A HISTORY OF THE LATE ROMAN EMPIRE FROM ARCADIUS TO IRENE(395 TO 800 AD) .BOOK II . THE HOUSE OF THEODOSIUS

VI

BEGINNINGS OF THE DISMEMBERMENT OF THE EMPIRE

Alaric's brother-in-law Athaulf (Adolphus) succeeded him (410), and the Visigoths remained in Italy for two years longer, spoiling the land. In 412 they came to an understanding with Honorius, and Athaulf engaged to suppress the tyrants who had risen up in Gaul. This leads us to record the events which had agitated the Gallic provinces during the preceding six years.

The noteworthy circumstance about the events of these years, which were decisive for the future of Gaul, Spain, and Britain, was that two series of phenomena were going on at the same time, to some extent side by side and without clashing, but mutually conditioning and limiting one another. These two series of events are the rise of usurpers and the invasion of barbarians; and it seems that the same conditions which favoured the dismemberment of the western provinces by the Teutons favoured also the enterprise of illegitimate aspirants to the purple.

Up to the year 406 the Rhine was maintained as the frontier of the Roman Empire against the numerous barbarian races and tribes that swarmed uneasily in central Europe. From the Flavian Emperors until the time of Probus (282), the great military line from Coblenz to Kehlheim on the Danube had been really defended, though often overstepped and always a strain on the Romans, and thus a tract of territory (including Baden and Wurtemberg) on the east shore of the Upper Rhine, the titheland as it was called, belonged to the Empire. But in the fourth century it was as much as could be done to keep off the Alemanni and Franks who were threatening the provinces of Gaul. The victories of Julian and Valentinian produced only temporary effects. On the last day of December 406 a vast company of Vandals, Suevians, and Alans crossed the Rhine. The frontier was not really defended; a handful of Franks who professed to guard it for the Romans were easily swept aside, and the invaders desolated Gaul at pleasure for the three following years. Such is the bare fact which the chroniclers tell us, but this migration seems to have been preceded by considerable movements on a large scale along the whole Rhine frontier, and these movements may have agitated the inhabitants of Britain, and excited apprehensions there of approaching danger. Three tyrants had been recently elected by the legions in rapid succession; the first two, Marcus and Gratian, were slain, but the third Augustus, who bore the auspicious name of Constantine, was destined to play a considerable part for a year or two on the stage of the western world.

It seems almost certain that these two movements, the passage of the Germans across the Rhine and the rise of the tyrants in Britain, were not without causal connection; and it also seems certain that both events were connected with the general Stilicho. The tyrants were elevated in the course of the year 406, and it was at the end of the same year that the Vandals crossed the Rhine. Now the revolt of the legions in Britain was evidently aimed against Stilicho, as the revolt of Maximus had been aimed against Merobaudes; there was a Roman spirit alive in the northern island, which was jealous of the growth of German influence. There is direct contemporary evidence, to which I have referred in a preceding chapter, that it was by Stilicho's invitation that the barbarians invaded Gaul; he thought that when they had done the work for which he designed them he would find no difficulty in crushing them or otherwise disposing of them. We can hardly avoid supposing that the work which he wished them to perform was to oppose the tyrant of Britain—Constantine, or Gratian, or Marcus, whoever was tyrant then; for it was quite certain that, like Maximus, he would pass into Gaul, where numerous Gallo-Roman adherents would flock to his standards. Stilicho died before Constantine was crushed, and the barbarians whom he had so lightly summoned were still in the land, harrying Gaul, destined soon to harry and occupy Spain and seize Africa. From a Roman point of view Stilicho had much to answer for in the dismemberment of the Empire; from a Teutonic point of view, he contributed largely to preparing the way for the foundation of the German kingdoms.

The first act of the tyrant Constantine was to cross with all his military forces into Gaul, which sorely needed a defender to expel the barbarians who were harrying it, or, failing that, to protect the Rhine frontier against new invaders. He inflicted a severe defeat on the intruders, though he did not expel them; and, according to Zosimus, he guarded the Rhine more securely than it had been guarded since the reign of Julian. The representatives of the rule of Honorius, the praetorian prefect Limenius and the general Chariobaudes, fled into Italy probably soon after the arrival of the usurper from Britain, and Constantine passed into the south-eastern provinces which had escaped the devastations of the barbarians. "For two years," writes Mr. Freeman, "they and he both carry on operations in Gaul, each, it would seem, without any interruption from the other. And when the scene of action is moved from Gaul to Spain, each party carries on its operations there also with as little of mutual let or hindrance. It was most likely only by winking at the presence of the invaders and at their doings that Constantine obtained possession, so far as Roman troops and Roman administration were concerned, of all Gaul from the Channel to the Alps. Certain it is that at no very long time after his landing, before the end of the year 407, he was possessed of it. But at that moment no Roman prince could be possessed of much authority in central or western Gaul, where Vandals, Suevians, and Alans were ravaging at pleasure. The dominion of Constantine must have consisted of a long and narrow strip of eastern Gaul, from the Channel to the Mediterranean, which could not have differed very widely from the earliest and most extended of the many uses of the word Lotharingia. He held the imperial city on the Mosel, the home of Valentinian and the earlier Constantine."

When Constantine obtained possession of Arelate, then the most prosperous city of Gaul, it was time for Honorius and his general to rouse themselves. Stilicho formed the design of assigning to Alaric the task of subduing the adventurer from Britain, who had conferred upon his two sons, Constans, a monk, and Julian, the titles of caesar and nobilissimus respectively. But this design was not carried out. A Goth indeed, and a brave Goth, but not Alaric, crossed the Alps to recover the usurped provinces; and Sarus defeated the army which was sent by Constantine to oppose him. But he failed to take Valentia, and was obliged to return to Italy without having accomplished his purpose (408).

The next movement of Constantine was to occupy Spain. It is not necessary for us to follow Mr. Freeman in his account of the difficult and obscure operations which were carried on between the kinsmen of Theodosius and the troops which the Caesar Constans and his lieutenant Gerontius led across the Pyrenees. It is sufficient to notice the main point, which Mr. Freeman has made out, that we are not justified in accepting the version of the story which states that the representatives of the Theodosian house were engaged in defending the northern frontier of the peninsula against the Vandals and their fellow-plunderers before Constantine attempted to occupy it. The defenders of Spain were overcome, and Caesaraugusta (Zaragoza) became the seat of the Roman Caesar. Thus in the realm of Constantine almost all the lands composing the Gallic prefecture were included; he might claim to be the lord of Britain, which he had left masterless; the province of Tingitana, beyond the Straits of Gades, was the only province that had obeyed Limenius and did not in theory obey Constantine.

Constans, however, was soon recalled to Gaul by his father, and elevated to the rank of Augustus. But Constantine himself meanwhile, possessing the power of an Emperor, was not wholly content; he desired also to be acknowledged as a colleague by the son of Theodosius, and become, as it were, legitimised. He sent an embassy for this purpose to Ravenna, and Honorius, hampered at the time by the presence of Alaric, was too weak to refuse the pacific proposals. Thus Constantine was recognised as an Augustus and an imperial brother by the legitimate Emperor; but the fact that the recognition was extorted and soon repudiated, combined with the fact that he was never acknowledged by the other Augustus at New Rome, justifies history in refusing to recognise as the third Constantine the invader from Britain who ruled at Arelate. Some time afterwards another embassy, of whose purpose we are not informed, arrived at Ravenna, and Constantine promised to assist his colleague Honorius against Alaric, who was threatening Rome. Perhaps what Honorius was to do in return for the proffered assistance was to permit the sovereign of Gaul to assume the consulship. In any case it was suspected that Constantine aspired to add Italy to his realm as he had added Spain, and that the subjugation of Alaric was only a pretext for his entering Italy, as it might have been said that the subjugation of the Vandals and their fellow-invaders had been only a pretext for his entering Gaul. A high official, Allobich, master of the horse, was also suspected of favouring the designs of the usurper, and the suspicion, whether true or false, cost him his life; Honorius caused him to be assassinated. When this took place Constantine was already in Italy, and the fact that when the news reached him he immediately recrossed the mountains, strongly suggests that the suspicion was true, and that he depended on the treason of the master of horse for the success of his Italian designs.

Constans had left the general Gerontius in charge of Spain, and the error was committed—it is not clear whether through a want of judgment on the part of Gerontius or of Constans—of substituting barbarian mercenaries for the Spanish legions to defend the Pyrenees. This unwise act produced an insurrection of the legions; the barbarian soldiers indulged in unlawful plunder; and Constans was sent back to Spain to restore order. Blame seems to have been thrown on Gerontius, and the Augusti resolved to supersede him by the appointment of a certain Justus; but Gerontius was not of a spirit to submit tamely. He rose against the usurper whom he had supported, and, though he did not assume the purple himself, raised up a new Emperor—a tyrant against a tyrant—in the person of Maximus, who was perhaps his own son. For a while there were six Emperors, legitimate or illegitimate, ruling over parts of the Roman Empire, even as there had been one hundred years before. Besides Theodosius ruling at New Rome and Honorius at Ravenna, there were Constantine and his son Constans at Arelate; there was Attalus at Old Rome, who had been set up by Alaric; and Maximus at Tarragona, who had been set up by Gerontius.

This act of Gerontius, although both he and the Emperor he made soon vanished from the scene, led to important consequences. In order to hold out against the old usurper, the new usurper adopted the momentous course of inviting the Vandals, Suevians, and Alans, who for three years had been ravaging Gaul, to pass into Spain. This act led to the loss of Spain; it led also to the loss of Africa. And thus we may say that it was the loss or abandonment of Britain in 407 that led to the further loss of Spain and Africa. Africa would not have been conquered by the Vandals if they had not passed into Spain; Spain would not have become the possession of Vandals and Suevians, to be afterwards the realm of the Visigoths, if Gerontius had not revolted and invited them to enter; the revolt of Gerontius and his presence in Spain were a direct consequence of the "tyranny" of Constantine; and the tyranny of Constantine in Gaul and Spain depended upon his abandoning Britain. It is really worthy of notice how the loss of the furthest outlying of the Roman conquests in the West was followed by this curious series of effects; and how when the Roman armies retired from the Britannic borders, the retreat did not cease even at the Pillars of Hercules.

It may be noticed here that Britain was not yet forgotten. We learn that Honorius, when Alaric retired from besieging Ravenna, wrote letters to the cities of Britain, bidding them defend themselves, perhaps against Saxon enemies.

Constans soon fled before Gerontius and his new allies; and while Maximus reigned in state at Tarraco, his maker, if not his father, marched into Gaul against the father and son, who had been once his masters. Constans was speedily captured at Vienna and put to death; and the victor, marching down the Rhone, laid siege to Arelate.

Meanwhile Honorius had sent an army under the command of Constantius and Ulfilas to do what Sarus had failed to do before and win back "the Gauls." Thus Constantine was menaced on the one hand by the general of a usurper and on the other hand by the general of the lawful Emperor. Before the representatives of legitimacy the blockading army fled, and Gerontius returned to Spain, to meet death there at the hands of his own troops. The house in which he took refuge was set on fire; he and his Alan squire fought long and bravely against the besiegers; and at length in despair he slew his squire and his wife Nunechia, at their own request, and then stabbed himself.

Thus besiegers in the interest of Honorius replaced the besiegers in the interest of Maximus at Arelate, where Constantine and his second son Julian held out. For more than three months the siege wore on, and the hopes of the usurper depended upon the arrival of Edobich, his Frankish master of soldiers (it is to be presumed he held this title), who had been sent to engage barbarian reinforcements beyond the Rhine.

Edobich at length returned with a formidable army, and a battle was fought near the city, which resulted in a victory for the besiegers. Edobich was slain by the treachery of a friend in whose house he sought shelter, and Constantine, seeing that his crown was irrecoverably lost, thought only of saving his life. "He fled to a sanctuary, where he was ordained priest, and the victors gave a sworn guarantee for his personal safety. Then the gates of the city were thrown open to the besiegers, and Constantine was sent with his son to Honorius. But that Emperor, cherishing resentment towards them for his cousins, whom Constantine had slain, violated the oaths and ordered them to be put to death, thirty miles from Ravenna." (September 411)

But Constantine and Constans were not the only adventurers who called themselves Emperors in Gaul in the year 411. While the army of Constantine was still blockading Arelate, Jovinus, a Gallo-Roman, was proclaimed at Moguntiacum (Mainz). Like Attalus, he was set up by barbarians, but by barbarians farther from the pale of civilisation than Alaric. Gundicar, the king of the Burgundians—prototype of the Gunther of the Nibelungen—and Goar, a chief of the Alans, were the makers of this Emperor, and his elevation was intimately connected with the occupation of the Middle Rhine by the Burgundians. We know not how it was that Constantius and Ulfilas, the victors of Arles, returned to Italy without striking a blow against the other tyrant who had arisen on the Rhine, ere he had yet gathered strength. But the subjugation of Jovinus was reserved, not for the Roman general, but for his rival in war and love, the Visigothic king.

At the beginning of 412 Athaulf and his Goths abandon Italy and pass into Gaul, just as four years before Alaric had abandoned Illyricum and passed into Italy; the Visigoths were inevitably drawn to the shores of the Atlantic. It is sometimes represented that Athaulf crossed the Alps as the bearer of a commission from Honorius to suppress the tyrant Jovinus, but this was not so. Athaulf had come to no understanding with the court of Ravenna; he carried the captive Placidia with him, against her own will and the will of her brother, and he was far more disposed to side with Jovinus against Honorius than with Honorius against Jovinus. An accident decided that he was to be the champion of the legitimate Emperor

Attalus, the ex-Emperor, who was to become a sham Emperor once more, was in the train of the Visigoths, and his persuasions induced Athaulf to march to Mainz, that he might co-operate with the tyrant. But it appears that the arrival of this unexpected help was not so welcome to the Augustus who reigned on the Rhine as the Visigoths might have hoped, and Jovinus blamed Attalus in dark sayings as the cause of the presence of an ungrateful supporter. Why the prince who had been elevated by one Teutonic king disliked the support of another is not clear; but perhaps he had already entered into friendly negotiations with Sarus, that Visigoth whom he saw acting with partial success against Constantine, and who was the mortal enemy of Athaulf as he had been the mortal enemy of Alaric. Sarus certainly arrived on the scene at this juncture with about a score of followers to attach himself to the fortunes of Jovinus; the feeble and prejudiced Honorius, who was unable to retain his best officers, had refused to grant him justice for the murder of a faithful domestic. The feuds of the West Goths proved favourable to the cause of legitimacy; Athaulf was incensed when he heard of the approach of Sarus, and advanced with ten thousand to crush twenty soldiers. Hardly was Sarus, after having performed deeds of marvellous heroism, taken alive; his relentless conqueror put him to death.

A quarrel soon ensued between Athaulf and Jovinus and the latter defied the desires and injunctions of the former by proclaiming his brother Sebastian Augustus. Then Athaulf decided to war against him whom he had come to assist, and defend the rights of the Emperor whom he had intended to oppose. He sent envoys to Honorius, promising to send him the heads of Jovinus and Sebastian, and he seems to have been so prompt that when the ambassadors returned Sebastian was already crushed.

It is not clear how far the Roman prefect Dardanus, who had resolutely opposed the tyranny of the man who was set up by the Burgundians, influenced Athaulf’s change of attitude, but it is clear that once Athaulf had turned against the tyrant he co-operated with Dardanus. Jovinus fled from Mainz on the Rhine to Valence on the Rhone, but soon surrendered to the Visigoths who blockaded him, and was executed by Dardanus at Narbonne (autumn 413). His head, and that of his brother, were exposed at New Carthage in Spain, to assert in that troubled country the might of the Empire and the Theodosian house.

Before following further the actions of Athaulf in Gaul, we must turn for a moment to Africa and notice the revolt of Count Heraclian, whose rebellion, by the express testimony of a contemporary, was influenced by the examples of usurpation which he had observed in Gaul. The man who, three years before, had resisted so staunchly the proposals of Attalus and the threats of Alaric, and stood by the throne of Honorius, was now seized by the infectious disease of tyranny and threatened his sovereign without provocation. With an immense fleet, whose numbers even at the time were grossly exaggerated, he sailed to Italy, but was almost immediately defeated, and fled back to Africa to find its provinces prepared to reject him. He was slain at Carthage about the same time that Jovinus was slain at Narbo.

This revolt in Africa was partly influenced by recent events in Gaul, and it also exercised in turn an influence on affairs there. The great aim of Honorius, whose mental horizon was bounded by his family and his poultry-yard, was to recover his sister Placidia from the hands of the Visigoth, and this desire was ardently shared by his influential general Constantius, who aspired to the hand of the princess. Accordingly negotiations were carried on with Athaulf, who demanded that he and his people should be supplied with corn, and, as a consequence thereof, be recognised as dependants of the Roman Empire. To this Honorius and Constantius agreed; but Africa was the corn chamber of Italy, and when Heraclian revolted and inhibited the transport of supplies, it became impossible to fulfil the engagement with Athaulf. He therefore refused to fulfil his part of the treaty, and seized the three most important towns of south-western Gaul, Narbo Martius, Tolosa, and Burdigala (Bordeaux) the city of the poet Ausonius. He also made an attempt to take Massilia, which he hoped might fall by treachery; but it was defended by "the most noble Boniface," who was afterwards to play a more ambiguous and more conspicuous part in Africa, and Athaulf himself was wounded wellnigh to death by a stroke which the Roman dealt him.

The assault on Massilia seems to have taken place in one of the latest months of 413, and almost immediately after it Athaulf determined to give himself a new status by marrying his captive, the Roman princess. Whether he had meditated this design before we are not told; but doubtless its execution at this juncture partly depended on the lady herself. It was celebrated in January 414 at Narbonne, in the house of one Ingenius, a leading citizen; and the pride of Constantius in his first consulship was spoiled for him by the news that the lady whom he loved was the bride of a barbarian. We are told how, arrayed in the dress of a Roman and a royal bride, Placidia sat in the hall of the citizen of Narbo, and how Athaulf sat beside her, he too dressed as a Roman. With other nuptial gifts the Visigoth gave his queen fifty comely youths, apparelled in silk, each bearing two large chargers in his hands, filled one with gold, the other with priceless gems—the spoils of Rome. They had an ex-Emperor to pronounce an epithalamium, and Attalus was assisted by other Romans. The marriage festivities were celebrated with common hilarity by barbarians and Romans alike.

A contemporary writer has recorded words spoken by Athaulf, which throw light on his attitude to the Empire. "At first," he said, "I ardently desired that the Roman name should be obliterated, and that all Roman soil should be converted into an empire of the Goths; I longed that Romania should become Gothia and Athaulf be what Caesar Augustus was. But I have been taught by much experience that the unbridled licence of the Goths will never admit of their obeying laws, and without laws a republic is not a republic. I have therefore chosen the safer course of aspiring to the glory of restoring and increasing the Roman name by Gothic vigour; and I hope to be handed down to posterity as the initiator of a Roman restoration, as it is impossible for me to change the form of the Empire."

The birth of a son, Theodosius, who died in infancy, rendered the sentiments of Athaulf still more Roman; but Honorius and Constantius were disposed to reject his friendly advances. Moved by resentment or policy, Athaulf, who had put down the tyrant Jovinus, set up the tyrant Attalus, the same who had been created Augustus by Alaric in 409, and was always ready to be made or unmade as it suited his Gothic friends. In the following year we find Constantius at Arelate, determined to drive his enemy from Gaul into Spain, and preventing all ships from reaching the coast of Septimania. Athaulf, taking his Emperor Attalus, complied with the wishes of the general and moved southward along the coast to Barcelona, where it was destined that the death of Sarus should be avenged. Unsuspectingly and unwisely he had received into his service a certain Dubius, one of the followers of Sarus, who avenged his first master by slaying his second master. The king had gone to the stable, as was his custom, to look after his own horses, and the servant, who had long waited for a favourable opportunity, stabbed him (September 415). Perhaps the assassin had been encouraged to commit this deed by Singeric, the brother of Sarus, who immediately seized the royalty, and put to death the children of the dead king, tearing them from the arms of the bishop Sigesar, to whose protection they had fled for refuge. Placidia herself, whose husband had killed and whose brother had offended Sarus, was compelled by the brother of Sarus to walk on foot in the company of captives. But Singeric's reign endured only for seven days; he was slain and succeeded by Wallia.

The new king was not disposed to adopt the policy of Athaulf and assume a pacific attitude towards Rome. The historian, who wrote two years later, informs us that "he was elected by the Goths just for the purpose of breaking the peace, while God ordained him for the purpose of confirming it." His first act, apparently at the beginning of 416, was to organise an expedition against Africa; but it was not destined that the Visigoths should set foot there. Alaric had essayed the sea just before his death and could not reach Sicily; even so the ships of Wallia were shattered in the Straits of Gades. The object of Wallia was probably the same as the object of Alaric—he was pressed by want of supplies of corn. This ill-success had the fortunate effect of changing his policy. “Alarmed at the loss of a large body of Goths, who had perished last year by the storm in the straits, attempting to cross into Africa, he concluded a treaty with Honorius and honourably restored Placidia, engaging to undertake for the Romans the war against the barbarians in Spain. So far we are told that the Alani, the Vandals, and the Suevi are destroying one another, and it is said that Wallia is very anxious to bring about a peace”.

The conditions of this peace of 416 were that the Romans on their part should supply Wallia with corn; that Wallia on his part should restore Placidia, should give up the tyrant Attalus, and should fight in Spain against the barbarians who had occupied it. During the lifetime of Athaulf such a treaty could not have been concluded, the narrow-minded Honorius, who held fast by the Roman pride of family, would never have recognised a king of the Visigoths as his brother-in-law, and rivalry in love placed a barrier between the husband and the suitor of Placidia. Placidia might now be restored without detriment to Gothic honour.

Attalus escaped in a ship, and tried to elude the vigilance of the Romans, but he was captured and delivered alive to Constantius. In the eleventh consulship of Honorius and the second of Constantius, the Emperor entered Rome in triumph, with Attalus at the wheels of his chariot. He punished the inveterate and harmless tyrant by maiming him of a finger and thumb, and condemning him to the same fate that he had wished to inflict upon himself. Honorius had doubtless not forgotten how Attalus demanded, with an air of patronising clemency, that the son of Theodosius should retire to some small island, and he now banished his prisoner to Lipara. If the consulate of Honorius was sweetened by the triumph over Attalus, the second consulate of Constantius was sweetened for him by attainment to the object of his hopes, the hand of Placidia, even as his first consulate, three years ago, had been embittered by her marriage with Athaulf. On the first day of January she married him against her own will, by the constraint of her brother. The marriage was followed by the birth of two children, Honoria in 418 and Valentinian III in 419 (3d July).

A personal description of the Count and Patrician Constantius, now the most influential minister of Honorius, the brother-in-law of the Emperor, and destined to be an Emperor himself, has come down to us from the pen of a contemporary writer, "When he walked in public," says Olympiodorus, "his eyes were downcast, and he looked askance; he had large eyes and a large neck and a flat head; when he rode, his whole body inclined over the neck of his steed, and he used to cast his eyes obliquely hither and thither; all deemed his appearance that of one who might aim at empire. At feasts and carouses he was amenable and sociable, descending even to vie with the mountebanks who performed for the guests." We can understand that Placidia was not attracted by this rough Roman. In 420 he entered upon his third consulate, and early in the following year was co-opted by Honorius and proclaimed Augustus, Placidia at the same time receiving the title Augusta, against whose assumption by his sister-in-law Eudoxia Honorius had protested more than twenty years ago.

We must now return to Spain, which we left in 409 when the barbarian, at the invitation of Gerontius, entered that fair land, rich in corn and crops, rich in mines of gold and precious stones. The four nations, the Vandal Asdings and the Vandal Silingis, the Suevians and the Alans, divided the land between them. The Suevians and the Asdings together occupied the north-western province of Gallaecia, the regions north of the Douro; the Alans took up their abode in Lusitania, the modern Portugal; and the Silingi obtained the southern lands of the Baetis, whose name was changed by the Saracen occupation, and is now called Guadalquiver. The eastern coast of the peninsula was not occupied by the invaders, and throughout the whole country the Spaniards were able to defend themselves in the cities; but the bloody harryings and devastations of the Germans soon forced the inhabitants to make a compromise, by which the natives retained the cities and the invaders possessed the open country.

Wallia's treaty with the Empire had been made before the month of June in 416. He marched against the barbarians of Spain before the year was over, and fought successfully against the conquerors of Lusitania and Baetica. The chief of the Silingian Vandals was sent to Honorius. In the following year, still fighting "for the Roman name," Romani nominis causa, he inflicted great slaughter upon the barbarians, and in 418 the Silingians were totally extinct through the valour of the Visigoth. Hispalis, Corduba, and Gades were at length delivered from the presence of a menacing foe. The Alans were not so completely exterminated, but their king Atax was killed, and the remnant of them who escaped the sword of Wallia fled to Gallaecia and submitted to Gunderic, the king of the Asdinman Vandals.

Thus Wallia the chief, who had been elected for the express purpose of reversing the policy of Athaulf and warring with the Romans, is by the stress of events found fighting for the Roman name, and carrying out the ideal which Athaulf professed to have set before himself—the ideal of restoring the Roman power by Gothic arms. He received his reward. He was not obnoxious to Constantius and Honorius, as the rival and brother-in-law had been; and they were ready to recompense him for his services in Spain, as they were unwilling to recompense Athaulf for his similar services in Gaul. It was apparently in the consulship of Monaxius and Plintha (419) that the compact was made by which the Empire granted to the Visigoths a permanent home in south-western Gaul. The whole province of Aquitania Secunda, the northern part of the province of Narbonensis and part of Novempopulania, formed the nucleus of the Visigothic kingdom, which was afterwards to include a larger portion of Gaul. Thus the two great cities that are built on the banks of the Garonne, Burdigala at its mouth, now Bordeaux, and Tolouse, were ruled over by Wallia and his successors; but Narbo Martius, on the Mediterranean coast, was reserved by the prudence of Constantius, who was the author of this compact. This final settlement of the Visigoths—who had been able to find no home in Illyricum, nor yet in Italy—after many wanderings, was a momentous event; it was the beginning of that compromise between the Empire and the Teutons to which everything had been tending for many years. Constantius was herein the successor of Theodosius the Great and Stilicho; he carried out that in which they had failed. About the same time the same policy was adopted in regard to the Burgundians who had settled on the Middle Rhine; a definite territory was marked out for them, and they were recognised as dependent on the Empire.

It has been justly pointed out that this arrangement in regard to the Visigoths must have been acceptable to the Gallo-Roman inhabitants of those regions. In the year 418 an edict of Honorius—the work of Constantius—conferred local government on the inhabitants of the Seven Provinces; a representative council was to be held every year at Arelate; and we may assume that the government, solicitous for the welfare of those provinces, would not have imposed the Visigoths upon any one of them against the will of the inhabitants. In fact, is it not legitimate to assume that the settlement of the Goths and the measure which instituted a provincial assembly were closely connected?

The imperial government seems to have been deeply concerned for the state of southern Gaul, which had lately endured so much at the hands of tyrants and barbarians, and Constantius conceived the idea of combining a remedy with the solution of another problem. It was evident that the Visigoths must be allowed to occupy the lands which they had conquered for the Empire in Spain, or else receive an allotment of territory elsewhere. In any case the Roman Emperor would probably have hesitated to concede Spain, the land of gold mines, the land of Theodosius, to a German people; but perhaps the choice of south-western Gaul was influenced by the idea that the presence of the Visigoths might invigorate a declining region.

The Roman inhabitants of the provinces where the strangers settled would naturally be in a looser relation to the Empire; but it was important that the relation should not cease to exist. We can hardly then avoid seeing in the edict of Honorius of April 418 a very ingenious idea, intended not only to give new life to southern Gaul, but to enable the Empire to retain a hold on the lands which it was determined to surrender to the Goths. The idea consisted in relaxing the strict bonds of administration which connected all the Seven Provinces with the central government, by removing the imperial governors and allowing the inhabitants, as a dependent federation, to conduct their own affairs, for which purpose representatives of all the towns were to meet every year in Arles. Thus the Gallo-Romans of those provinces and towns, which were to pass into the hands of the Goths, would, without clashing with their masters, belong to a Roman political body, which was under imperial control.

It seems hardly possible to set aside the notion (although, as far as I know, it has never been put forward) that the rescript was drawn up with full consciousness on the part of Constantius that the Visigoths were to be settled in Gaul. That settlement cannot have been made on the spur of the moment; it must have received long and serious consideration, for it is represented by the consent of all our authorities as coming spontaneously from the Patrician.

The scheme of representative government for the Seven Provinces, intended to multiply social relations, to increase commerce and healthy life, was not taken up with enthusiasm by the municipalities. If the idea had taken root the history of southern Gaul might have been different. "The city of Constantine," the little Rome of Gaul, where all the famous products of the rich Orient, of perfumed Arabia and of delicate Assyria, of fertile Africa, of fair Spain and of brave Gaul, abounded so profusely that one might have thought the various marvels of all the world were indigenous in its soil—Arelate, built at the union of the Rhone with the Tuscan sea, provided with all the facilities of trade, might have been the centre of a federation, able to have maintained a distinct Gallo-Roman life for many centuries, to have accelerated the civilisation of the Franks, and to have prevented the Asiatic stranger from ever crossing the Pyrenees.

After the Visigoths left Spain there was war between Gunderic, king of the Vandals, and Hermeric, king of the Suevians. The latter were blockaded in the Nervasian mountains; but suddenly Asterius, count of the Spains, appears upon the scene, and in consequence of his operations the Vandals abandoned their blockade of the Suevians. At Bracara a large number were slain by the Romans, and then they left Gallaecia and passed into the southern provinces of Baetica (420), which Wallia had cleared of their kinsmen two years before. Vigorous measures were now demanded if the Roman Emperor desired to save Spain, if the work of the Visigoths was not to be undone. The elevation of Constantius in February 4212 seemed of good augury for the interests of the Roman republic; but the third Constantius was not destined to wear the purple long. It is characteristic that he is said to have found the restraints attending imperial power intolerably irksome; he was not free to go and come as he used, when he was still a private individual. We shall see how this trait came out in his daughter Honoria. And his elevation was not without a bitter element. The announcement of his co-option was sent to Constantinople, but Theodosius refused to recognise him; and the new Augustus, indignant at the insult, prepared to force recognition by the sword. We are in the dark as to the motive of the hesitation of the ruler of New Rome to acquiesce in the choice of his uncle; it has been conjectured that he looked forward to the death of Honorius without heirs and the devolution of the western provinces upon himself. The warlike intentions of Constantius were fortunately not to be realised. After a reign of seven months he died of pleurisy (2d September). We know not whether it was at his suggestion that an expedition was undertaken in the following year (422) against the Vandals in Spain. Castinus commanded this expedition; but all the expeditions which were sent at various times against the Vandals were destined to fail, until the days when the great Belisarius overcame Gelimer. The general Castinus fled before the enemy to Tarraco.

After the death of Constantius the relations between Honorius and his step-sister became close and tender, and slanderous tongues whispered that their kisses and endearments portended a criminal intimacy. But the sweetness was soon turned into gall. A cabal was formed, in which Leonteus, the steward of Placidia, and two of her women, Spadusa and Elpidia, played a prominent part in fostering suspicion and unkindness. There were frays in the streets of Ravenna, and the barbarians who had come with the widow of Athaulf from Barcelona struck blows for the name and the fame of their mistress. The breach widened, and at length the Augusta, with her two children, was banished from the city which Honorius loved, and sought refuge with her kindred in New Rome (423), even as her mother had once fled from the usurper Maximus.

It is probable that in the court intrigue more powerful personages were involved than the subordinates, such as the nurse Elpidia, who are mentioned as sowing the seeds of discord. We can hardly help conjecturing that the general Castinus and the Count Boniface were concerned in it. The celebrated Boniface now appears on the stage of history, and he was at this time probably count of Africa (422).

The circumstances, however, which attended his presence in Africa are veiled in obscurity. In 422 he was ordered to accompany Castinus on the expedition against the Vandals in Spain, but he quarrelled with the commander and proceeded to Africa. It is hard to decide whether this was more than an act of disobedience,—whether he seized the African government without imperial warrant, or, having been already governor in that province and having been summoned specially to Italy to organise the expedition, he returned in pique to the sphere of his administration. It may be observed that there is no hint that at this time Boniface really quarrelled with the court of Ravenna, and there is no mention of any commander in Africa whom Boniface ousted from his office; we may therefore best suppose that the intention was to combine the forces of Italy and the forces of Africa against the invaders of Spain, and that a quarrel between the two commanders thwarted its execution.

This act of Boniface, whatever character it bore, was, according to a chronicler, "the beginning of many labours to the republic." His administration was highly lauded by a contemporary, and he is not represented as having defied, at this period, the court of Ravenna. On the contrary, we shall find him espousing the cause of legitimacy against the usurper John in 424, when that very Castinus with whom he had quarrelled "connived" at the usurpation. If we combine with this the fact that Boniface strongly upheld the cause of Placidia in her quarrel with Honorius in so far as he supported her with money in her exile at Constantinople, and remember that the quarrel between the brother and sister must have begun much upon the same time as the ambiguous departure of Boniface for Africa (422) took place, we shall be disposed to conjecture that the two events had some links of connection. If, when the Augustus and Augusta were in conflict, the latter were supported by Boniface and opposed by Castinus, not only would the conduct of Boniface be explained, but the uncertain language of the chroniclers in regard to his "seizure" of Africa would be accounted for. If he deserted the palace" and proceeded to Africa, the seat of his administration, against the will and consent of Honorius, his act might be regarded as disobedient and illegitimate; while the same act, if it were approved of and supported by the Augusta Placidia, might be regarded as lawful.

Honorius, who, weak though he was, had by his mere existence held things together, died of dropsy on 15th August 423. When the news arrived at Constantinople, the first care of the government was to occupy the port of Salona in the province of Dalmatia, which belonged to the prefecture of Italy. The event was then made public; for seven days the hippodrome of Constantinople was closed, and the city mourned for the deceased Emperor. The intervention of Theodosius at this crisis was evidently indispensable, and two courses were open. He might overlook the claims of Valentinian, the son of the Augustus whom he had refused to recognise, he might aspire to rule the whole Empire himself, as his grandfather and namesake had ruled it, without dividing the power; or else he might recognise his child step-cousin as his colleague and act provisionally as his regent and protector. In either case there was fighting to be done in the West, for a usurper, whose name was John, had arisen at Ravenna, and the general Castinus did not disapprove of the usurpation. Theodosius and Pulcheria decided to take the second course, and to support the rights of their kinsman Valentinian and their kinswoman Placidia. The ambassadors of John, who soon arrived to demand his recognition by the sovereign of New Rome, were banished to different places on the Propontis; if Theodosius had disdained Constantius as a colleague, how much more would he have disdained John, the primicerius notariorum?

When Constantius had been proclaimed Augustus, Placidia had also been proclaimed Augusta, and the child Valentinian had received the title of nobilissimus; but the court of Constantinople had as little vouchsafed to recognise the nobilissimus or even the Augusta, as to recognise the Augustus. And so now Placidia and Valentinian received those titles anew, and then set forth with a large army to recover their inheritance. The army was commanded by Ardaburius, who was supported by his son Aspar, and by Candidian, who had probably accompanied Placidia in her exile. At Thessalonica, which by this time had recovered from the terrible vengeance of the great Theodosius, the grandson of Theodosius was raised to the rank of Caesar. It was destined that he should once more see its churches, and look forth over Grecian waters, when he returned, not from a sort of exile, but from marriage festivities, accompanied by his bride Eucloxia.

The infantry were commanded by Ardaburius and the cavalry by Aspar, and when they arrived at Salona, the city of Diocletian's palace, the troops of Ardaburius embarked in the ships which were stationed there and sailed across to the coast of Italy, while the troops of Aspar proceeded by land to Sirmium, and thence over the Julian Alps to the great city of the Venetian march, Aquileia.

The fleet of Ardaburius was unfortunate; it was caught in a storm and scattered. The general himself, driven ashore near Ravenna, was captured by the soldiers of John. If the usurper had immediately proceeded to operate against Aspar, he might have thwarted the expedition. But he waited and gave the enemy time. He relied on the arrival of an army of Huns, who were advancing to support him under the command of Aetius.

Ardaburius employed the time of his captivity in forming connections with the officers and ministers of the tyrant, and shaking the fidelity of his adherents in Ravenna. He then succeeded in sending a message to his son, who waited uneasily and expectantly at Aquileia, bidding him advance against Ravenna with all haste. Guided by a shepherd through the morasses which secured that city, the soldiers of Aspar entered without opposition; some thought that the shepherd was an angel of God in disguise. John was captured and conducted to Aquileia, where Placidia doomed him to death. His right hand was cut off; and, mounted on an ass, he was driven through the circus before he was executed.

Aetius now arrived on the scene with 6000 Huns; but John was no longer there to employ their aid. Aetius himself was pardoned and reconciled with Placidia; and his influence with the Huns was so great that he was able by a donation of money to induce that large army to retire to their homes. The general Castinus, who had connived at the tyranny of John, was banished; and when all things had been peacefully arranged Valentinian was proclaimed Augustus at Rome on 23d October (425).

It is strange that the first appearance of Count Aetius, who was destined to be the great support of the Theodosian house, the right hand of Valentinian as was afterwards said, should have been as the champion of a usurper; it may seem strange too that the first sight we have of him who was to be the great deliverer of Europe from the Huns is as the leader of an army of Huns, with whom he is on the best terms. But it has been well pointed out by Mr. Freeman that there was nothing remarkable—nothing recreant, we may say—at this period for a Roman to use Huns in contending against Romans; every general used Hun and Alan, as well as German, mercenaries in civil as well as in other wars. This employment of Huns on the part of Aetius did not mean that he Hunnised in an opprobrious sense. The circumstances of his youth had brought about his familiarity with the barbarians. He was the son of an Italian mother and of Gaudentius, who had fought with Theodosius against the tyrant Eugenius; and he was born at the town of Dorostena (now Dristra or Silistria) in Lower Moesia. He had been, as a child, a hostage with Alaric, and had afterwards been sent as a hostage to Rugila, king of the Huns; his sojourn in Hunland made him familiar with Scythian ways. In later years too he was on friendly terms with Attila, until Attila threatened Europe.

VII

INVASIONS OF THE HUNS

In 441 AD the realm of Theodosius was in danger from a powerful combination. It was involved in war with three powers, the Huns, Vandals, and Persians, at the same time, and at least two of them, the Huns and Vandals, were in league. The rise of the great Hunnic power, which threatened European civilization in the fifth century, was as sudden and rapid as its fall. The Huns had gradually advanced from their Caucasian abodes, pressing westward the Goths who lined the north shores of the Black Sea, and had now become a great power. Attila, their king, ruled over a European empire stretching from the Don to Pannonia, and including many barbarian kingdoms. In 395 Asia Minor and Syria had been ravaged by Huns entering by the north-east passes, but in 400 we find Uldes, a king of other Huns, hovering on the shores of the Danube and putting Gainas to death. At the beginning of Theodosius’ reign the Romans gained a victory over this Uldes, and followed up the success by defensive precautions. The strong cities in Illyricum were fortified, and new walls were built to protect Byzantium; the fleet on the Danube was increased and improved. But a payment of money was a more effectual barrier against the barbarians than walls, and about 424 Theodosius consented to pay 350 lbs. of gold to Rugila or Rua, king of the Huns, who had established himself in the land which is now Hungary, and to whom, about 433, the western government conceded a part of Pannonia. It was to Rugila probably, that Aetius, afterwards to be the terror of Huns, was sent as a hostage; and it was he who supplied Aetius with the auxiliaries for the support of the tyrant John. When Rugila died in 434 his nephews Attila and Bleda, the sons of Mundiuch, succeeded him, and a new treaty was contracted by which the payment was doubled.

Attila cherished friendly relations with Aetius, the general of Valentinian, and entered into an alliance with Gaiseric, king of the Vandals, who had passed from Spain into Africa in 429 and established themselves there, as will be related in another chapter. The movements of Attila from 434 to 441 are lost to us, but at the latter date we find him ruler over an enormous barbaric empire in central Europe, which stretched to the Caucasian mountains on the east, threatening the provinces of Theodosius. At the same time the forces of the East were required against the Vandals and the Persians; and it has been suspected that the hostilities of the latter were not uninfluenced by the Huns, as the hostilities of Attila were certainly influenced by the movements of Gaiseric.

The Vandals were unique among the German nations by the fact that they maintained a fleet, so that they were able to afflict the eastern as well as the western lands of the Mediterranean, and to make piratical raids on the coasts of Greece; it was even thought advisable to fortify the shore and harbours of Constantinople against a possible Vandal expedition. The security of traders and commercial interests demanded that an attempt should be made to suppress this evil, and a large armament, whose numbers have perhaps been exaggerated, was fitted out by Theodosius, and placed under the command of Areobindus. It was despatched to Sicily to operate against Gaiseric, who had taken Lilybaeum and was besieging Panormus; but tidings of some dark danger which threatened him in Africa induced the friend of pirates to make a truce with the Roman general and hurry back to his kingdom. The danger came from a son-in-law of Boniface, the famous Sebastian, who died as a martyr and became a favourite subject with Italian painters; but how his passage into Mauretania, of which Prosper tells us, menaced Gaiseric is not clear. From a fragment, attributed to John of Antioch and preserved by Suidas, it would seem that he was the commander of a pirate crew which served the Emperor Theodosius; and so we might suspect that his invasion of Mauretania was closely connected with the Sicilian expedition.

Most of the military forces which had not accompanied Areobindus to the West accompanied Anatolius and Aspar to the East. What happened there is not recorded clearly, but the hostilities were of short duration and slight importance.

At this moment Attila determined to invade the Empire. It was destined that he, like Alaric the Visigoth at an earlier, and Theodoric the Ostrogoth at a later time, should desolate the provinces of the East before he turned to the West. He condescended to allege a cause for his invasion; he complained of the irregular payment of tribute, and that deserters had not been restored; but the government at Constantinople disregarded his embassy. Then Attila, who had advanced towards the Danube from his home, which was somewhere on the Theiss, laid siege to the city of Ratiaria, an important town on the Ister in Dacia ripensis. Here ambassadors arrived from New Rome to remonstrate with the Huns for breaking the peace, and the invader replied to their complaints by alleging that the bishop of Margus had entered Hunnic territory and robbed treasures from the tombs of their kings; the surrender of these treasures and of deserters was demanded as the condition of peace.

The negotiations were futile, and, having captured Ratiaria, the Hunnic horsemen rode up the course of the Ister and took the great towns which are situated on its banks. Viminacium and Singidunum, in Upper Moesia, were overwhelmed in the onslaught of the "Scythian shepherds," and it seems that the friendship of Attila with Aetius did not preserve the town of Sirmium in Lower Pannonia from being stormed. The town of Margus, which faces Constantia on the opposite side of the river, fell by treachery; the same bishop whom Attila accused of robbing tombs incurred the eternal disgrace of betraying a Roman town and its Christian inhabitants to the greed and cruelty of the heathen destroyer. The invaders advanced up the valley of the Margus, now called the Morawa, and halted before the walls of Naissus, now called Nisch, in the province of Dardania—the city which had been strengthened and improved by the affection of the great Constantine, and which had recently given to the Empire a Third Constantius. The inhabitants made a brave defence, but the place fell before the machines of Attila and the missiles of a countless host. Then the victors passed south-eastward through narrow denies into Thrace and penetrated to the neighbourhood of Constantinople. Attila was not to lay siege to New Rome, just as ten years later when he invaded Italy he was not to lay siege to Old Rome; but he took Philippopolis and Arcadiopolis, and a fort named Athyras, not far from the Bosphorus.

If the nameless bishop of Margus is branded with infamy for his recreant Hunnism, the name of the strong fortress of Asemus in Lower Moesia deserves to be handed down by history in golden letters for its brave and successful resistance to the Hun, even as the town of Plataea earned an eternal fame by its noble action in the Persian war. While the great towns like Naissus and Singidunum yielded to the violence of the whirlwind, Asemus did not bend. A division of the Huns, different from that which marched to Thrace, but of countless multitude, invaded Lower Moesia and laid siege to Asemus. The garrison not only defied the foes, but so effectually harassed them by sallying forth that they retreated. The Asemuntians were not satisfied with a successful defence. Their scouts discovered the opportune times, when plundering bodies of the Hunnic army were returning to the camp with spoils, and these moments were eagerly seized by the adventurous citizens; the pillagers were unexpectedly attacked; many Scythians were slain, and many Roman prisoners, destined to languish in the wilds of Hungary, were rescued from captivity.

Meanwhile the Roman armies were returning from their campaigns in the East and in the West, but it is not clear whether the troops were actually employed against Attila, or whether Areobindus, who had commanded against Gaiseric, or Aspar, who had commanded against Isdigerd (Yezdegerd), the Persian king, accomplished anything of note against the Huns. A battle was certainly fought in the Thracian Chersonese, and Attila won the victory; but we know not who was his opponent. Nor do we know what the master of soldiers in Thrace, Theodulus by name, was doing at Odessus. After this battle a peace was concluded between Theodosius and Attila. As it was Anatolius who was the negotiator, it was generally known as the "Peace of Anatolius" (443 D) . The terms were that the former payment of 700 lbs. of gold, made by the Romans to the Huns, was to be trebled; besides this 6000 lbs. of gold were to be paid at once; all Hunnic deserters were to be restored, while Roman deserters were only to be given up for a payment of 10 solidi a head.

For four years after this the Illyrian and Balkan lands were not laid waste by the harryings of the great enemy, but in 447 Scythia and Lower Moesia, which had suffered less in the former invasion, felt the presence of the Hun again. Marcianopolis was taken, and the Roman general Arnegisclus fell in a battle fought on the banks of the river Utus. At the same time another multitude descended the valley of the Vardar and advanced southward—though some doubt the record—as far as Thermopylae.

Meanwhile embassies passed to and fro between the court of Attila and the court of Theodosius; and of the embassy of Maximin the historian Priscus, who accompanied the ambassador, has left us copious and interesting details, which give us a glimpse of Hun life, and will be reproduced in another chapter.

Until the end of the reign of Theodosius the oppressive Hun-money was paid to Attila; but when Marcian came to the throne he refused to pay the stipulated tribute. It seemed that the Illyrian peninsula would be again trampled under the horse-hoofs of Hunnic cavalry; but complications in the West averted the course of the destroyer in that direction, and the realm of Valentinian, not the realm of Marcian, was to resist the storm.

The Hunnic empire had assumed a really formidable size and power under the ambitious warrior Attila, who, we are told, in spite of his hideous features and complexion, had the unmistakable aspect of a ruler of men. Gepids and Ostrogoths, with many other German tribes, acknowledged the over-lordship of the king of the Huns, who, as Jordanes says, "possessed Scythian and German kingdoms"—Scythica et Germanica regna possedit—though the extent of his domination is often exaggerated. Before 440 the Huns had attempted an invasion of Persia, and Roman officers talked of the chances of the overthrow of the Persian power by Attila and the possible consequences of such an event for the Roman world. But it was not destined that Attila should attempt to confront the great power of Asia; he was to shatter his strength in a contest with the forces of Europe on one of the great battlefields of the world's history.

VIII

THE PATRICIAN AETIUS

We have seen how Spain was lost to the Empire and occupied by the Teutonic Vandals and Suevians, and the probably not Aryan Alans, whom the rebel Gerontius invited south of the Pyrenees. We have seen too how the Visigoths, who crossed the Alps to put down the usurpers in Gaul, formed a dependent kingdom in Aquitaine—the kingdom of Toulouse, as it is called by Dahn. Stilicho and Alaric, Constantius and Athaulf, who played such prominent parts in the first scene of the dismemberment of the Empire, have passed from the stage; new figures, Bonifacius and Aetius, Theodoric and Gaiseric, will now come to the front; we shall see what became of Africa and what became of Spain, and follow further the fortunes of Gaul, where so many peoples ruled and so many kingdoms fell; we shall see, finally, how the shadow of the Hun fell upon Teutons and Romans, invaders and invaded alike, and how they successfully united to drive away the horror of darkness and desolation which menaced them.

Africa, so far away from the Rhine and the Danube, where the Teutonic foes were pressing on the Empire, had not as yet suffered from their invasion; but the occupation of Spain by the hordes of Vandals and Suevians was now bringing them into closer proximity. But the Roman legions in the Afric provinces had work enough to occupy them in defending the southern frontier against another persistent enemy, the Moors, who at this time seem to have been carrying on active operations. At least we find the heroic Boniface shortly after, if not before, the year 422, delivering Africa from many barbarous nations.

We have seen how Boniface supported the claims of the sister and nephew of Honorius, and refused to acknowledge the claims of John. After the restoration of the legitimate dynasty, he may have been rewarded by the title "Count of Africa," though it seems more likely that he held that title before; but it appears that he began to degenerate, and complaints were made that he no longer repelled the incursions of the Afric barbarians with his pristine energy. In 427 he was summoned to Ravenna to answer the charges and account for his conduct, Placidia acting here by the advice of Felix, the master of soldiers who had succeeded Castinus. By refusing to obey the order, Boniface placed himself in the position of an "enemy of the republic," and an army was sent against him under three commanders, all of whom were slain.

Thus there was civil war in Africa, but its events are merged in obscurity. Of the following facts alone can we be certain. The Goth Sigisvult was sent to Africa against Boniface, after the death of the three commanders (probably in 428): the Vandals, under Gaiseric (who succeeded Gunderic in 427), arrived in Africa in May 429, having perhaps been summoned thither by Boniface or by his opponents, or by both; there were operations at Hippo, which was besieged by the Vandals, and an army was sent from the East under Aspar against the invaders. But the relations between the recalcitrant general, the general who was sent to crush him, and the alien nation cannot be recovered; it seems most likely that the two former combined against the common enemy. However this may have been, the Vandals conquered Africa; both the rebel and the suppressor of rebellion seem to have soon retired; and in the year 432 Boniface appears in Italy restored to favour and holding the office of master of soldiers. His rival Felix had been slain in a military tumult in 430, but now he has a new opponent in Aetius, the hero who had been lately distinguishing himself in Gaul, and was destined to win yet greater distinction when it devolved upon him to resist the Hun.

For some unknown cause Placidia decided to depose Aetius from his office as general; and Aetius, as Boniface before, refused to submit. Boniface was now called upon to play the opposite part to that which he had recently played, and, like Sigisvult, to force a self-willed general to submission. There was civil war in Italy. A battle was fought near Ariminum and Aetius was defeated, but he proved superior to his opponent in strategy, and Boniface died shortly afterwards of disease—it is said produced by chagrin—and his opponent obtained possession of his property and his wife. Curious legends have grown up round this battle which was fought at Ariminum; Boniface and Aetius were afterwards represented as rivals of ancient date, who decided their feud by single combat, and the story has only recently been finally exploded by our greatest living English historian.

We saw the Vandals in Africa besieging Hippo, which, however, they did not take. But they extended their dominion rapidly over Africa; they defeated the army which was sent from the East under Aspar; and soon they held all the strong cities except Cirta, Hippo, and Carthage herself. This expeditious conquest is to be explained not only by the fact that in Italy Africa was forgotten for the more immediate struggle between Aetius and Boniface, but by the state of Africa itself, where a large portion of the population were heretics and prepared to welcome a change of rule. The oppression of the Donatists, and their consequent opposition to the imperial government, gave an excellent opening for an invader, and if any invitation was sent to Gaiseric, who was known not to be a Catholic—he had lapsed from Catholicism to Arianism—it probably came from these heretics. The bands of Circumcellions, who went about the country preaching and practising socialism, sworn foes of existing circumstances and closely identified with the followers of Donatus, also prepared the way for a conqueror.

In spite of his wonderfully rapid career of success, Gaiseric was glad to make a compact with the Empire in 435 (11th February, at Hippo), of a similar nature with the compacts which had been made with the Burgundians and the West Goths. The province of Africa—except the city of Carthage—the province of Byzacena, and a part of Numidia, were handed over to the Vandals, who bound themselves to pay a tribute, perhaps of corn and oil, for their lands. Thus the Vandals were in the same position as the Burgundians and Visigoths, the position of dependants allowed to live in Roman territory. Aetius, who was now the right hand of Placidia and Valentinian, had pursued the policy of Constantius, and might be called the friend of the Vandals with more justice than Boniface, who, if he had lived, might have taken steps to expel the invader.

But this compact could only be provisional, and Gaiseric did not intend to stop short of the total conquest of Africa. In less than five years Carthage was taken (October 439), and Africa had become a Vandalic kingdom. A large part of the land was reserved as a royal domain, another portion was distributed among the Vandal warriors in lots; probably the poorest territory was left to the Roman provincials.

It is to be observed that the Vandals now held a position of vantage in regard to the Empire that none of the other Teutonic nations ever occupied. In relation to the foreign peoples of northern Europe, the front of the Roman Empire was the Rhine and the Danube. And so we may say that the Vandals had come round to the back of the Empire and were able to attack it behind. Another peculiar feature was that, in the language of a chronicler, the sea was made pervious to them; they created a naval power and attacked the Empire by sea, as no other Teutonic people had done in the Mediterranean, though the Saxons and other men of the north used ships to harry it in the northern ocean. Sicily was soon the object of their attacks; Panormus was besieged, but not taken; and Corsica and Sardinia became for a time parts of the Vandalic kingdom.

The dependent kingdom of the Burgundians in the districts of Mainz and Worms (Gesoriacum) was not of long endurance, for in 437 Aetius almost exterminated the nation, and the small remnant which escaped the punishment of disloyalty moved south-westward, and received from the Romans territory in Sapaudia (Savoy), about Lake Leman, which may be called the second Bungundian kingdom.

This change made way for the Alemanni. They had been driven from Roman ground by the arms of Julian, but at the beginning of the fifth century, amid the general confusion of migration, they came back to their old haunts and settled on the Upper Rhine. Thus before 437 there were three nations, two at least nominally under Roman supremacy, from the mouth of the Rhine to its source, the Franks, the Burgundians, and the Alemanni. When the Burgundian kingdom was overthrown, the Alemanni profited by the event, and extended their dominion northwards. Before the end of the century their extended kingdom was incorporated in Francia by the battle of Tolbiacum (496).

It was not only against the Burgundians that Aetius was active in Gaul to maintain the respect due to the Roman name, and prevent the nations from trespassing on soil which was not opened to them. He warred successfully against the Franks, who had invaded the regions between the Somme and the Rhine, and he kept the ambition of Visigothic Theodoric, Wallia's successor, in check. For Theodoric tried to do what Gaiseric actually did in Africa, to enlarge the land which he held with Roman consent by acquiring new lands without Roman consent. Aetius prevented him from realising his aims, as Boniface, if he had lived, might have prevented Gaiseric; and the Visigoths were beaten back from Arelate. We need not follow these hostilities, but it may be noticed that Aetius employed Alan and Hunnic auxiliaries against the Teutons. In 439 an event occurred which paved the way for friendly relations between the great general and the great king. When Aetius was absent in Italy the Roman captain Litorius, whom he had left in charge of the army, hoping to accomplish a success which would throw the deeds of his commander in the shade, attacked Toulouse, and was repulsed by Theodoric. The opposition between Christianity and paganism was emphasised here, and the fact that the Visigoths were believers in Christ and the Huns infidels. Litorius gratified the Hunnic soldiers by the performance of pagan rites and the consultation of auspices; and this rendered conspicuous the Christian attitude of Theodoric; it showed how much nearer he was to Aetius than were Aetius’ soldiers.

It is time for us to speak more particularly of Aetius himself, the great figure of the West. So far we see in him only the successor of Stilicho and Constantius, with the former of whom he presents many points of resemblance. It was the function of both Stilicho and Aetius to keep the Teutonic barbarians in check, and yet both, coming of barbarian stock themselves, had considerable sympathy with the barbarian. In this neither of them was like Constantius, who was a Roman of the Romans; but nevertheless, in regard of the Visigoths and Gaul, Aetius carried on the work which Constantius had begun. But he never fully won the confidence of Placidia, or even of Valentinian, as Stilicho had won the confidence of Honorius; and his disgrace in 432, a strange reward for his services in Gaul, indicates clearly this distrust. When the war with Boniface was over, Aetius, after several adventures, withdrew to Pannonia, and obtained the assistance of the Huns, whose help he had obtained nine years before to support John. They did not fail him in his need; by their means, by a menacing embassy, perhaps, or even by a hostile demonstration, the court of Ravenna received the general again into favour, and conferred on him the title of Patrician (433) and the office of magister utriusque militiae. This transaction is significant of Aetius’ position throughout his career; he forced Placidia and Valentinian to have him against their will. Conscious, perhaps, that he was the one man who could guide the Empire through this critical stage, and arrange the delicate relations into which it was thrown with the Teutonic nations, by both yielding and refusing to yield at the right time, he pressed himself on the court, and made it follow his leadership. A panegyrical description of the man has been preserved to us, written by Renatus Frigeridus. He was "of middle height, of manly condition, well shaped, so that his body was neither too weak nor too weighty, active in mind, vigorous in limb, a most dexterous horseman, skilled in shooting the arrow, and brave in using the spear; he was an excellent warrior and famous in the arts of peace; free from avarice and greed, endowed with mental virtues, one who never deviated at the instance of evil instigators from his own purpose, most patient of wrongs, a lover of work, dauntless in perils, able to endure the hardships of hunger, thirst, and sleeplessness."

But the successful accomplishment of the gigantic task which now awaited Aetius has made him justly famous as no panegyrics could have done.

Hitherto he has appeared to us greater indeed than Constantius, but not as great as Stilicho; we shall now see him as the man who had most to do with the happy decision of a crisis which concerned wider interests than those of the Roman Empire. The exigency of a common interest—the opposition to a common foe—was now to set a seal on the relations which had been recently established between the Empire and many of the Teutonic nations; and the germ of a new idea, the idea of Europe as the habitation of Teutons and Romans—Romans in the widest sense,—was to be sown on the Catalaunian Fields.

The rise of the Hunnic empire under Attila, and the devastation suffered by the Illyrian and Thracian provinces, have been related. At the time of the embassy of Maximin it had seemed that there was little likelihood of serious hostility against western Europe on the part of the Huns; for, though small points of difference arose, Aetius had kept up very friendly relations with Attila. The factors which operated in bringing about Attila's invasion of Gaul seem to have been three, but one of these was more important than the others.

Here we are brought to speak of the strange story of the princess Honoria, daughter of Placidia and Constantius. At the age of sixteen she had condescended to the embraces of a chamberlain named Eugenius, and when the signs of pregnancy revealed the degradation of a princess, the indignation of her mother and her brother banished her to Constantinople, where she lived for fifteen years or more in the prim and irksome society of her religious step-cousins. She was betrothed against her will to a respectable consular named Herculanus, and at length, with a wildness which she had perhaps inherited from her father's Illyrian ancestors, she took the adventurous course of offering her hand to the great enemy of the Empire; the daughter of the lady who shrank from union with Christian Athaulf was willing to unite herself to heathen Attila, the husband of innumerable wives. Attila was not slow to take advantage of her impetuous act. Adopting the principle that all children, male and female, inherit equal portions from their father, he sent the ring of betrothal which he had received from Hyacinthus, the secret messenger of Honoria, to her brother Valentinian, and demanded that the share of the Empire, whereof that sovereign had unrighteously deprived his sister, should be instantly restored.

The act of Honoria gave Attila an excellent pretext against the Empire, but he might not have taken advantage of it so soon save for another event which arose, not from a quarrel at the court of Ravenna, but from the relations between the Teutonic courts of Carthage and Toulouse. Theodoric had two daughters, of whom one was married to the king of the Suevians in Spain, and the other to Huneric, the son of Gaiseric the Vandal. The Suevic son-in-law was on good terms with the Visigoths—we hear of his paying his father-in-law a visit at Toulouse; but for the daughter who was sent across the seas to Carthage misfortunes were reserved by fate. Gaiseric suspected her of plotting against himself, and with a cruelty which even Attila might hardly have practised, he mutilated her ears and nose, and sent her back to her father. The bitter hatred which followed upon this outrage influenced the attitude of the Huns. Theodoric was the friend and ally of Aetius; Gaiseric sought the friendship and alliance of Attila, and stirred him up to make war upon the Romans and their allies. Priscus, who is our best contemporary authority, and especially credible in all that relates to Hunnic politics, states expressly that Attila made war "to oblige Gaiseric."

But the quarrel in the imperial court itself and the quarrel between the barbarians within the Roman pale were not the only factors which operated in bringing about Attila's invasion; a quarrel among barbarians outside the pale also operated. In a struggle for the succession between two Frank princes the rivals appealed to Attila, and he against whom Attila decided appealed for help to Aetius. Here was another circumstance which forced the Huns and the Romans to measure swords.

Thus when Attila invaded Gaul in 451, he came to wrest from Valentinian half of his dominion, in the name of Honoria, and he came equally to make war on the Visigoths for the sake of the Vandals. As against the Empire he could claim to be the champion of a recreant imperial princess; as against the Teutons he could claim to be the ally of a recreant Teutonic nation. But the question at stake was not a quarrel between Valentinian and Honoria, nor a feud between two German peoples, nor a disputed succession of the Franks; it was the perpetual question of history, the struggle told long ago by Herodotus, told recently by Trikoupis, the struggle between Europe and Asia, the struggle between cosmos and chaos—the struggle between Aetius and Attila. For Aetius was the man who now stood in the breach, and sounded the Roman trumpet to call the nations to do battle for the hopes of humanity, and defend the cause of reason against champions of brute force. The menace of that monstrous host, which was preparing to pass the Rhine, was to exterminate the civilisation that had grown up for centuries, to spread desolation in Gaul and Italy, to undo the work of Plataea and the Metaurus, and to paralyse the beginnings of Teutonic life. If Attila had not been repelled, western Europe might have been converted into a spiritual waste, unspeakably more lost and degraded than Turkey at the present day.

But the interests of the Teutons were more vitally concerned at this crisis than the interests of the Empire. We can imagine that if Attila had been the victor on the great day, and had hurled Valentinian from his throne, and had reigned at Rome or Ravenna, cities which were happily never to be called the seats of an Asiatic sovereign, or at Arelate, which was once to pine for a short space under the rule of the Saracen, even then the Empire might have held out in the East, and Marcian and Leo and Aspar might have beaten back the Hun. But the doom of the Visigoths and the Burgundians and the Franks would have been inevitable; their nascent civilization would have been crushed under the yoke of that servitude which crushes and blights, and they would not have been able to learn longer at the feet of Rome the arts of peace and culture.

The work of Aetius, then, was as much for the future of the Teutonic nations as it was for the Roman Empire. Theodoric the Visigoth did not realise the danger. But Avitus, the emissary of Aetius, explained the situation, and persuaded him to join the Romans against the invader. This decision was momentous; the Roman and the Teuton were to make common cause against the Hun. Neither knew—that was the secret of history—that there was a latent affinity between them, and that in the remote past their ancestors had spoken the same language; they knew not that they were kindred nations fighting against a true enemy. Burgundians and Franks joined their ranks, and all the inhabitants of Brittany and Armorica. The Ostrogoths and the Gepids and the Thuringians, some Burgundians and Franks and Suevians, fought in the ranks of Attila, but these were yet wild peoples without the pale, mostly Attila's subjects and possessing no choice in the matter.

Attila, having taken Metz and other towns, laid siege to Aureliani (Orleans), but the city was relieved by the arrival of Aetius (June 451), and the great battle took place in the wide district known as the Catalaunian Fields. Neither the day of this event nor the exact place are known; the month was perhaps July, and the locus Mauriacus was probably either Mery-sur-Seine or Moirey, in the neighbourhood of Troyes.

The chief feature of this battle is that Attila was rendered unable to advance; herein lay the great success of the Romans and their allies. Strictly speaking, the battle was drawn; the Huns and the Visigoths fought long and hard without any result, except slaughter on both sides. But the Hunnic forces were innumerable, while the soldiers of Aetius and Theodoric were comparatively few, as were the Greek soldiers at Plataea or the Greek sailors at Salamis, against the overwhelming numbers of the foe. The fact, then, that the small army hewed down the ranks of the immense host, and withstood, though it did not rout, the Huns, was a tremendous victory. The king of the Visigoths, Theodoric,—whose name deserves to be handed down to fame, no less than that of his more celebrated Ostrogothic namesake, whose father and uncles fought with Attila,—was killed in the fray, and his son Thorismond was proclaimed king on the field of battle. As for the part played by the Roman general himself in the engagement, we hear that at the onslaught of Attila the "prudence of the Patrician Aetius, was such that by hastily collecting around him a band of warriors from all sides he was able to oppose the multitude of the enemy on an equality" (non impar). The union of a certain clearness with a certain obscurity as to the events of this great day of deliverance lends the tale of the battle of the Catalaunian Fields a peculiar charm, preparing us for those legends which afterwards grew up that the spirits of the fallen warriors continued the battle in the air.

Thus the cause of the Romans and the Teutons, the cause of Europe, prevailed; the cause even of those Teutons who fought for the invader. The Ostrogoths were in his ranks, and the Thuringians, who out-Hunned the Huns by deeds of unutterable cruelty; but both Thuringians and Ostrogoths were as yet without the pale, as were all the other Germans who warred for Attila. We cannot forget that the only Teutons within the Roman pale, who, though they did not take part in the conflict, not only hoped for the victory of the Hun, but had even provoked him to war, were the settlers in Africa; we cannot forget that when Aetius and Theodoric did battle for the common cause of cosmos and civilization, the Vandals alone sided with chaos and barbarism; even as the Greeks could not forget that the Thebans had chosen the side of the Persian invader and refused to fight for the freedom of all the Greeks. But the Vandals had no Epaminondas, no Pindar, no Plutarch to redeem their name. It seemed that, when they entered Africa, a part of the mantle of the Phoenicians had fallen upon them, though they came by another way, from the West and not from the East, and though they were Christians; it seemed that something in their nature drove them to espouse the cause which had been before represented by the Carthaginians, and was afterwards to be represented by the Saracens on the northern coast of Africa. But their power passed away quickly, even as the power of the Huns passed away, and their name has only been commemorated in an opprobrious word expressing the barbarous spirit which defaces the exterior graces of civilization.

After the great check, Attila, "having lost confidence in fighting," returned to his own land, and then with renewed strength invaded Italy. Aquileia, the city of the Venetian march, the city which two hundred years before had endured with bravery and constancy the terrible siege of the barbarian tyrant Maximin, now fell before the Huns, and was razed to the ground, never to rise again; in the next century hardly a trace of it could be seen. Verona and Vicentia did not share this fate, but they were exposed to the violence of the Scythian, while Ticinum and Mediolanum were compelled to buy from the invader exemption from fire and sword.

But the Hun was suddenly induced to retreat; the lands south of the Po, and Rome herself, were spared the humiliating sight of the presence of the Scythian shepherds. According to the generally received account, the thanks of Italy were on this occasion owed not to the general Aetius but to the bishop of Rome. Aetius, now unaided by his Visigoths and other German allies, is said to have dreamed of departing with Valentinian to Byzantium; but Leo I with two noble Romans, Avienus and Trigetius, visited the camp of Attila, perhaps near the south shore of Lake Garda, and the majesty of the Church persuaded the barbarian to withdraw. The story is surrounded with a legendary halo; the apostles Peter and Paul are said to have appeared to Attila, and by their threats terrified him into leaving Italian soil.

The fact of the embassy cannot be doubted; but that it was the sole cause which brought about the departure of the Huns cannot be admitted. It is not in itself probable that heathen Attila, the enemy of Christendom, would have cared for the thunders or the persuasions of the Church; and a trustworthy authority hands down another account, which does not conflict with the circumstance of the embassy, but gives a rational and evidently correct explanation of the true reasons which induced Attila to receive the embassy favourably. “The Huns”, says Idatius, “are stricken by strokes from heaven, partly by famine and partly by disease; moreover, they are slain by auxiliary troops, which were sent by the Emperor Marcian, under the leadership of Aetius ... And being thus subdued, having made peace with the Romans, they all returned to their own abodes”.

Thus the position of the Huns was untenable in northern Italy; famine and pestilence thinned their ranks, and the troops of Aetius, which had been sent from Marcian, harassed them. Thus Aetius was not skulking or preparing to flee; with a force too small to venture an open battle, he was vexing the host of the destroyers. Attila was glad to make peace, he had obtained sufficient booty to satisfy him, and he yielded graciously to the arguments or entreaties of Leo and Avienus.

Attila survived this Italian expedition only one year. He died of the bursting of an artery, and in the morning his attendants found the bride whom he had married the night before sitting beside his bed in tears. Some said that he was stabbed by the hand and knife of a woman."

"It is a saying," writes Gibbon, "worthy of the ferocious pride of Attila, that the grass never grew on the spot where his horse had trod. Yet the savage destroyer unclesignedly laid the foundation of a republic, which revived, in the feudal state of Europe, the art and spirit of commercial industry." But there was another benefit as well as the doubtful foundation of the city of St. Mark that Attila conferred unclesignedly on Europe,—a spiritual benefit. It was the need of opposition to him that first awoke the idea of a Roman and Teutonic Europe in the West; it was under the dread of his unshapely shadow that it first dawned upon Romans and Teutons that they had a common cause. Greece alone fought at Salamis; republican Rome alone fought at Metaurus and Zama; imperial Rome alone held the Euphrates against the Persian Sassanid; but both Romans and Teutons, both Romania and Germania (not Gothia alone), fought side by side on the Mauriac Plain.

As the death of Attila followed hard upon his defeat, the death of Aetius followed hard upon his victory. His reward for supporting Valentinian's Empire was, that he should fall by Valentinian’s hand; his fate was like that of Stilicho, and due to a similar cause, the cabal of certain persons who were jealous of his power and had influence at court.

Maximus, a noble and powerful man, who had been twice consul, entertained enmity against Aetius, the master of soldiers in Italy. He discovered that Heraclius, a eunuch who had very great influence with the Emperor, was also an enemy of Aetius, and wished, like himself, to oust the general from power; accordingly, he conspired with him, and they persuaded the Emperor that he would perish at the hands of Aetius, unless he hastened to slay him first.

"It was fated that Valentinian should pull down the bulwark of his own government; so he admitted the representation of Maximus, and devised death against Aetius." Even when the general was in the palace, laying his account before the Emperor and reckoning up the moneys that had been collected by taxation, Valentinian suddenly leaped from the throne and accused him of treason, perhaps of seeking the Empire for his son Gaudentius. Not allowing him time to defend himself, he drew his sword, and rushed upon the defenceless officer, who was at the same moment attacked by the chamberlain Heraclius. Thus perished the patrician and consul Aetius; and someone afterwards aptly remarked, it is said, to the Emperor, “You have cut off your right hand with your left”. Who was now to oppose the Vandals?

The assassination of Aetius led directly to the assassination of Valentinian, of which the most authentic account has been preserved by the historian John of Antioch. It will be best to narrate it in his own words.

"And after the murder of Aetius, Valentinian slew also Boethius, the prefect, who was a very dear friend of Aetius. And having exposed their bodies unburied in the forum, he immediately summoned the senate, and brought many charges against the men: this was a precaution against a revolt on account of the fate of Aetius. And Maximus, after the death of Aetius, went to Valentinian, seeking to be promoted to the consulship; and failing it he desired to obtain the rank of patrician, but in this too was foiled by Heraclius, who countervailed the aims of Maximus and persuaded Valentinian that being well rid of the oppressive influence of Aetius he ought not to transfer his power to Maximus. Thwarted in both his wishes, Maximus was wroth, and he sent for two Scythians (Huns), brave in war, named Optila and Thraustila, who had fought campaigns with Aetius, and were intimate with Valentinian. "When he met them pledges were exchanged, and he accused the Emperor of the murder of Aetius and advised them to take vengeance on him, suggesting that they would win very great advantages by justly avenging the victim.

"A few days later, it seemed good to Valentinian to ride in the Campus Martius with a few guards, accompanied by Optila and Thraustila and their attendants. And when he dismounted and proceeded to practise archery, Optila and those with him attacked him. Optila struck Valentinian on the temple, and when the prince turned to see who struck him, dealt him a second blow on the face and felled him. And Thraustila slew Heraclius. And the two assassins taking the imperial diadem and the horse hastened to Maximus ... They escaped all punishment for their deed. But a strange marvel happened to the corpse of Valentinian. A swarm of bees lit upon it, and drained and wiped away all the blood that flowed from it to the ground. Thus died Valentinian, having lived thirty-seven years."

The death of Aetius and the death of Valentinian, which were causally in close connection, were grave misfortunes for the West. The strong man who might have opposed the imminent danger from the Vandals, and the weak man whose mere existence maintained the Imperium, were removed; there was no general to succeed Aetius as there was no member of the Theodosian house to succeed Valentinian. Marcellinus speaks of the Patrician Aetius as "the great safety of the western republic", the terror of King Attila; "and with him the Hesperian realm fell, and up to the present day has not been able to raise its head." We cannot disagree with this judgment; the death of Aetius marked a distinct stage in the dismemberment of the western provinces. But we must not leave out of sight the importance of the death of his master Valentinian without male offspring. A legitimate heir of the Theodosian house might have prevented some of the troubles which befell Italy in the days of Count Ricimer and the array of Emperors whom he pulled down or set up.

READING HALL

DOORS OF WISDOM 2022

A HISTORY OF THE LATE ROMAN EMPIRE FROM ARCADIUS TO IRENE(395 TO 800 AD)

BOOK II

THE HOUSE OF THEODOSIUS

I

RUFINUS AND EUTROPIUS

The situation was now complicated by a revolt in Africa, which eventually proved highly fortunate for the glory and influence of Stilicho.

II

THE GERMANS IN THE EAST

We are told that Typhos at one time held a financial post, but was soon obliged to abdicate it on account of malversation. He then obtained some other office, and performed its duties equally badly.

The edict concerning Eutropius which was issued by Arcadius is a curious document, and deserves to be quoted. It will serve also as a specimen of imperial edicts in general.

"The Emperors Arcadius and Honorius, Augusti, to Aurelian, Praetorian Prefect.

"Dated ... at Constantinople in the Consulship of Theodoras, vir clarissimus"

The Gothic discomfiture of the Goths enjoyed a triumph for his decisive success, and the Christian Emperor granted to the old pagan the only favour he requested—to be allowed to worship God after the fashion of his fathers.

III

JOHN CHRYSOSTOM

We must first become acquainted with some of the actors in this drama, which began in social circles before it acquired a political significance.

Chrysostom's disavowal was fortunate for the Tall Brothers and unfortunate for himself. A reaction set in in their favour; Eudoxia espoused their cause, and it became a matter for fashionable interest. Theophilus was cited to appear and answer for his conduct.

IV

STILICHO AND ALARIC

V

THEODOSIUS II AND MARCIAN