ITALY AND HER INVADERS.
CHAPTER V.
SUPREMACY OF RICIMER. MAJORIAN.
THERE is danger
in endeavoring to illustrate the history of a long-past age by the vivid light
of modern politics; danger from the incompleteness of our knowledge of the
present, and danger from the heat of controversy with which every topic debated
by men struggling for place and power in the world of action around us, must
necessarily be environed.
But the
correspondence between the position of Old Rome at the point of her history
which we have now reached, and that of ‘New Rome,' or Constantinople, at the
present day, is in some respects so close that we are almost compelled to
notice it. The obvious differences between the conditions of the two Empires
are many, but the resemblances are more, and more striking. The Roman, like the
Turk, having been the terror of the world, had become its pity. He had lost,
like the Turk, his once pre-eminent faculty of founding Empires; he had lost
the faculty of generalship, and, unlike the Turk, he had lost the mere animal
courage of the common soldier. A world of new and alien nationalities was
seething round him, nationalities which had a prophetic instinct that to them
and not to him belonged the Future of Europe; nationalities whose gentlest and
most friendly touch meant ruin to the old order of things, yet nationalities
which, strange to say, did not, with one exception, wish to destroy his Empire
if by any means the breath of life could still be preserved in it. What ‘the
Frank' is to the Ottoman of today, the Barbarian was to the subjects of
Honorius and Valentinian.
I have said
that there was one exception. The Vandal, during the last quarter of a century
of the independent life of Rome, was her one implacable enemy. He had had his
hour of triumph in 455; intent on pillage rather than on conquest he had not
then sought permanently to annex Italy to his Empire, but he remained watching
her death-struggles, gloating over her feeble misery, and perhaps speculating
on the day when she would fall without effort into his hands, and Rome be ruled
as a dependency from Carthage.
We have seen
some reasons for supposing that this result was dreaded by the other Teutonic
nations in the West of Europe, and that political combinations, rude and
well-nigh forgotten, were formed in order to keep Rome for the Romans, even as
they have been formed in our own day to keep Stamboul for the Turks. But a more undoubted point of resemblance is the career of the
many Teutonic adventurers who brought their knowledge of war, their energy,
their courage, and sometimes their unscrupulousness to the service of the dying
Empire. Merobaudes and Bauto,
Arbogast and Gainas, were the prototypes of the German and English officers who
in our own day have reorganized the armies or commanded the fleets of the
Sultan, and led the expeditions of the Khedive. Not more strange to us probably
is the affix of Pacha to an English surname than were, in the ears of the men
of that generation, the titles of Consul or Patrician when borne by a
full-blooded Barbarian. And these alien administrators of the State and Army of
Rome resembled those ‘Frankish' admirals and generals employed by the Ottoman
Porte, in the knowledge that, however great the actual power which they might
possess, the appearance of sovereignty would always be denied to them. As none
but a lineal descendant of Othman can sit on the throne of Soliman, so, even in
the most degenerate days of Rome, public opinion, if not positive law, forbade
that anyone who was the son of a barbarian father and a barbarian mother should
be robed in the Imperial purple.
Such a Romanised Teuton was Ricimer, the man who for sixteen years
after the deposition of Avitus was virtually head of the Roman commonwealth. It
is worthwhile to notice how intimately he was connected with two if not three
of the ruling barbarian families. He was the son of a Suevic father, who
probably enough was sprung from the royal family of his nation. His mother was
daughter of Walia, king of the Visigoths, the successor and avenger of Ataulfus; and his sister was married to Gundiok,
king of the Burgundians. A man thus connected, and concentrating in his hand
whatever yet remained of the forces and the treasure of Rome, was well placed
for repelling that storm of Vandal invasion which was the most pressing danger
of the Empire.
Historians are
unanimous in condemning the character of Ricimer, and, as we shall see, not
without reason. He raised his unhappy puppets one after another to the Imperial
throne, and one by one, as he grew tired of their subservience or was irritated
by their opposition, was cast aside and broken by his hand. There is not a word
in the Chroniclers, not a line in the venal panegyrics of Sidonius, to suggest
that he had a heart accessible to any generous or tender emotion. A cold,
self-seeking player with men as with counters he appears from first to last.
But let us endeavor to understand what he was and why Rome bore with him. There
can be little doubt that as a general he was the greatest whom the Empire could
produce. That destruction of the Vandal fleet off Corsica, of which the
Chroniclers give us such scanty details, was probably a great achievement, and
one which liberated Italy and Gaul for years from the fear of another regular
invasion. He thus succeeded, as it were of right, to that great position in the
State which had been held before him by Stilicho and Aetius. But both these
generals had served the Emperors only too well for their own safety. The feeble
Honorius had compassed the death of Stilicho; the dissolute Valentinian had
planned the assassination of Aetius. Ricimer resolved that his life should not
be at the mercy of any similar palace intrigue, and as soon as any of the
retainers, whom he permitted to use the name of Caesar, showed signs of
acquiring an independent authority in the State which might be dangerous to his
authority and life, he gave the word to some trusty barbarian henchman, and the
purple robe was found to be enveloping a corpse. There is only one thing to be
said in mitigation of our abhorrence for this man; and that is that he does
seem to have been faithful to Rome. We do not find any trace of that
disposition to make a separate bargain for himself, which so often comes out in
the lives of the statesmen of a collapsing monarchy. Rome seems to have
understood this, to have accepted him, with all his odious qualities, as ‘the
necessary man' for the situation, and she may have owed it to this acquiescence
in his rule that the Vandal invasion, often threatened, never actually arrived
during the sixteen years of his domination.
Ricimer was
probably already a man in middle life when he thus came to the helm of the
Roman State. He was simply Count Ricimer when he achieved his Corsican victory.
That exploit it was, in all likelihood, which earned for him the office of
Master General of the Soldiery. A pause ensued upon the deposition of Avitus,
perhaps in order to allow time for communications with Byzantium, but during
this interval there can be no doubt that the Master of the Forces wielded the
whole powers of the State. In four months' time (on the 28th February, 457)
Ricimer abandoned his office of Master of the Soldiery in favor of a young
general named Majorian, while he himself assumed the proud title of Patrician.
This title carried with it the right to be called the father of the Emperor (as
soon as an Emperor should be declared) and practically a life-tenure of the
office of Prime Minister.
The
extraordinary development of the power of ‘the Patrician' is one of the
unexplained changes in the constitutional history of the last days of the
Empire. The caste of Patricians had, as everyone knows, lost their exclusive
civil privileges long before the close of the Republic. Under the Empire most
of the still surviving Patrician families perished by slow decay, or fell
victims to the terrible trade of the delator (informer). The Emperor Constantine revived the name, not now as an hereditary
order in the State, but as a personal dignity, conferring high honors on the
wearer but probably no power. The words of Zosimus (the only historian
apparently who describes this innovation) are these: ‘The dignity of Patrician
was first introduced by Constantine, who passed a law that those who were
honored by it should take precedence of the Praetorian Prefects.' This
enactment is lost. Only one law in the whole Theodosian Code, which decrees
that ‘even the splendor of the Patriciate' is to be considered subordinate in
rank to the Consular office, mentions the name of the new dignity, which
moreover does not occur from beginning to end of the ‘Notitia Dignitatum.' Evidently ‘the Patrician' of the fifth
century, like ‘the Premier' and ‘the Cabinet' of our own day, was a term more
familiar to the mouths of ordinary men than to the written documents of the
constitution.
For the last
twenty years of his life the great Aetius wore the name of Patrician; and we
may perhaps conjecture that it was during that time that men, seeing him ever
the foremost figure in the state, of which he was the real ruler, came to look
upon the new designation as something more than a mere title of courtesy, and
upon the holder of it as an irremovable depositary of power above the moving,
changing throng of Consuls and Praetorian Prefects. The words of a contemporary
chronicler, describing the deposition of Avitus, ‘And his Patrician Messianus
was killed', seem to imply an especial connection between the Patrician and the
Emperor, just as we should say ‘a Colonel and his Major', but not ‘a Colonel
and his Captain.' But howsoever and whensoever the peculiar pre-eminence of the
Patrician began, there can be no doubt that it existed during the period which
we are now considering, and that citizens of Rome must have spoken of the
Patrician with at least as much awe as the citizens of Constantinople speak of
the Grand Vizier, or the subjects of Louis XIII spoke of the Cardinal.
The official
‘Father of the Emperor' was not long in providing himself with a son. His young
comrade, Majorian, ‘was raised to the Empire on the 1st of April, 457, in the
camp at Columellae, at the sixth milestone' no doubt from Ravenna. The Emperor
Leo, who, two months before, upon the death of the brave old Marcian, had been
in a somewhat similar manner raised by his barbarian patron Aspar to the
Eastern throne, approved the choice, and the two Emperors, between whose
characters there was no little resemblance, reigned together with more harmony
and more unity of purpose than had often marked the counsels of Ravenna and
Constantinople.
The new
Emperor, Julius Valerius Majorianus, came of an official stock. His maternal
grandfather, Majorian, was Master General of the Soldiery in 379 when
Theodosius was raised to the Empire. The elevation of that Emperor took place
at Sirmium (not far from Belgrade), and Majorian's
head-quarters were then at Acincus, well-known to us
under its modern name of Buda as the western half of the capital of Hungary.
The son-in-law of the elder, and father of the younger, Majorian was a faithful
comrade of Aetius, and reached the ‘respectable' office of Quaestor. The future
Emperor served his apprenticeship to arms under his father's friend, and was
rising high in the service when suddenly Aetius dismissed him from his military
employments. No reason was assigned for this harsh step, but the young officer
and his friends maintained that it was solely due to the envy of the
Patrician's wife, who feared that the fame of her husband and son would suffer
eclipse by Majorian's growing reputation. He retired for the time to his
estate, and to the pursuits of agriculture, but when Aetius himself fell under
the dagger of the assassin, his fortunes naturally revived, and Valentinian
III. called him forth from his seclusion to bestow upon him one of the highest
posts in the army. In this position he probably cooperated with Ricimer in the
overthrow of Avitus. What is more certain is that, as already related, he was
raised on the last day of February, 457, to the dignity of Master of the
Soldiery, and on the 1st of April in the same year was saluted as Augustus.
At once a flash
of something like the old defiant spirit of Rome showed her enemies that she
had again a soldier for Emperor. In the short interval between February and
April, Majorian had sent an expedition which successfully repelled an inroad of
900 Alamanni, who had forced their way over the Rhaetian Alps to the northern
shore of Lake Maggiore. He was next summoned to Campania, to whose rich plains
Gaiseric had this year directed his piratical fleet. The lordly Vandal, fat
with luxurious living, sat lazily in his galley while the Mauretanian peasant,
himself a slave, ravaged the country, dragging off captives, cattle, spoil,
everything that could be carried away, and swept them into the holds of the
Vandal warships. Such was the picture of arrogant and indolent rapacity when
the troops of Majorian appeared on the scene. In an instant all was changed;
horses were landed, suits of mail were donned, poisoned arrows were fitted to
the string, and fiery darts were brandished in the hand. On both sides the
trumpets sounded, and the dragon ensigns floated sinuously to the breeze. Then
came the clash of opposing squadrons, soon followed by the flight of the
Vandals. Horses and men crowded into the water in an agony of fear, and only
the strongest swimmers succeeded in reaching the ships. When the fight was
over, Majorian roamed over the battle-field examining the bodies of the slain.
Among them was a well-known corpse, that of the husband of Gaiseric's sister.
All the wounds of the Roman soldiers were in front; all those of the Vandals in
the back. Such is the account which Sidonius gives of the encounter. After
making every deduction for rhetorical amplification, we are bound to believe
that the Vandal was worsted in a skirmish, and retired from the shores of
Campania.
A campaign in
Pannonia apparently followed; the obscure details of which need not be given
here. But it may be observed that among the subject nations who are represented
as following the standards of Majorian are mentioned the Rugian and the Ostrogoth. So invariable was the course of barbarian movement into
Italy. The tribes who were to be the next conquerors of Rome always first
figured as her stipendiaries.
The second year
of Maiorian’s reign was signalized by his accepting
the office of Consul in conjunction with his Byzantine colleague, Leo. Scarcely
since the palmy days of the Republic had two men so worthy of that famous
dignity ridden behind the Lictors and Fasces and given their names to the year.
The address of Majorian to the Senate, written at Ravenna and preserved among
his laws, makes a show of moderation and deference for that ancient body, which
though it was probably understood by all concerned to be only a piece of acting,
was yet gracious and dignified acting. He says that having been elected by the
free choice of the Senate, and by the will of his valiant army, he consents to
assume a dignity for which he has himself no desire, in order that he may not
be accused of ingratitude to the Commonwealth, nor seem to wish to live only to
himself. He implores the favor of Heaven, and asks for their cooperation with
the Emperor of their choice : ‘Let them take heart as to their own fortunes. As
a private man he always condemned the infamy of informers, and he is not going
to encourage them now that he is Emperor. The military affairs of the State
shall receive the ceaseless attention of himself and his father and Patrician
Ricimer. They two together by hard service in the field have freed the State of
the Roman world from foreign foes and civil broil, and with the help of
Providence they will yet preserve it.'
‘ Fare ye well,
Conscript Fathers of the most venerable order.'
The years 458
and 459 were probably spent in war with the Visigothic king, naturally
indignant at the overthrow of his candidate for Empire. It would necessarily be
waged in Gaul, but we know nothing concerning it but the result, a glorious one
for Majorian. In the year 459 Ambassadors were sent to the Gallicians by Nepotian, Master of the Soldiery, and Sunieric the
Count, announcing that Majorian the Augustus, and Theodoric the King, have
ratified with one another the firmest bonds of peace, the Goths having been
overcome in a certain conflict.
But though we
know nothing else of these campaigns Majorian in Gaul, they have a certain
interest for us as having been the means of bringing Majorian within the orbit
of the universal panegyrist, Sidonius. That unfortunate courtier must have seen
with deep chagrin all his hopes of official advancement blasted by the
dethronement of his father-in-law. Apparently he did not accept the triumph of
the party of Ricimer without a struggle. Did he actually join himself to the
Visigoths, and fight under their banners against Rome? Did he stir up revolt
among the Gaulish provincials, and strive to maintain the cause of some other
claimant to the purple? Did the city of Lyons join the revolt, and was she only
reduced to obedience by the motley army of Majorian after a stubborn resistance?
Such are some of the conclusions drawn by commentators from a few obscure
passages in the works of Sidonius, who naturally describes the conversations of
the Olympian deities with much greater minuteness than his own exertions on
behalf of an unsuccessful cause. The provoking silence of the chroniclers
prevents us from either affirming or denying these conclusions. One can only
say that it is extraordinary that a civil war, and the reduction by force of so
important a city of the empire as Lyons (if these events really occurred)
should have been left altogether unnoticed by the historians.
However this
may have been, there is no doubt that Sidonius was in disgrace, that the
triumphant Emperor was at Lyons, and that a hint was given that a panegyric
would be the price of the poet's restoration to favor. The broker in this
transaction was the Emperor's secretary, Petrus, himself a man of letters and a
distinguished diplomatist. The panegyric was accordingly composed and recited,
no doubt in the Emperor's hearing, amidst the applause of the courtiers. It was
a hard task for the son-in-law of Avitus to bring his flowing rhetoric to
glorify the rival, perhaps the executioner of his relative. But the instinct of
reverence for success carried Sidonius safely through his perilous undertaking.
In 603 lines (one more than he had given to his father-in-law) he sang the joy
of Rome in the triumphs of Majorian, and the very difficulty of the enterprise
invigorated his Muse. The personifications are decidedly less tedious, the
imagery more imaginative, the flow of declamation more animated, in this work than
in the panegyric on Avitus.
This is the
plan of the poem. Rome sits on her throne, and receives the homage and the
appropriate presents of the nations from India to Spain. To her enters Africa,
‘the third part of the world,' her black cheeks scarred, and the ears of corn
which crowned her bending forehead all broken. She complains that she is made
miserable by the insolent happiness of one man (Gaiseric), the robber, the
maid-servant's son, who has insinuated himself into her home, and made himself
master of her resources. She calls on Rome to deliver her from this hateful
vassalage; on Rome, now able to strike by the strong arm of Majorian, whose
parentage and past exploits she recounts at considerable length. That Rome may
not think the exploit beyond her strength, she informs her that Gaiseric is now
sodden and enervated by the life of vicious luxury which he has been leading.
His pale cheeks and bilious habit show that his endless banquets have at last
begun to tell upon his health. What Capua was to Hannibal, the cookshops of
Carthage have been to the Vandal.
Rome, in a few
dignified words, assures Africa of coming succor. Gaul, which for nearly eighty
years has been left unvisited by Emperors, has now been visited by Majorian,
who has corrected the disorders caused by that long absence, and who is now
coming ‘through these wars to thy war. Why waste we our time in speaking? He
will arrive : he will conquer.' Here ends the allegorical part of the poem.
Then, in his own person, and with some poetic fire, Sidonius recounts the later
exploits of the Emperor; the fight by Maggiore, the defeat of the Vandal
pirates, the passage of the Alps by his motley armament.
'Twas Winter.
Through the marble-shining Alps
The rocks
affronting Heaven, the cliffs whose brows
Threaten
incessantly the wayfarer
With the dry
deluge of the avalanche,
Through these
thy foot first passes: thou the first
Dost plant thy
pole upon the slippery slopes. And now the host has reached the midmost pass:
Their limbs begin to stiffen with the cold; Blocked in the narrow windings of
the way, To walk, or e'en to creep incapable, So great the glassy smoothness of
the ground. Then one, by chance, from out that straggling file, Whose wheel the
frozen Danube once had worn, Exclaims, “I choose instead the gory sword And the
chill awfulness of quiet death. A rigid torpor binds my stiffening limbs, With
fire of frost my parched frame consumes. We follow one who labours without end, Our stripling leader. Now the bravest brave, Monarch or people,
safe are housed in camp, And, e'en in camp, lie under shaggy hides. But we—we
change the order of the year. What he commands transcends e'en Nature's laws.
He bends not ever from his ruthless schemes And grudges Victory to the angry
sky. Oh, where and of what nation was he born Whom I, the Scythian, cannot cope
with? Where, Under what rock Hyrcanian did he grow,
Sucking the milk of tigers? To this pitch What drearier clime than mine has
hardened him? Lo, where he stands upon that topmost peak, Urges his shivering
ranks, and laughs at cold, Hot with his spirit’s ardour.
When I heard, Long since, the bugles of a Northern king, They told me the
Imperial arms of Rome And Caesar's household dwelt in soft repose, Lapped in
perennial luxury. For me Nought boots it to have changed my former lords If
this be Roman kingship.' More he had said,
But from thy
cliff thou hurlest thy words of scorn, “Whoe'er thou art whom daunts the difficult way, Cut with
thine axe the hanging water's hide, And make thee steps out of the frozen wave.
Stop those unmanly murmurs. Sloth is cold, But work will warm you. Soldiers!
look on me! Hath Nature given me the Centaur's limbs; The wings of Pegasus; the plumfed heels Of Zetes or of Calais? Yet I crunch
E'en now the snowy summit of the Pass. You groan beneath a winter in the Alps.
I promise you a soldier's recompense— A summer 'neath the sun of Africa.” Thus
with thy voice thou cheerest the fainting ranks;
Thus thine
example stirs them. Every toil
By thee
ordained is first by thee endured.
The crowd with
eagerness obey thy laws,
Seeing their
author is their promptest slave.
Passing on from
the story of Majorian's campaigns, the poet here interweaves a little skillful
panegyric on his friend Petrus, and then comes to the practical part of his
effusion. ‘ Look upon the ruined estate of our city of Lyons, and lighten her
load of taxation.'
And since to
these o'erwearied hearts of ours,
Our only Hope,
thou comest, help our fall:
And while thou passest turn a pitying eye
On this thy
city, Lyons' Conqueror!
Broken with
toil, she looks to thee for rest.
Peace hast thou
given: give hope for days to come.
The ox, after
short respite from the plough,
Better resumes
his struggle with the soil.
Our Lyons sees
herself bereft of all,
Oxen and corn,
the serf, the citizen.
While still she
stood she felt not all her bliss:
Captive, she
knows her past prosperity.
Oh Emperor!
when Delight is ours once more,
'Tis sweet to
muse on vanished Misery.
Though sack,
though fire have laid our glories low,
Thy coming pays
for all. Ruin herself
Shall please us
if she make thy triumph more.
The word
triumph suggests the thought of the Emperor's car climbing the Capitolian slope, of the mural and civic crowns encircling
his forehead, of all the spoils of the defeated Vandal borne proudly before
him. ‘I will go before thee through the struggling crowds. I will make my
feeble note heard through all their noisy shoutings.
I will say that thou hast conquered seas and mountains, the Alps, the Syrtes, and the Libyan hordes; but I will say that before
and beyond all these victories, thou hast conquered my heart by thy clemency.’
Who could
resist such energy of praise? Not Majorian, whose frank and hearty nature
accepted the flattery with all goodwill, and who appears to have not merely
pardoned the poet, but received him into the circle of his friends. Emboldened
by the success of his first petition, Sidonius essayed another of a more
personal kind than that which he had already preferred on behalf of his
fellow-citizens. He himself individually was groaning under the weight of a
heavy assessment, perhaps imposed upon him as a penalty for some
insurrectionary movements after the downfall of Avitus. We are not able to
ascertain the precise mode of this assessment, but it is clear that it was
denoted by heads (capita), and that a wealthy or an obnoxious citizen paid
taxes upon so many more capita than his poorer or more loyal neighbors.
Sidonius considered that he had at least three capita too many; that is,
probably, that his taxes were fourfold what they ought to be. In a short
epigrammatic poem he reminds the Emperor of a certain fortunate hunting
excursion of his, in which he had killed three animals on one day—a stag, a
boar, and a serpent, and hints that another day's sport of the same kind would
now be acceptable. Hercules killed the three-headed monster Geryon; let
Majorian, the new Hercules, knock the three capita from the poet's taxability,
and give him a chance of unharassed life. The answer
to this curious petition is not stated, but it was probably favorable, since
the author included the epigram in the list of his published poems.
Maiorian’s war with the
Visigoths detained him for more than a year in Gaul, which he afterwards
revisited, and Sidonius had frequent access to the Imperial presence. To the
end of his life but slight solicitation was needed to draw from him the story
of the high doings which he witnessed ‘in the times of Augustus Majorian.' One
of these anecdotes, though trifling in itself, may serve to introduce us into
the private life of a Roman Emperor of the last days. The scene is laid at
Arles, the capital of Roman Gaul; the time is the year 461.There had suddenly
appeared in the city a copy of anonymous verses, bitterly satirizing some of
the chief persons in the Imperial Court, cleverly hitting off the favourite vices of each, and all but mentioning their
names. The nobles were furious, and none more so than a certain Paeonius, a
demagogue turned courtier, a man who had played a little with revolutionary
intrigue and then sold himself for office, a slave to money-getting till the
time came when he saw an opportunity of bartering money for position, and
purchasing a highly-placed husband for his only daughter by a lavish and
unusual dowry. This was the person who, born in obscurity though not in
poverty, had clambered up, no one exactly knew how, during the troubles and
anarchy at Rome, to the distinguished position of Prefect of the Gauls. This was he who, having been among the courtiers
most severely lashed by the anonymous satirist, was the keenest in his
endeavors to find out and punish the author. That author, there can be little
doubt, was Sidonius himself. He affects to consider it a great injustice that
the piece should have been fathered upon him; but in the letter (written
several years later) in which he tells the story, he nowhere expressly repeats
his denial, and the impression left on our minds is that though, as a nobleman
and a bishop, he deemed it decorous to disavow the lampoon, as an author he was
very proud of the excitement which it had occasioned.
At the time
when the satire appeared, Sidonius was still at his country-house in Auvergne;
but public opinion, guided by Paeonius, tried him for the authorship, and found
him guilty, in his absence. When he appeared at Arles shortly afterwards, and,
having paid his respects to the Emperor, descended into the Forum, what
unaccountable change had come over his former friends? One came up to salute
him, bowed profoundly, so as almost to touch his knees, and passed on; another,
with gloomy face, stalked past him without uttering a word; the greater number
skulked behind a column or a statue, so as to avoid the disagreeable necessity
of either saluting or ignoring him. Sidonius professes to have been utterly
bewildered by this strange conduct, till at length one of the number, deputed
by the rest, approached and saluted him. ‘Do you see those men?' said he. ‘Yes,
I see them, and view their odd conduct with wonder, but certainly not with
admiration.' ‘They know that you have written a lampoon, and all either detest
or fear you in consequence.' ‘Who? What? Where? When? Why?' Sidonius asked in
well-simulated wrath. Then, with greater composure and with a smile on his
face, ‘Be good enough to ask those angry gentlemen whether the base informer
who dares to accuse me of such an offence pretends to have seen the lampoon in
my handwriting. If he does not, they will do well to retract their charge, and
behave a little less offensively.' With this equivocal denial, the courtiers
were, or professed themselves to be, satisfied, and they came forward promptly
and in a body to clasp his hand and kiss him on the cheek.
The next day
the Emperor gave a banquet in connection with the games of the amphitheatre. Among the invited guests were the consul of
the year, two ex-consuls, two other men of high rank, and Paeonius and
Sidonius, whose black looks at one another no doubt caused much secret
amusement to their fellow-guests and to the Emperor himself. Host and guests,
eight in all, reclined upon the triclinium (triple couch) with the table in the
midst. It is interesting to observe the order of precedence. The most distinguished
guest, Severinus (the consul for the year), reclined at the end (or ‘horn,' as
it was called) of the left-hand couch. Opposite to him, at the first seat of
the right-hand couch, reclined the Imperial host. The other guests lay
according to their order of precedence, counting from the seat of Severinus;
and so it came to pass that Paeonius, as ex-prefect of Gaul, reclined in the
fourth place, at the middle couch, and that Sidonius, who as yet had no
official rank, was the lowest placed among the guests, but by that very
inferiority was brought into the closest contact with the Emperor.
When the
banquet was nearly ended, Majorian began to talk. First, in few words, to the
Consul Severinus. Then ensued a more lively dialogue on literary subjects with
the consular who lay next him. Camillus came next, a consular, and nephew of a
consul. ‘Brother Camillus,' said the Emperor, ‘you had an uncle, for whose sake
I think I may congratulate myself on having given you a consulship.' ‘Do not
say a consulship, Lord Augustus! Call it a first consulship.' This clever hint,
that further favors of the same kind would be welcome, was received with a
tumult of applause, notwithstanding the Emperor's presence. Then passing
Paeonius by unnoticed, the Imperial host put some question to Athenius, the fifth in order of the guests. Paeonius rudely
interposed a reply. The Emperor noticed the discourtesy, and the peculiar smile
which played upon his face (for he greatly enjoyed a joke, and had a happy way
of sharing in it without compromising his dignity) amply avenged Athenius. The latter, who was a wily old fellow, and who
already had a grudge against Paeonius for taking precedence of him at the
banquet, slily said, ‘I don't wonder, Emperor, that my neighbor has stolen my
place, since he is not ashamed to take the words out of your mouth.'
‘A fine opening
this for satirists!' said the sixth guest, whose turn in the conversation was
now come. Thereupon the Emperor turned his head round to his next-door neighbor
and said, ‘I hear, Count Sidonius, that you are a writer of satires.' ‘I hear
it, too,' he answered.
Majorian
(laughing). ‘ Spare ourselves at any rate.'
Sidonius. ‘ In
refraining from forbidden jests I spare myself.'
Majorian. ‘And
what shall we do to those who molest you? '
Sidonius. ‘My
lord Emperor! let my accuser accuse me in public. If he makes good his charge,
I am ready to pay the penalty : but if, as is probable, I succeed in refuting
it, let me have the leave of your Clemency to write what I like against him'.
The Emperor
glanced at Paeonius, to see if he consented to the conditions; but the exprefect sat silent, with a blush of anger and shame upon
his face. ‘I will grant your request', said Majorian, ‘if you will this moment
put it into verse.' ‘Agreed,' answered Sidonius. He turned round and looked at
the servant as if asking for water to dip his fingers in. There was an
instant's pause while the nimble slave ran round the triclinium. Then said the
Emperor, ‘The verses are to be improvised, remember : '
‘Who says I
write Satires? Dread sovereign! I cry,
Let him prove
his indictment, or pay for his lie;'
was the immediate repartee
of Sidonius. There was again a tumult of applause, and the Emperor, in a tone
perhaps of mock solemnity, called God and the Commonwealth to witness that the
poet should henceforth write whatever he chose, adding that he considered it to
be the duty of the wearer of the purple to repress this kind of vague and
unproven accusation, brought by malice against innocent members of the
nobility. Sidonius bowed his head and modestly uttered his thanks; Paeonius
turned pale, dejection succeeded to rage, and he looked like a criminal on his
way to execution. Soon after, the guests rose up. When they had donned their
cloaks (chlamydes) and gone a few steps from the
Imperial presence, the consul fell on the neck of the favored courtier, the two
consulars kissed his hand, and Paeonius, with fawning and pitiable gestures,
implored pardon. On the intercession of the other members of the party,
Sidonius consented to grant it, and to promise that he would leave Paeonius
unlashed by his satires if he would take warning by the miserable success of
this attempt to blacken his character and cease to molest him for the future.
The story of
this banquet at Arles is no doubt trivial enough, and may seem scarcely worth
the telling, but it illustrates the immense social deference which was still
paid to the name of Augustus, and the glamour of the purple robe. When we are
reading the history of far- distant times, we are sometimes disposed to marvel
how men could be found willing to take prominent positions in the world, when
the state of affairs was so hopeless that they must inevitably become either
the pity or the laughing-stock of the universe. Perhaps the explanation is to
be found in the fact that so long as Power commands the reverence of the few
score of persons with whom it comes into daily contact, it will have
irresistible attractions for mankind. Further than its own immediate
environment it need not and will not look : least of all will it trouble itself
about the sort of figure that it will make in History. Here was Julius
Majorianus, struggling bravely it is true, but almost desperately, for the last
tatters of the Roman inheritance that were left to him by the Rhone and the
Ebro; yet his favor still gave life, a harsh word from his lips or a frown on
his brow sent the unhappy object of his displeasure out of the Imperial
presence, pale, trembling, half-choked with terror; the courtiers still
contended for the smile of the ‘Purple-wearer' as eagerly as when he was the
master of sixty legions, and when none could escape his wrath or stay his hand,
from Cheviot to Caucasus.
The short reign
of Majorian was a time of considerable legislative activity. Especially was the
year of his consulship (during which his head-quarters seem to have been at the
palace in Ravenna) marked by his additions (‘Novellae')
to the Theodosian code. But the laws all tell one tale; all speak, in one
relation or another, of the desperate misery which was engulfing the
inhabitants of Italy. Population was decreasing so fast that the Emperor,
notwithstanding the strong feeling of the Church in favor of virginity, and
against second marriage, found himself compelled to forbid women to take the
veil under forty years of age, and to command all childless widows to marry a
second husband within five years of the death of the first, or else to forfeit
half their property to their relatives or to the exchequer. The cost of
maintaining a family was so great, the rivalry for the paternal inheritance so
keen, that in many instances an unpopular son or brother was forced into the
ranks of the clergy and actually ordained Priest against his will. Where such
an offence was proved to have been committed, the unjust parents were condemned
to forfeit a third of their property to the unwillingly consecrated son, who
was permitted to return into the world, a forced ordination having no binding
power. The Archdeacon who might have wittingly cooperated in the offence, was
liable to a fine of ten pounds of gold (£400). A curious provision that if a
Bishop had been consecrated without his consent the ordination could not be impugned,
is perhaps a concession to the harmless comedy of the Nolo Episcopari,
which was so commonly played in those days. Or possibly it may have proceeded
from an uneasy consciousness of the Legislator's own share in the forced
consecration of his predecessor at Placentia.
Majorian's laws
are remarkably outspoken as to the rapacity of the tax-collectors, especially
those who were clothed with military authority, whose extortions he denounces
in the strongest terms. ‘Raging against the rapacious bowels of the unhappy
Provincials, they are safe from punishment, for none cares to accuse them
before a provincial judge, too often supine and cowardly and ready to cringe
and fawn at the mere sight of an officer's belt, while the expense and vexation
of an appeal to the Imperial court is so great that most men will submit to any
injustice rather than resort to it.' A change in administration, bringing
fiscal questions under the more immediate notice of the Governor of the
Province, was meant to remedy this evil, which may have been partly relieved by
another short but emphatic edict concerning the election of the Defensor, that
singular official whose of functions some account has been already given and
who was perhaps the only functionary whom Power has ever avowedly created as a safeguard
against its own exorbitances. The harassed citizens were daily leaving the
towns, to pick up a precarious subsistence in the remote country districts,
where they were at least safe from the hated presence of the Apparitor and the Canonicarius. In order to check this process of depletion,
Majorian ordained that in accordance with ancient usage, the magistracy and
people of each considerable town should assemble and choose a Defensor, who,
when confirmed in his office by the Emperor, might avail to keep the insolence
of the revenue officers in check and tempt back the scattered citizens to their
homes.
The exactions
of the tax-gatherers, themselves very likely (as is the custom in decaying
States) often defrauded of their lawful salaries, were sometimes so extravagant
as to be almost amusing. Thus continual objection was made to taking the
Imperial Solidus (twelve shilling piece), even though it was of full weight;
and some strange tricks, the nature of which we can but faintly conjecture,
were played upon the popular partiality for gold pieces with the head of
Faustina, coins which, if they represented the pure undepreciated currency of
the Antonine period before the terrible debasements of the coinage in the third
century, were not undeserving of a high place in public favor. All this
elaborate machinery of injustice was destroyed, as far as mere decrees could
destroy it, by Majorian, and the officers of the Tribute were ordered to take
all coins alike which were of full weight, except those minted of Gaulish gold,
which was admitted to be of an inferior quality.
Some other
unwarranted importunities of the official hierarchy were repressed by the same
series of decrees. Servants of the Governors asking for New-Year's Gifts,
Presents on the first day of the month, or Drink-money (literally Dust-money,
an indemnification for the dust which the messenger had contracted on his
journey), all these were punished by a fine of £40 for each offence. Governors
of Provinces were not to be at liberty to half-ruin a city by taking up their
quarters therein for an indefinite time, and calling upon the inhabitants to
bring a constant supply of rare and costly delicacies to their table. Three
days' provisions for himself and suite, on a scale of expense to be settled by
the Prefect, were all that the Governor might require annually from each city.
These
enactments, together with a remission of arrears of tribute of more than eleven
years' standing, seemed to show a generous consideration for the poverty of the
exhausted people. They were however to some extent counterbalanced by a little
clause in the longest edict, which stated that now that the cultivator was
relieved from so many presents to governors and other illegal exactions, he
could not think it burdensome if his land-tax, which now stood at two per
thousand on capital (equivalent perhaps to two per cent, on income), was
increased by one quarter so as to stand thenceforward at two-and-a-half per
thousand.
One more law
must be noticed, since it shows the disintegrating influences which were
already at work upon the buildings of old Rome, influences internal and
domestic, which, far more than the transitory visits of Goth or Vandal, have
brought about her present desolation.
‘We, as Rulers
of the Republic, are determined to remedy the detestable process which has long
been going on, whereby the face of the venerable city [of Rome] is disfigured.
For it is too plain that the public edifices, in which all the adornment of the
city consists, are being everywhere pulled to pieces at the suggestion of the
city officials, on the pretence that stones are
wanted for the public works. Thus the stately piles of our old buildings are
being frittered away, and great constructions are ruined in order to effect
some trifling repair. Hence, too, it arises that private individuals engaged in
house-building, who are in a position to curry favor with the city judges, do
not hesitate to supply themselves with materials from the public buildings,
although these which have so much to do with the splendor of the city ought to
be regarded with civic affection, and repaired rather than destroyed.
‘We therefore
decree that no buildings or ancient monuments raised by our forefathers for use
or beauty, shall be destroyed by any man; that the judge who orders their
destruction shall pay a fine of fifty pounds of gold [£2000]; and that the
clerks and other subordinates who have fulfilled his orders shall be beaten
with clubs and have their hands struck off—those hands that have defiled the
ancient monuments which they ought to have preserved.
‘The buildings
which are altogether past repair shall be transferred, to adorn some other edifice
of a not less public character'.
It is
interesting to observe that this decree, so purely Roman and local in its
character, was like the others issued from Ravenna (10th July, 458).
But it was not
for legislation, nor for administrative reform, but for war that Julius
Majorianus had been robed in the mantle of the Caesars. To him all the Roman
world looked with hope, to exorcise the cruel and mocking fiend that had
entered the corpse of Carthage. If the Vandals could be subdued, he was surely
the man to do it. He had felled the forests of the Apennines, and filled the
harbors of the Upper and Lower Sea with Roman triremes. His campaign in Gaul
had been successful, and the haughty Visigoth was now his submissive ally. It
might have been expected that he would repeat the exploit of Scipio Africanus,
transport his troops to the Libyan shore, and fight another Zama within a
week's march of Carthage. For some reason not clearly explained to us, possibly
because he knew of disaffection among the Mauretanian and Numidian allies of
Gaiseric, he adopted a different course. He determined to make Spain his base
of operations, and to assemble his navy, consisting of 300 ships, in that
magnificent bay, one of the finest natural harbors in the Mediterranean, which
we call Carthagena, and which then still bore the name of ‘the New Carthage'.
It seemed as if history was about to repeat itself, and as if Spain might play
the same part now, in the thirteenth century of Rome, which she had played in
the sixth century, when the Hasdrubals and the Scipios fought there. But while all Europe was watching the
movements of the Roman triremes in that spacious bay, suddenly the enterprise
collapsed. Gaiseric first laid waste with fire and sword the provinces of
Mauretania which Majorian meant to make his base of operations, and poisoned
the wells along his expected line of march. Then by some stratagem, of which we
know nothing, the Vandals, ‘warned by traitors,' carried off the ships from out
of the Bay of Carthagena. One chronicler places the scene of this mysterious
event not at Carthagena itself, but at Elice (now Elche), a sea-side town about
forty miles north of Carthagena, often visited by modern travellers who wish to see the forests of palm-trees which impart to it a thoroughly
Oriental aspect, and have earned for it the name of ‘the Palmyra of Europe.'
‘No Palm of Victory for me', may have been the thought of Majorian as he sadly
turned his face northwards—the preparations of three years wasted, and
vengeance on the Vandal indefinitely postponed.
This happened
in May, 460. On the second of August in the following year he was dethroned and
put to death near the city of Tortona (in the
south-east corner of the modern Duchy of Piedmont). No cause is assigned by any
of the chroniclers for his fall, except ‘the jealousy of Ricimer, acted upon by
the counsels of envious men'; nor is anything told us of the circumstances of
his death. Probably enough, the early successes of Majorian were the real cause
of his ruin, for which his final disaster furnished the pretext.
The high
estimate usually formed by historians of the character of Majorian, and of
what, under happier auspices, he might have accomplished for the restoration of
the fortunes of Rome, is justified by nothing so much as by the impression
which he produced on his most unwearied enemies, the Vandals. The Byzantine
historian, Procopius, writing a century after these events, and describing the
overthrow of the Vandal Empire by Justinian, gives us the following paragraph
about Majorian, which must surely have been derived from Vandal sources, and
may possibly have formed part of some song or Saga about Gaiseric. Scarcely a
detail in the picture is historically true, and the chief event recorded—the
visit to Carthage—is almost certainly fictitious, but the portrait, taken as a
whole, and especially if drawn by enemies, is undoubtedly the likeness of a
hero.
‘I ought also
to make mention of Majorian, who some time before [Anthemius] occupied the
Western Throne. For this Majorian, who surpassed all that had been emperors of
Rome in every virtue, could not tamely endure the misery of Africa, but
collected in Liguria a most potent armament against the Vandals, and determined
to head the expedition himself, being a man eager to take his full share in
every hardship, and especially in every danger.
‘Now, thinking
it would be expedient to ascertain previously the forces of the Vandals, the
temper of Gaiseric, and the good or bad dispositions towards him of the Libyans
and Moors, he took this duty upon himself. He therefore sent himself as his own
ambassador, under a feigned name, to the court of Gaiseric; and, fearing lest
he might be discovered, and so ruin both himself and his enterprise, he hit
upon this plan. As all men knew that his hair was so yellow as to be likened to
pure gold, he applied to it a wash invented expressly for the purpose, and was
able within the appointed time to turn it into a bluish black.
‘Now, when he
came into the presence of Gaiseric, among other devices of that king to strike
terror into the soul of the supposed ambassador, he was led as a friend into
the arsenal where all the weapons were collected, which were many and extremely
wonderful. At his entrance, say they, all these arms stirred of their own
accord, and made such a clash and uproar that Gaiseric thought an earthquake
was happening. But when he came forth and enquired about the earthquake, and
could meet with no one who knew anything about it, great fear fell upon him,
though he was still far from conjecturing who had been the cause of this
portent.
‘Majorian then,
having accomplished all that he intended, departed to Liguria, and leading his
army by land, marched to the Pillars of Hercules, intending to cross by those
straits, and so conduct his troops from thence to Carthage. Now when Gaiseric
heard this, and perceived that he had been imposed upon in the matter of the
embassy, great fear fell upon him, and he set everything in readiness for war.
The Romans, on the other hand, relying on the proved valor of Majorian, were in
good hopes that they should win back Africa for the Empire. But all these hopes
were foiled by the death of Majorian, who was attacked by dysentery. He was a
man in all things gentle to his subjects, but terrible to his enemies'.
