the reproach of cruelty, so repugnant
even to her softer vices, has left an indelible stain on the
memory of Theodora. Her numerous spies observed, and zealously
reported, every action, or word, or look, injurious to their
royal mistress. Whomsoever they accused were cast into her
peculiar prisons, 31 inaccessible to the inquiries of justice;
and it was rumored, that the torture of the rack, or scourge, had
been inflicted in the presence of the female tyrant, insensible
to the voice of prayer or of pity. 32 Some of these unhappy
victims perished in deep, unwholesome dungeons, while others were
permitted, after the loss of their limbs, their reason, or their
fortunes, to appear in the world, the living monuments of her
vengeance, which was commonly extended to the children of those
whom she had suspected or injured. The senator or bishop, whose
death or exile Theodora had pronounced, was delivered to a trusty
messenger, and his diligence was quickened by a menace from her
own mouth. “If you fail in the execution of my commands, I swear
by Him who liveth forever, that your skin shall be flayed from
your body.” 33
31 (return) [ Her prisons, a labyrinth, a Tartarus, (Anecdot. c.
4,) were under the palace. Darkness is propitious to cruelty, but
it is likewise favorable to calumny and fiction.]
32 (return) [ A more jocular whipping was inflicted on
Saturninus, for presuming to say that his wife, a favorite of the
empress, had not been found. (Anecdot. c. 17.)]
33 (return) [ Per viventem in saecula excoriari te faciam.
Anastasius de Vitis Pont. Roman. in Vigilio, p. 40.]
If the creed of Theodora had not been tainted with heresy, her
exemplary devotion might have atoned, in the opinion of her
contemporaries, for pride, avarice, and cruelty. But, if she
employed her influence to assuage the intolerant fury of the
emperor, the present age will allow some merit to her religion,
and much indulgence to her speculative errors. 34 The name of
Theodora was introduced, with equal honor, in all the pious and
charitable foundations of Justinian; and the most benevolent
institution of his reign may be ascribed to the sympathy of the
empress for her less fortunate sisters, who had been seduced or
compelled to embrace the trade of prostitution. A palace, on the
Asiatic side of the Bosphorus, was converted into a stately and
spacious monastery, and a liberal maintenance was assigned to
five hundred women, who had been collected from the streets and
brothels of Constantinople. In this safe and holy retreat, they
were devoted to perpetual confinement; and the despair of some,
who threw themselves headlong into the sea, was lost in the
gratitude of the penitents, who had been delivered from sin and
misery by their generous benefactress. 35 The prudence of
Theodora is celebrated by Justinian himself; and his laws are
attributed to the sage counsels of his most reverend wife whom he
had received as the gift of the Deity. 36 Her courage was
displayed amidst the tumult of the people and the terrors of the
court. Her chastity, from the moment of her union with Justinian,
is founded on the silence of her implacable enemies; and although
the daughter of Acacius might be satiated with love, yet some
applause is due to the firmness of a mind which could sacrifice
pleasure and habit to the stronger sense either of duty or
interest. The wishes and prayers of Theodora could never obtain
the blessing of a lawful son, and she buried an infant daughter,
the sole offspring of her marriage. 37 Notwithstanding this
disappointment, her dominion was permanent and absolute; she
preserved, by art or merit, the affections of Justinian; and
their seeming dissensions were always fatal to the courtiers who
believed them to be sincere. Perhaps her health had been impaired
by the licentiousness of her youth; but it was always delicate,
and she was directed by her physicians to use the Pythian warm
baths. In this journey, the empress was followed by the
Praetorian præfect, the great treasurer, several counts and
patricians, and a splendid train of four thousand attendants: the
highways were repaired at her approach; a palace was erected for
her reception; and as she passed through Bithynia, she
distributed liberal alms to the churches, the monasteries, and
the hospitals, that they might implore Heaven for the restoration
of her health. 38 At length, in the twenty-fourth year of her
marriage, and the twenty-second of her reign, she was consumed by
a cancer; 39 and the irreparable loss was deplored by her
husband, who, in the room of a theatrical prostitute, might have
selected the purest and most noble virgin of the East. 40
34 (return) [ Ludewig, p. 161—166. I give him credit for the
charitable attempt, although he hath not much charity in his
temper.]
35 (return) [ Compare the anecdotes (c. 17) with the Edifices (l.
i. c. 9)—how differently may the same fact be stated! John Malala
(tom. ii. p. 174, 175) observes, that on this, or a similar
occasion, she released and clothed the girls whom she had
purchased from the stews at five aurei apiece.]
36 (return) [ Novel. viii. 1. An allusion to Theodora. Her
enemies read the name Daemonodora, (Aleman. p. 66.)]
37 (return) [ St. Sabas refused to pray for a son of Theodora,
lest he should prove a heretic worse than Anastasius himself,
(Cyril in Vit. St. Sabae, apud Aleman. p. 70, 109.)]
38 (return) [ See John Malala, tom. ii. p. 174. Theophanes, p.
158. Procopius de Edific. l. v. c. 3.]
39 (return) [ Theodora Chalcedonensis synodi inimica canceris
plaga toto corpore perfusa vitam prodigiose finivit, (Victor
Tununensis in Chron.) On such occasions, an orthodox mind is
steeled against pity. Alemannus (p. 12, 13) understands of
Theophanes as civil language, which does not imply either piety
or repentance; yet two years after her death, St. Theodora is
celebrated by Paul Silentiarius, (in proem. v. 58—62.)]
40 (return) [ As she persecuted the popes, and rejected a
council, Baronius exhausts the names of Eve, Dalila, Herodias,
&c.; after which he has recourse to his infernal dictionary:
civis inferni—alumna daemonum—satanico agitata spiritu-oestro
percita diabolico, &c., &c., (A.D. 548, No. 24.)]
II. A material difference may be observed in the games of
antiquity: the most eminent of the Greeks were actors, the Romans
were merely spectators. The Olympic stadium was open to wealth,
merit, and ambition; and if the candidates could depend on their
personal skill and activity, they might pursue the footsteps of
Diomede and Menelaus, and conduct their own horses in the rapid
career. 41 Ten, twenty, forty chariots were allowed to start at
the same instant; a crown of leaves was the reward of the victor;
and his fame, with that of his family and country, was chanted in
lyric strains more durable than monuments of brass and marble.
But a senator, or even a citizen, conscious of his dignity, would
have blushed to expose his person, or his horses, in the circus
of Rome. The games were exhibited at the expense of the republic,
the magistrates, or the emperors: but the reins were abandoned to
servile hands; and if the profits of a favorite charioteer
sometimes exceeded those of an advocate, they must be considered
as the effects of popular extravagance, and the high wages of a
disgraceful profession. The race, in its first institution, was a
simple contest of two chariots, whose drivers were distinguished
by white and red liveries: two additional colors, a light green,
and a caerulean blue, were afterwards introduced; and as the
races were repeated twenty-five times, one hundred chariots
contributed in the same day to the pomp of the circus. The four
factions soon acquired a legal establishment, and a mysterious
origin, and their fanciful colors were derived from the various
appearances of nature in the four seasons of the year; the red
dogstar of summer, the snows of winter, the deep shades of
autumn, and the cheerful verdure of the spring. 42 Another
interpretation preferred the elements to the seasons, and the
struggle of the green and blue was supposed to represent the
conflict of the earth and sea. Their respective victories
announced either a plentiful harvest or a prosperous navigation,
and the hostility of the husbandmen and mariners was somewhat
less absurd than the blind ardor of the Roman people, who devoted
their lives and fortunes to the color which they had espoused.
Such folly was disdained and indulged by the wisest princes; but
the names of Caligula, Nero, Vitellius, Verus, Commodus,
Caracalla, and Elagabalus, were enrolled in the blue or green
factions of the circus; they frequented their stables, applauded
their favorites, chastised their antagonists, and deserved the
esteem of the populace, by the natural or affected imitation of
their manners. The bloody and tumultuous contest continued to
disturb the public festivity, till the last age of the spectacles
of Rome; and Theodoric, from a motive of justice or affection,
interposed his authority to protect the greens against the
violence of a consul and a patrician, who were passionately
addicted to the blue faction of the circus. 43
41 (return) [ Read and feel the xxiid book of the Iliad, a living
picture of manners, passions, and the whole form and spirit of
the chariot race West’s Dissertation on the Olympic Games (sect.
xii.—xvii.) affords much curious and authentic information.]
42 (return) [ The four colors, albati, russati, prasini, veneti,
represent the four seasons, according to Cassiodorus, (Var. iii.
51,) who lavishes much wit and eloquence on this theatrical
mystery. Of these colors, the three first may be fairly
translated white, red, and green. Venetus is explained by
coeruleus, a word various and vague: it is properly the sky
reflected in the sea; but custom and convenience may allow blue
as an equivalent, (Robert. Stephan. sub voce. Spence’s Polymetis,
p. 228.)]
43 (return) [ See Onuphrius Panvinius de Ludis Circensibus, l. i.
c. 10, 11; the xviith Annotation on Mascou’s History of the
Germans; and Aleman ad c. vii.]
Constantinople adopted the follies, though not the virtues, of
ancient Rome; and the same factions which had agitated the
circus, raged with redoubled fury in the hippodrome. Under the
reign of Anastasius, this popular frenzy was inflamed by
religious zeal; and the greens, who had treacherously concealed
stones and daggers under baskets of fruit, massacred, at a solemn
festival, three thousand of their blue adversaries. 44 From this
capital, the pestilence was diffused into the provinces and
cities of the East, and the sportive distinction of two colors
produced two strong and irreconcilable factions, which shook the
foundations of a feeble government. 45 The popular dissensions,
founded on the most serious interest, or holy pretence, have
scarcely equalled the obstinacy of this wanton discord, which
invaded the peace of families, divided friends and brothers, and
tempted the female sex, though seldom seen in the circus, to
espouse the inclinations of their lovers, or to contradict the
wishes of their husbands. Every law, either human or divine, was
trampled under foot, and as long as the party was successful, its
deluded followers appeared careless of private distress or public
calamity. The license, without the freedom, of democracy, was
revived at Antioch and Constantinople, and the support of a
faction became necessary to every candidate for civil or
ecclesiastical honors. A secret attachment to the family or sect
of Anastasius was imputed to the greens; the blues were zealously
devoted to the cause of orthodoxy and Justinian, 46 and their
grateful patron protected, above five years, the disorders of a
faction, whose seasonable tumults overawed the palace, the
senate, and the capitals of the East. Insolent with royal favor,
the blues affected to strike terror by a peculiar and Barbaric
dress, the long hair of the Huns, their close sleeves and ample
garments, a lofty step, and a sonorous voice. In the day they
concealed their two-edged poniards, but in the night they boldly
assembled in arms, and in numerous bands, prepared for every act
of violence and rapine. Their adversaries of the green faction,
or even inoffensive citizens, were stripped and often murdered by
these nocturnal robbers, and it became dangerous to wear any gold
buttons or girdles, or to appear at a late hour in the streets of
a peaceful capital. A daring spirit, rising with impunity,
proceeded to violate the safeguard of private houses; and fire
was employed to facilitate the attack, or to conceal the crimes
of these factious rioters. No place was safe or sacred from their
depredations; to gratify either avarice or revenge, they
profusely spilt the blood of the innocent; churches and altars
were polluted by atrocious murders; and it was the boast of the
assassins, that their dexterity could always inflict a mortal
wound with a single stroke of their dagger. The dissolute youth
of Constantinople adopted the blue livery of disorder; the laws
were silent, and the bonds of society were relaxed: creditors
were compelled to resign their obligations; judges to reverse
their sentence; masters to enfranchise their slaves; fathers to
supply the extravagance of their children; noble matrons were
prostituted to the lust of their servants; beautiful boys were
torn from the arms of their parents; and wives, unless they
preferred a voluntary death, were ravished in the presence of
their husbands. 47 The despair of the greens, who were persecuted
by their enemies, and deserted by the magistrates, assumed the
privilege of defence, perhaps of retaliation; but those who
survived the combat were dragged to execution, and the unhappy
fugitives, escaping to woods and caverns, preyed without mercy on
the society from whence they were expelled. Those ministers of
justice who had courage to punish the crimes, and to brave the
resentment, of the blues, became the victims of their indiscreet
zeal; a præfect of Constantinople fled for refuge to the holy
sepulchre, a count of the East was ignominiously whipped, and a
governor of Cilicia was hanged, by the order of Theodora, on the
tomb of two assassins whom he had condemned for the murder of his
groom, and a daring attack upon his own life. 48 An aspiring
candidate may be tempted to build his greatness on the public
confusion, but it is the interest as well as duty of a sovereign
to maintain the authority of the laws. The first edict of
Justinian, which was often repeated, and sometimes executed,
announced his firm resolution to support the innocent, and to
chastise the guilty, of every denomination and color. Yet the
balance of justice was still inclined in favor of the blue
faction, by the secret affection, the habits, and the fears of
the emperor; his equity, after an apparent struggle, submitted,
without reluctance, to the implacable passions of Theodora, and
the empress never forgot, or forgave, the injuries of the
comedian. At the accession of the younger Justin, the
proclamation of equal and rigorous justice indirectly condemned
the partiality of the former reign. “Ye blues, Justinian is no
more! ye greens, he is still alive!” 49
44 (return) [ Marcellin. in Chron. p. 47. Instead of the vulgar
word venata he uses the more exquisite terms of coerulea and
coerealis. Baronius (A.D. 501, No. 4, 5, 6) is satisfied that the
blues were orthodox; but Tillemont is angry at the supposition,
and will not allow any martyrs in a playhouse, (Hist. des Emp.
tom. vi. p. 554.)]
45 (return) [ See Procopius, (Persic. l. i. c. 24.) In describing
the vices of the factions and of the government, the public, is
not more favorable than the secret, historian. Aleman. (p. 26)
has quoted a fine passage from Gregory Nazianzen, which proves
the inveteracy of the evil.]
46 (return) [ The partiality of Justinian for the blues (Anecdot.
c. 7) is attested by Evagrius, (Hist. Eccles. l. iv. c. 32,) John
Malala, (tom ii p. 138, 139,) especially for Antioch; and
Theophanes, (p. 142.)]
47 (return) [ A wife, (says Procopius,) who was seized and almost
ravished by a blue-coat, threw herself into the Bosphorus. The
bishops of the second Syria (Aleman. p. 26) deplore a similar
suicide, the guilt or glory of female chastity, and name the
heroine.]
48 (return) [ The doubtful credit of Procopius (Anecdot. c. 17)
is supported by the less partial Evagrius, who confirms the fact,
and specifies the names. The tragic fate of the præfect of
Constantinople is related by John Malala, (tom. ii. p. 139.)]
49 (return) [ See John Malala, (tom. ii. p. 147;) yet he owns
that Justinian was attached to the blues. The seeming discord of
the emperor and Theodora is, perhaps, viewed with too much
jealousy and refinement by Procopius, (Anecdot. c. 10.) See
Aleman. Praefat. p. 6.]
A sedition, which almost laid Constantinople in ashes, was
excited by the mutual hatred and momentary reconciliation of the
two factions. In the fifth year of his reign, Justinian
celebrated the festival of the ides of January; the games were
incessantly disturbed by the clamorous discontent of the greens:
till the twenty-second race, the emperor maintained his silent
gravity; at length, yielding to his impatience, he condescended
to hold, in abrupt sentences, and by the voice of a crier, the
most singular dialogue 50 that ever passed between a prince and
his subjects. Their first complaints were respectful and modest;
they accused the subordinate ministers of oppression, and
proclaimed their wishes for the long life and victory of the
emperor. “Be patient and attentive, ye insolent railers!”
exclaimed Justinian; “be mute, ye Jews, Samaritans, and
Manichaeans!” The greens still attempted to awaken his
compassion. “We are poor, we are innocent, we are injured, we
dare not pass through the streets: a general persecution is
exercised against our name and color. Let us die, O emperor! but
let us die by your command, and for your service!” But the
repetition of partial and passionate invectives degraded, in
their eyes, the majesty of the purple; they renounced allegiance
to the prince who refused justice to his people; lamented that
the father of Justinian had been born; and branded his son with
the opprobrious names of a homicide, an ass, and a perjured
tyrant. “Do you despise your lives?” cried the indignant monarch:
the blues rose with fury from their seats; their hostile clamors
thundered in the hippodrome; and their adversaries, deserting the
unequal contest spread terror and despair through the streets of
Constantinople. At this dangerous moment, seven notorious
assassins of both factions, who had been condemned by the
præfect, were carried round the city, and afterwards transported
to the place of execution in the suburb of Pera. Four were
immediately beheaded; a fifth was hanged: but when the same
punishment was inflicted on the remaining two, the rope broke,
they fell alive to the ground, the populace applauded their
escape, and the monks of St. Conon, issuing from the neighboring
convent, conveyed them in a boat to the sanctuary of the church.
51 As one of these criminals was of the blue, and the other of
the green livery, the two factions were equally provoked by the
cruelty of their oppressor, or the ingratitude of their patron;
and a short truce was concluded till they had delivered their
prisoners and satisfied their revenge. The palace of the præfect,
who withstood the seditious torrent, was instantly burnt, his
officers and guards were massacred, the prisons were forced open,
and freedom was restored to those who could only use it for the
public destruction. A military force, which had been despatched
to the aid of the civil magistrate, was fiercely encountered by
an armed multitude, whose numbers and boldness continually
increased; and the Heruli, the wildest Barbarians in the service
of the empire, overturned the priests and their relics, which,
from a pious motive, had been rashly interposed to separate the
bloody conflict. The tumult was exasperated by this sacrilege,
the people fought with enthusiasm in the cause of God; the women,
from the roofs and windows, showered stones on the heads of the
soldiers, who darted fire brands against the houses; and the
various flames, which had been kindled by the hands of citizens
and strangers, spread without control over the face of the city.
The conflagration involved the cathedral of St. Sophia, the baths
of Zeuxippus, a part of the palace, from the first entrance to
the altar of Mars, and the long portico from the palace to the
forum of Constantine: a large hospital, with the sick patients,
was consumed; many churches and stately edifices were destroyed
and an immense treasure of gold and silver was either melted or
lost. From such scenes of horror and distress, the wise and
wealthy citizens escaped over the Bosphorus to the Asiatic side;
and during five days Constantinople was abandoned to the
factions, whose watchword, Nika, vanquish! has given a name to
this memorable sedition. 52
50 (return) [ This dialogue, which Theophanes has preserved,
exhibits the popular language, as well as the manners, of
Constantinople, in the vith century. Their Greek is mingled with
many strange and barbarous words, for which Ducange cannot always
find a meaning or etymology.]
51 (return) [ See this church and monastery in Ducange, C. P.
Christiana, l. iv p 182.]
52 (return) [ The history of the Nika sedition is extracted from
Marcellinus, (in Chron.,) Procopius, (Persic. l. i. c. 26,) John
Malala, (tom. ii. p. 213—218,) Chron. Paschal., (p. 336—340,)
Theophanes, (Chronograph. p. 154—158) and Zonaras, (l. xiv. p.
61—63.)]
As long as the factions were divided, the triumphant blues, and
desponding greens, appeared to behold with the same indifference
the disorders of the state. They agreed to censure the corrupt
management of justice and the finance; and the two responsible
ministers, the artful Tribonian, and the rapacious John of
Cappadocia, were loudly arraigned as the authors of the public
misery. The peaceful murmurs of the people would have been
disregarded: they were heard with respect when the city was in
flames; the quaestor, and the præfect, were instantly removed,
and their offices were filled by two senators of blameless
integrity. After this popular concession, Justinian proceeded to
the hippodrome to confess his own errors, and to accept the
repentance of his grateful subjects; but they distrusted his
assurances, though solemnly pronounced in the presence of the
holy Gospels; and the emperor, alarmed by their distrust,
retreated with precipitation to the strong fortress of the
palace. The obstinacy of the tumult was now imputed to a secret
and ambitious conspiracy, and a suspicion was entertained, that
the insurgents, more especially the green faction, had been
supplied with arms and money by Hypatius and Pompey, two
patricians, who could neither forget with honor, nor remember
with safety, that they were the nephews of the emperor
Anastasius. Capriciously trusted, disgraced, and pardoned, by the
jealous levity of the monarch, they had appeared as loyal
servants before the throne; and, during five days of the tumult,
they were detained as important hostages; till at length, the
fears of Justinian prevailing over his prudence, he viewed the
two brothers in the light of spies, perhaps of assassins, and
sternly commanded them to depart from the palace. After a
fruitless representation, that obedience might lead to
involuntary treason, they retired to their houses, and in the
morning of the sixth day, Hypatius was surrounded and seized by
the people, who, regardless of his virtuous resistance, and the
tears of his wife, transported their favorite to the forum of
Constantine, and instead of a diadem, placed a rich collar on his
head. If the usurper, who afterwards pleaded the merit of his
delay, had complied with the advice of his senate, and urged the
fury of the multitude, their first irresistible effort might have
oppressed or expelled his trembling competitor. The Byzantine
palace enjoyed a free communication with the sea; vessels lay
ready at the garden stairs; and a secret resolution was already
formed, to convey the emperor with his family and treasures to a
safe retreat, at some distance from the capital.
Justinian was lost, if the prostitute whom he raised from the
theatre had not renounced the timidity, as well as the virtues,
of her sex. In the midst of a council, where Belisarius was
present, Theodora alone displayed the spirit of a hero; and she
alone, without apprehending his future hatred, could save the
emperor from the imminent danger, and his unworthy fears. “If
flight,” said the consort of Justinian, “were the only means of
safety, yet I should disdain to fly. Death is the condition of
our birth; but they who have reigned should never survive the
loss of dignity and dominion. I implore Heaven, that I may never
be seen, not a day, without my diadem and purple; that I may no
longer behold the light, when I cease to be saluted with the name
of queen. If you resolve, O Caesar! to fly, you have treasures;
behold the sea, you have ships; but tremble lest the desire of
life should expose you to wretched exile and ignominious death.
For my own part, I adhere to the maxim of antiquity, that the
throne is a glorious sepulchre.” The firmness of a woman restored
the courage to deliberate and act, and courage soon discovers the
resources of the most desperate situation. It was an easy and a
decisive measure to revive the animosity of the factions; the
blues were astonished at their own guilt and folly, that a
trifling injury should provoke them to conspire with their
implacable enemies against a gracious and liberal benefactor;
they again proclaimed the majesty of Justinian; and the greens,
with their upstart emperor, were left alone in the hippodrome.
The fidelity of the guards was doubtful; but the military force
of Justinian consisted in three thousand veterans, who had been
trained to valor and discipline in the Persian and Illyrian wars.
Under the command of Belisarius and Mundus, they silently marched
in two divisions from the palace, forced their obscure way
through narrow passages, expiring flames, and falling edifices,
and burst open at the same moment the two opposite gates of the
hippodrome. In this narrow space, the disorderly and affrighted
crowd was incapable of resisting on either side a firm and
regular attack; the blues signalized the fury of their
repentance; and it is computed, that above thirty thousand
persons were slain in the merciless and promiscuous carnage of
the day. Hypatius was dragged from his throne, and conducted,
with his brother Pompey, to the feet of the emperor: they
implored his clemency; but their crime was manifest, their
innocence uncertain, and Justinian had been too much terrified to
forgive. The next morning the two nephews of Anastasius, with
eighteen illustrious accomplices, of patrician or consular rank,
were privately executed by the soldiers; their bodies were thrown
into the sea, their palaces razed, and their fortunes
confiscated. The hippodrome itself was condemned, during several
years, to a mournful silence: with the restoration of the games,
the same disorders revived; and the blue and green factions
continued to afflict the reign of Justinian, and to disturb the
tranquility of the Eastern empire. 53
53 (return) [ Marcellinus says in general terms, innumeris
populis in circotrucidatis. Procopius numbers 30,000 victims: and
the 35,000 of Theophanes are swelled to 40,000 by the more recent
Zonaras. Such is the usual progress of exaggeration.]
III. That empire, after Rome was barbarous, still embraced the
nations whom she had conquered beyond the Adriatic, and as far as
the frontiers of Aethiopia and Persia. Justinian reigned over
sixty-four provinces, and nine hundred and thirty-five cities; 54
his dominions were blessed by nature with the advantages of soil,
situation, and climate: and the improvements of human art had
been perpetually diffused along the coast of the Mediterranean
and the banks of the Nile from ancient Troy to the Egyptian
Thebes. Abraham 55 had been relieved by the well-known plenty of
Egypt; the same country, a small and populous tract, was still
capable of exporting, each year, two hundred and sixty thousand
quarters of wheat for the use of Constantinople; 56 and the
capital of Justinian was supplied with the manufactures of Sidon,
fifteen centuries after they had been celebrated in the poems of
Homer. 57 The annual powers of vegetation, instead of being
exhausted by two thousand harvests, were renewed and invigorated
by skilful husbandry, rich manure, and seasonable repose. The
breed of domestic animals was infinitely multiplied. Plantations,
buildings, and the instruments of labor and luxury, which are
more durable than the term of human life, were accumulated by the
care of successive generations. Tradition preserved, and
experience simplified, the humble practice of the arts: society
was enriched by the division of labor and the facility of
exchange; and every Roman was lodged, clothed, and subsisted, by
the industry of a thousand hands. The invention of the loom and
distaff has been piously ascribed to the gods. In every age, a
variety of animal and vegetable productions, hair, skins, wool,
flax, cotton, and at length silk, have been skilfully
manufactured to hide or adorn the human body; they were stained
with an infusion of permanent colors; and the pencil was
successfully employed to improve the labors of the loom. In the
choice of those colors 58 which imitate the beauties of nature,
the freedom of taste and fashion was indulged; but the deep
purple 59 which the Phœnicians extracted from a shell-fish, was
restrained to the sacred person and palace of the emperor; and
the penalties of treason were denounced against the ambitious
subjects who dared to usurp the prerogative of the throne. 60
54 (return) [ Hierocles, a contemporary of Justinian, composed
his (Itineraria, p. 631,) review of the eastern provinces and
cities, before the year 535, (Wesseling, in Praefat. and Not. ad
p. 623, &c.)]
55 (return) [ See the Book of Genesis (xii. 10) and the
administration of Joseph. The annals of the Greeks and Hebrews
agree in the early arts and plenty of Egypt: but this antiquity
supposes a long series of improvement; and Warburton, who is
almost stifled by the Hebrew calls aloud for the Samaritan,
Chronology, (Divine Legation, vol. iii. p. 29, &c.) * Note: The
recent extraordinary discoveries in Egyptian antiquities strongly
confirm the high notion of the early Egyptian civilization, and
imperatively demand a longer period for their development. As to
the common Hebrew chronology, as far as such a subject is capable
of demonstration, it appears to me to have been framed, with a
particular view, by the Jews of Tiberias. It was not the
chronology of the Samaritans, not that of the LXX., not that of
Josephus, not that of St. Paul.—M.]
56 (return) [ Eight millions of Roman modii, besides a
contribution of 80,000 aurei for the expenses of water-carriage,
from which the subject was graciously excused. See the 13th Edict
of Justinian: the numbers are checked and verified by the
agreement of the Greek and Latin texts.]
57 (return) [ Homer’s Iliad, vi. 289. These veils, were the work
of the Sidonian women. But this passage is more honorable to the
manufactures than to the navigation of Phoenicia, from whence
they had been imported to Troy in Phrygian bottoms.]
58 (return) [ See in Ovid (de Arte Amandi, iii. 269, &c.) a
poetical list of twelve colors borrowed from flowers, the
elements, &c. But it is almost impossible to discriminate by
words all the nice and various shades both of art and nature.]
59 (return) [ By the discovery of cochineal, &c., we far surpass
the colors of antiquity. Their royal purple had a strong smell,
and a dark cast as deep as bull’s blood—obscuritas rubens, (says
Cassiodorus, Var. 1, 2,) nigredo saguinea. The president Goguet
(Origine des Loix et des Arts, part ii. l. ii. c. 2, p. 184—215)
will amuse and satisfy the reader. I doubt whether his book,
especially in England, is as well known as it deserves to be.]
60 (return) [ Historical proofs of this jealousy have been
occasionally introduced, and many more might have been added; but
the arbitrary acts of despotism were justified by the sober and
general declarations of law, (Codex Theodosian. l. x. tit. 21,
leg. 3. Codex Justinian. l. xi. tit. 8, leg. 5.) An inglorious
permission, and necessary restriction, was applied to the mince,
the female dancers, (Cod. Theodos. l. xv. tit. 7, leg. 11.)]
Chapter XL: Reign Of Justinian.—Part III.
I need not explain that silk 61 is originally spun from the
bowels of a caterpillar, and that it composes the golden tomb,
from whence a worm emerges in the form of a butterfly. Till the
reign of Justinian, the silk-worm who feed on the leaves of the
white mulberry-tree were confined to China; those of the pine,
the oak, and the ash, were common in the forests both of Asia and
Europe; but as their education is more difficult, and their
produce more uncertain, they were generally neglected, except in
the little island of Ceos, near the coast of Attica. A thin gauze
was procured from their webs, and this Cean manufacture, the
invention of a woman, for female use, was long admired both in
the East and at Rome. Whatever suspicions may be raised by the
garments of the Medes and Assyrians, Virgil is the most ancient
writer, who expressly mentions the soft wool which was combed
from the trees of the Seres or Chinese; 62 and this natural
error, less marvellous than the truth, was slowly corrected by
the knowledge of a valuable insect, the first artificer of the
luxury of nations. That rare and elegant luxury was censured, in
the reign of Tiberius, by the gravest of the Romans; and Pliny,
in affected though forcible language, has condemned the thirst of
gain, which explores the last confines of the earth, for the
pernicious purpose of exposing to the public eye naked draperies
and transparent matrons. 63 6311 A dress which showed the turn of
the limbs, and color of the skin, might gratify vanity, or
provoke desire; the silks which had been closely woven in China
were sometimes unravelled by the Phœnician women, and the
precious materials were multiplied by a looser texture, and the
intermixture of linen threads. 64 Two hundred years after the age
of Pliny, the use of pure, or even of mixed silks, was confined
to the female sex, till the opulent citizens of Rome and the
provinces were insensibly familiarized with the example of
Elagabalus, the first who, by this effeminate habit, had sullied
the dignity of an emperor and a man. Aurelian complained, that a
pound of silk was sold at Rome for twelve ounces of gold; but the
supply increased with the demand, and the price diminished with
the supply. If accident or monopoly sometimes raised the value
even above the standard of Aurelian, the manufacturers of Tyre
and Berytus were sometimes compelled, by the operation of the
same causes, to content themselves with a ninth part of that
extravagant rate. 65 A law was thought necessary to discriminate
the dress of comedians from that of senators; and of the silk
exported from its native country the far greater part was
consumed by the subjects of Justinian. They were still more
intimately acquainted with a shell-fish of the Mediterranean,
surnamed the silk-worm of the sea: the fine wool or hair by which
the mother-of-pearl affixes itself to the rock is now
manufactured for curiosity rather than use; and a robe obtained
from the same singular materials was the gift of the Roman
emperor to the satraps of Armenia. 66
61 (return) [ In the history of insects (far more wonderful than
Ovid’s Metamorphoses) the silk-worm holds a conspicuous place.
The bombyx of the Isle of Ceos, as described by Pliny, (Hist.
Natur. xi. 26, 27, with the notes of the two learned Jesuits,
Hardouin and Brotier,) may be illustrated by a similar species in
China, (Memoires sur les Chinois, tom. ii. p. 575—598;) but our
silk-worm, as well as the white mulberry-tree, were unknown to
Theophrastus and Pliny.]
62 (return) [ Georgic. ii. 121. Serica quando venerint in usum
planissime non acio: suspicor tamen in Julii Caesaris aevo, nam
ante non invenio, says Justus Lipsius, (Excursus i. ad Tacit.
Annal. ii. 32.) See Dion Cassius, (l. xliii. p. 358, edit.
Reimar,) and Pausanius, (l. vi. p. 519,) the first who describes,
however strangely, the Seric insect.]
63 (return) [ Tam longinquo orbe petitur, ut in publico matrona
transluceat...ut denudet foeminas vestis, (Plin. vi. 20, xi. 21.)
Varro and Publius Syrus had already played on the Toga vitrea,
ventus texilis, and nebula linen, (Horat. Sermon. i. 2, 101, with
the notes of Torrentius and Dacier.)]
6311 (return) [ Gibbon must have written transparent draperies
and naked matrons. Through s
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