ITALY AND HER INVADERS.

BOOK VI .

THE LOMBARD INVASION, 553-600

CHAPTER III.

THE LONGOBARDIC FOREWORLD.

1.

Early notices of the Longobardi by Greek and Roman writers.

 

Most writers who have touched upon the early history of the Lombards have been struck with the curious hiatus which exists in the historical notices of that people. At the time of the Christian era, our information concerning them, if not very full, is clear and definite. At intervals throughout the first century their name reappears in the pages of the historians of the Empire, and we have one notice of them, brief but important, towards the end of the second century. From that date (cir. A.D. 167) to the reign of the Emperor Anastasius—an interval of more than three centuries—the Roman and Greek historians do not mention the name of the Lombards, and, as will be seen hereafter, we have to go to another source, and one of a very different kind, for any information as to their history during this period of obscuration.

Our chief authorities as to the geographical position of the Lombards, in their first settlement known to history are Strabo (who wrote about A.D. 20), Tacitus (cir. 61-177), and Ptolemy (cir. 100-161). On the combined testimony of these three authors we are safe in asserting that the Longobardi (such is the earliest form of their name) dwelt near the mouth of the Elbe, in frequent and close relations with the Hermunduri and Semnones, two great Suevic tribes which settled higher up the stream, on its western and eastern banks respectively. There is a little conflict of testimony between Strabo and Ptolemy as to the side of the Elbe on which the Longobardi dwelt. Strabo puts them on the further, Ptolemy on the hither shore. If the authority of the former prevail, we must look upon parts of Mecklenburg and Holstein as their home, if that of the latter, the eastern part of the Electorate of Hanover, from Luneburg to Salzwedel. Possibly enough both may be right for different periods of their history, for Strabo expressly points out that the common characteristic of all the dwellers in this part of Germany was the readiness with which they changed their homes, the result of the simplicity of their diet, and the pastoral rather than agricultural character of their occupations. He compares them herein to the Nomads of Scythia, in imitation of whom, as he says, they were wont to place all their household goods on waggons, and set their faces in any direction that pleased them, driving their cattle and sheep before them.

The Hermunduri and Semnones, the southern neighbours of the Longobardi, were important nations in their day, but their memory has perished, and they have left no lasting trace on the map of Europe. More interesting, at least to us, is the fact that among the neighbours of the Longobardi on the north are enumerated the tribe of the Angli, ‘fenced in', as Tacitus says, ‘by their forests or by their streams'. He goes on to tell us that the only thing noteworthy about the tribes (seven in number) north of the Longobardi—and the remark may possibly apply to the Longobardi themselves—is the worship which they all paid in common to the goddess Herthal, Mother Earth. Her chariot and her image were hidden in the recesses of a sacred grove, apart in an island of the ocean. Here dwelt the solitary priest who was allowed access to her shrine. At stated times he crossed the sea with the image of the goddess. Placed upon the consecrated chariot and covered by a sacred robe, it was drawn by cows from village to village, along the plains of Holstein. Wherever the sacred image went there was joy and feasting: peace reigned instead of the continual clashing of the swords of the sons of Odin; till at length the goddess, sated with the converse of mortals, returned to her island home. The chariot, the vest, and (some said) the image of Mother Earth herself, were washed in a sacred lake. The slaves who had been employed in this lustration were then themselves whelmed beneath its waters, and the lonely priest resumed his guard of the lonely deity whom it was death to behold. Such were the rites with which the Angle and the Langobard of the first century after Christ, the ancestors of Bede and of Anselm, of Shakespeare and of Dante, jointly adored the Mother of Mankind.

The origin of the name borne by the Longobardi has been a subject of some discussion. The national historian, as we shall see a little further on, derives it from their long beards, and tells a curious story to account for its first bestowal on the nation. As bart or bard, in some form or other, is the equivalent of the Latin barba in the chief Low-German languages, there can be no objection raised on the score of philology to this derivation. It has been urged, however, that the very fact of its resemblance to the Latin form may have suggested it too easily to an uncritical historian, and that since some other German tribes wore their hair and beards long, it is difficult to understand why the long beards of this one tribe should have been distinctive enough to entitle them to a separate name. It is, therefore, proposed to derive the name from the Old High-German word barta, an axe, the root which appears in halbert and partizan. Again, another author argues for its derivation from the root bord (which we have preserved in the word sea-board, though custom forbids us to speak of a river-board), and contends that the Longobardi received their name from the long flat meadows by the Elbe where they had their dwelling. According as we adopt one or other of these suggestions, the tribe whose history we are considering will have been the Long-bearded men, the Long-halbert-bearing men, or the Long-shore-men. I confess that to me the first, the old-fashioned derivation, that which was accepted by Isidore and Paulus, still seems the most probable. In any case there is no doubt about the meaning of the first element of the name, and remembering the neighbourhood of the Longobardi and the Angli, we note with interest the true Teutonic form of the word, as it reappears in Langdale, and Langley, and the Scotch phrase ‘Auld Lang Syne', rather than in our modem Gallicized word long.

The tribe of the Longobards were early distinguished by their fierce and warlike disposition. Velleius Paterculus, the contemporary and flatterer of Tiberius, in speaking of the victories of his hero in Germany (cir. A. D. 6), says that “nations whose very names were before almost unknown, were beaten down before him; the Longobardi, a race fierce with more than the ordinary fierceness of Germany, were broken by his arms, and the Roman legions with their standards were led from the Rhine to the Elbe.” So too, Tacitus, after describing the numerous and powerful nation of the Semnones, the head of the Suevic race, dwelling in a hundred pagi, passes on to their neighbours the Longobardi, and says that ‘these may rather pride themselves on the smallness of their numbers, since, girt round by so many great and strong nationalities, they have preserved their existence, not by a humble obedience, but by perpetual fighting, and in peril have found safety.

The two greatest names in the history of the German peoples during the first century of our era were undoubtedly Arminius and Maroboduus; Arminius, the patriot chief of the Cherusci, who stirred up his tribe t0 a successful resistance against the encroachments of Rome, and who annihilated the three legions of Varus in the Teutoburgian forests; Maroboduus, the self-centred and crafty despot of the Marcomanni, who built up for himself a dominion of almost Oriental arrogance in the mountain-girdled realm of Bohemia; who gave succour and asylum to the enemies of Rome, and the shadow of whose ever-menacing might darkened with anxiety the last years of Augustus himself. In a fortunate hour for Rome, these two leaders of the German resistance to the Empire turned their arms against each other. The cause of the Cherusci, championed as it was by so popular a leader as Arminius, was looked upon by the Germans generally with greater favour than that of the Marcomanni under the autocratic Maroboduus, and hence it came to pass that on the eve of the conflict, two Suevic tribes, the Semnones and the Longobardi, separated themselves from the Marcomannic kingdom and joined the Cheruscan confederacy. In the battle which followed, and which, though nominally drawn, was virtually a defeat for Maroboduus (soon followed by the utter downfall of his power), the Longobardi are especially mentioned as doing great deeds of prowess by the side of their Cheruscan allies on behalf of their new-found liberty.

The Longobardi evidently adhered for one generation at least to their new alliance, and did not return within the orbit of the great Suevic monarchy. Thirty years after their revolt from Maroboduus, when the Cheruscan Italicus, the Romanized nephew of Arminius, was struggling, with diverse fortunes, to maintain himself in the royal position to which he had been raised by his countrymen, weary of anarchy, it was among the Longobardi that he took refuge after he had been defeated by the rebels; it was from them that he received help and comfort, and it was by their arms that he seems to have been once, at least, reseated on the forest-throne of the Cherusci.

From this point onwards our information as to the fortunes of the Longobardi becomes extremely meagre. The indications of their geographical position given by Tacitus and by Ptolemy, show that they were still known to the Romans as occupying their previous dwellings on the Elbe, in the reigns of Nerva and the elder Antoninus. But soon after Ptolemy wrote, they must have quitted their old home in order to take part in that movement of the German tribes southwards which brought on the Marcomannic war, and involved the reluctant philosopher, Marcus Aurelius, in ten bloody and hard-fought campaigns.

In a somewhat obscure paragraph1 of the history written by Peter the Patrician (Justinian’s ambassador to Theodahad), we are informed that ‘six thousand Longibardi (sic) and Obii, having crossed the Danube, A.D. 165, were turned to utter rout by the cavalry under Vindex, aided by an attack from the infantry under Candidus. As the result of this defeat, the barbarians, desisting in terror from their first attempt, sent ambassadors to Aelius Bassus who was then administering Pannonia. The ambassadors were Vallomar, king of the Marcomanni, and ten others, one being chosen to represent each tribe. Peace was made, oaths were sworn to ratify it, and the barbarians returned to their home'.

Not much can be made out of a jejune fragment like this, but it is clear that the Longobardi have left the lower waters of the Elbe for the middle waters of the Danube. They are accompanied by the Obii, in whom some commentators see the same people as the Avieni, whom Tacitus makes next-door neighbours to the Longobardi, but of whose history we are otherwise entirely ignorant. They are evidently once more allies, perhaps subject-allies of their old masters the Marcomanni, since Vallomar the Marcomannic king heads the embassy to Aelius Bassus. Considering that the account of the campaign comes from a Roman source, we may probably infer with safety that the repulse sustained by the Longobardi and their confederates was not a serious one, and that though they did not maintain the position which they had taken up on the Roman shore of the Middle Danube, yet that in returning ‘to their home' they withdrew to no great distance from the tempting plains of Pannonia.

After this notice, information from Greek or Roman writers as to the fortunes of the Longobardi entirely fails us, and for a space of 300 years (as was before to the said) their name disappears from history. It brings before us in a forcible manner the long space of time over which the downfall of the Empire extended, to remind ourselves that this mere gap in the story of one of its destined destroyers lasted for ten generations, for an interval as long as that which separates the Englishmen of today from their forefathers of the reign of Elizabeth.

To some small extent, however, we may fill up the interval by repeating what the national historian, Paulus Diaconus, has preserved of the old traditions of the Lombard race. Some of these traditions may possibly reach back to an earlier date than the notices of Strabo and Tacitus, but it is vain to attempt to fit the Saga (at least in its earlier portions) and the literary history into one continuous narrative. Far better does it seem to be to let the two streams of recital flow on unmingled, only eliminating from the pages of Paulus those paragraphs which evidently do not come from the treasure-house of the old national traditions, but are merely borrowed, and for the most part unnecessarily borrowed, from the pages of classical historians and geographers. The ‘Origo Gentis Longobardorum’ gives us the framework of the story, but the details come, for the most part, from the pages of Paulus Diaconus.

2.

The Saga of the Longbeards.

 

‘In the Northern land, that fruitful mother of nations, whose hardy sons have so often poured down on Illyricum and Gaul, and especially upon unhappy Italy, lies a mighty island, washed, and owing to its flat shores, well-nigh washed away, by the sea, and named Scandinavia. Here dwelt long ago the little nation of the Winnili, afterwards known as the Langobards.

‘Now the time came when this people found the island of Scandinavia too strait for them, and dividing themselves into three portions they cast lots which of the three it should be that must depart from their fatherland. Then that portion of the people upon which the lot had fallen, ordained two brothers to be their leaders, whose names were Ibor and Aio, men in the youthful vigour of their years, and sons of a woman named Gambara, in whose wise counsels they trusted greatly. Under these leaders they set forth to seek their new homes, and came to the region which is called Scaringa.

‘Now, at that time, Ambri and Assi, the two chiefs of the Vandals, having won many victories, held all the countries round under the terror of their name. These men marched with an army against the Winnili, and said unto them, “Either pay us tribute, or prepare yourselves for battle and fight against us”. Now the Winnili were all in the first flush and vigour of their youth, yet were they very few in number, being only the third part of the inhabitants of an island of no great size. Howbeit, Ibor and Aio having consulted with their mother Gambara, decided that it was better to defend their liberty by their arms than to soil it by the payment of tribute, and made answer accordingly, “We will prepare for battle”. Then did both nations pray to the gods for victory. Ambri and Assi prayed to Odin, and he answered them : “Whomsoever I shall first look upon at sunrise, to that nation will I give the victory.” But Gambara and her two sons prayed to Freya, the wife of Odin, that she would show favour unto them. Then Freya counselled them that at sunrise the Winnili should all assemble before Odin's eastern window, having their wives with them, and that the women should let down their hair and encircle their faces with it as if it were a beard. Then, when the sun was rising, Freya turned upon her couch, and awoke her husband, and bade him look forth from the eastern window. And he looked and saw the Winnili and their wives with their hair about their faces, and said, “Who are these long-bearded ones?” Then said Freya to Odin, “As thou hast given them the name Longobardi, so give them the victory.” And he gave them the victory, and from that day the Winnili were called the Longobardi.

‘After this victory the Longobardi were sore pressed with famine, and moved forth from the province of Scoringa, intending to go into Mauringa. But when they reached the frontier, the Assipitti were drawn up determined to dispute the passage. When the Longobardi saw the multitude of the enemy, and knew that by reason of their own small numbers they could not engage with them, they hit upon the following device. They pretended that they had in their camp Cynocephali, that is dog-headed men. They made the enemy believe that these creatures followed the business of war with eagerness, being intent on drinking human blood, and that, if they could not drink the blood of an enemy, they would even drink their own. At the same time, to make their numbers appear larger than they were, they spread their tents wide and kindled very many fires in their camp. By these arts the enemy were so far dismayed that they did not dare to carry out their threat of battle; but, having in their ranks a champion who was very strong and whom they deemed invincible, they sent a messenger to propose that the dispute between the two peoples should be settled by single combat. If the champion of the Assipitti conquered, the Longobardi should return to the place from whence they came. But if the champion of the Longobardi prevailed, they should have liberty to march through the country of the Assipitti. Now when the Longobardi were in doubt whom they should choose for this encounter, a certain man, of servile origin, offered himself for the combat on condition that, if he were victorious, he and his offspring should be freed from the stain of slavery. His masters gladly promised to grant this request: he drew near to the enemy: he fought and conquered. The Longobardi had licence to pass through the country whither they would: and the champion obtained for himself and his children the rights of freedom. Thus, then, did the Longobardi succeed in reaching Mauringa, and there, that they might increase the number of their warriors, they gave liberty to many of their slaves. In order that the free condition of these might thenceforth be subject to no doubt, they ratified the enfranchisement in the accustomed manner by an arrow, murmuring at the same time certain words handed down from their forefathers for a solemn confirmation of the act.

“From Mauringa the Longobardi moved forward and came into Golanda, and there they possessed the regions of Anthaib and Bainaib and Burgundaib, and now, as Ibor and Aio were dead, who had brought them out of the land of Scandinavia, and as they wished no longer to be under chiefs [or dukes], they chose themselves a king, after the manner of the nations. This was AGELMUND, son of Aio, of the noble seed of the Gungingi; and he reigned over the Langobardi thirty-three years.

“In his time a certain woman of evil life brought forth seven children at a birth, and this mother, more cruel than the beasts, cast them all into a pond to be drowned. Now it happened that King Agelmund, on a journey, came to that very pond. Halting his horse, he marvelled at the unhappy babes, and, with the spear which he held in his hand, turned them over hither and thither. Then one of the children put forth its hand and grasped the royal spear. The king was stirred with pity, and, moreover, predicted a great future for the child, and at once ordered it to be lifted out of the pond, and handed over to a nurse, to be brought up with all possible care. And, as the child had been drawn out of a pond, which in their language is called lama, it received the name Lamissio.

“Lamissio, when he came to man’s estate, proved to be so strong a youth and so apt in war that, upon a the death of King Agelmund, he was chosen to guide the helm of the state. It is reported that before his accession, when Agelmund and his people were on their march, they found the passage of a certain river barred by Amazons. It was decided by the two armies that the dispute between them should be settled by single combat between Lamissio and one of the Amazons, a strong swimmer and a stalwart fighter. He surpassed her in swimming, and slew her in the fight, and thus obtained for his people passage across the stream.

“After this, the Longobardi, having crossed the a stream and come into the lands beyond, dwelt there for some time in quietness and free from fear. The evil result of this security was seen when, by night, the Bulgarians suddenly fell upon them in their sleep, took and pillaged their camp, wounded many and slew many—among them Agelmund, their king, whose only daughter they carried off into captivity.

“On the death of Agelmund, as has been already said, Lamissio became king of the Longobardi. A young man, of eager soul, prompt for war, and longing to avenge the death of his benefactor Agelmund, he turned his arms against the Bulgarians. At the beginning of the first battle the Longobardi showed their backs to the enemy and sought refuge in their camp. Then Lamissio, seeing this, in a loud voice cried out to the whole army, bidding them remember the shame which they had before endured at the hands of these very enemies—their king slain, and his daughter, whom they had hoped to have for their queen, miserably carried off into captivity. He exhorted them to defend themselves and their families with their arms, saying it was better to die than to live as vile slaves, subject to the insults of such despicable foes. With threats and with promises he hardened the minds of his people for the fight, offering liberty and great rewards to any man of servile condition whom he saw forward in the fray, and thus, by his words and by his example (for he fought in the forefront of the battle), he so wrought upon the minds of his men that they at length made a deadly charge upon the enemy, whom they utterly routed, and wrought great slaughter upon them, thus avenging the death of their king. The great spoil which they gathered from this battle-field made them thence-forward keener and more bold in seeking the labours of war.

“On the death of Lamissio, LETHU was crowned the third king of the Longobardi. After he had reigned about forty years, he died, and was succeeded by his son HILDEOC; and on his death GUDEOC took the kingdom.

“In the reign of this, the fifth king of the Longobardi, happened that great overthrow of the Rugians and their king, Feletheus, by Odovacar, which had been foretold by the blessed Severinus, on account of the wickedness of Gisa, the Rugian queen. Then the Langobardi, going forth from their own regions, entered Rugiland (as the country of the Rugians was called in their language), and there, as the soil was fertile, they remained for several years.

“During this interval Gudeoc died, and was succeeded by CLAFFO, his son, and, on his death, TATO, his son, seventh king of the Longobardi, ascended the throne. Then the Longobardi, going forth from Rugiland, dwelt in the wide plains which are called, in barbarian speech, Feld. And as they were tarrying in that place, for a space of three years, war arose between Tato and Rodulf, king of the Heruli.”

We have now reached the point at which the two streams, of Roman-written history and of Lombard Saga, fall into one. The war between King Tato and King Rodulf is narrated by Procopius as well as by Paulus, and can be assigned without much risk of error to a definite date, A.D. 511 or 512.

In reading these early pages of Lombard history as narrated by their churchman-­chronicler, one is forcibly impressed by the general similarity which they bear to the history of the Goths, as told by their churchman-chronicler, Jordanes. We have in both the same curious blending of Teutonic tradition and classical mythology, the same tendency to digress into geographical description, the same hesitating treatment of the legends of heathenism from the standpoint of Christianity. But there is one great and obvious difference between Paulus and Jordanes. The Gothic historian exhibits a pedigree showing fourteen generations before Theodoric, and thus reaching back very nearly to the Christian era. The Lombard historian gives us only five links of the chain before the time of Odovacar, the contemporary of Theodoric, and thus reaches back, at furthest, only to the era of Constantine. Doubtless this modesty of his claim somewhat increases our confidence in the genuineness of his traditions, since, had he been merely inventing, it would have been as easy to imagine twenty names as five. On the other hand, it seems to show that the Longobardi, ‘fierce beyond even German ferocity', a brutal and savage people, had preserved fewer records of the deeds of their fathers, probably had been more complete strangers to the art of writing, than their more civilized Gothic contemporaries. Indeed, even with these latter, signs are not wanting that national consciousness, and therefore national memory, were quickened and strengthened, if not altogether called into being, by their contact with the great civilized Empire of Rome.

However this may be, it is quite clear that it is hopeless to get any possible scheme of Lombard chronology out of these early chapters of Paulus. His narrative would place the migration from Scandinavia about A.D. 320, whereas it is certain that the Longobardi were dwelling on the southern shore of the Baltic at the time of the birth of Christ. And conversely he represents Agelmund the first king of the Longobardi, whose place in his narrative makes it impossible to fix his date later than 350, as slain in battle by the Bulgarians, who, as we know from another source, first appeared in Europe about 479. Thus, whatever genuine facts as to the early history of the people may be preserved in these curious traditions, they are like mountains seen through a mist, whose true size and distance we are unable to measure.

The chief of these dimly-discerned facts appear to be:—

(1) The primordial name of Winnili, applied to the nation which was afterwards known as Longobardi. There does not appear to be any motive of national vanity for inventing this change of name, and we may therefore accept it as true, though not coordinated with any other facts with which we are acquainted.

(2) The migration from the island of Scandinavia, by which Paulus appears to mean the southern part of the Swedish peninsula, intersected as it is with many lakes, and standing, so to speak, “out of the water and in the water.” Few questions are more debated by ethnologists at the present day than this, whether the Teutonic nations are to be deduced from ‘the common Aryan home' in Central Asia, or from the lands north of the Baltic: and, as far as the authority of Paulus and Jordanes is of any avail, it must be admitted to make in favour of the latter hypothesis.

3. Scoringa, the first home of the Lombards after their departure from Scandinavia, is probably named from a word related to our own word shore, and means the territory on the left bank of the Elbe near its mouth. Here is a considerable tract of country which late on in the Middle Ages still bore the name Bardengau, derived from that of the Lombards, and whose chief city, Bardowyk, played an eventful part in the history of the early German Emperors, till it was destroyed in a fit of rage by Henry the Lion in 1189.

Mauringa is also, on the authority of the Geographer of Ravenna, connected with the country near the mouth of the Elbe, probably on its right bank.

After this, however, we get into the region of mere conjecture. The hostile tribe of the Assipitti, the successive homes of the Langobard people in Anthaib, Bainaib and Burgundaib, are all matters of debate among the German inquirers who have written on the early history of the Lombards. The settlement of these questions, if settlement be possible, will depend on a minute acquaintance with German place-names and dialectic forms to which I can make no pretension, and therefore, while referring the curious reader to the note at the end of this chapter for a statement of some of the warring theories, I simply recall attention to the fact (hardly sufficiently noticed by some of them) that in the reign of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius, and about the year 166, we have a clear and trustworthy historical statement connecting the Lombards with an invasion of Pannonia. This movement from the Lower Elbe to the Middle Danube is quite accounted for by the facts that the Longobardi were more or less loosely attached to the great Suevic monarchy, which long had its centre and stronghold in that which is now Bohemia, that there was a general convergence of the tribes in Central Germany towards the Danube frontier of the Empire about the time of the Marcomannic War, and that the great migration of the Gothic nation to the Euxine, which was described at the outset of this history, and which probably occurred about the middle of the second century, may well have sucked some of the tribes of the Elbe into its vortex, causing them, if once bent on change, to turn their faces towards the Danube rather than the Rhine.

I see no reason to believe that the Longobardi, having once left the shores of the North Sea and reached the heart of Germany, ever retraced their steps to their old home, though undoubtedly the barbarian wave rolled back foiled from the Pannonian frontier. For the following three centuries, therefore, I prefer to think of them as hovering about the skirts of the Carpathians (perhaps sometimes pressed northwards into the upper valleys of the Oder and the Vistula) rather than as marching back across Germany to the once forsaken Bardengau. The fact that when they are next heard of they are occupying Rugiland, the district on the northern shore of the Danube which faces Noricum, entirely confirms the view here advocated.

As I have said, the fortunes of this obscure and unnoticed tribe for more than three hundred years (from 166 to 508) are a blank, as far as authentic history is concerned. They were subject probably in the fourth century to the rule of Hermanric the Ostrogoth, subject certainly in the fifth century to the rule of Attila the Hun, but are not mentioned by the historians who have written of either monarch. On the fall of the Rugian monarchy (if the statement of Paulus on this subject be correct) they made a successful attempt to obtain a footing on the northern bank of the Danube, opposite the Roman province of Noricum. But, possibly, owing to the consolidation of the power of Theodoric in these regions, they found that they had gained nothing by this movement, and that Noricum itself was still barred against them. They therefore went forth from Rugiland and took up their abode in some part of the wide plains of Hungary, called by them in their own Teutonic dialect, Feld.

Through all the eventful years from 376 to 476 they remained in the second rank of barbarian nations. Other and stronger peoples, the Alamanni, the Thuringians, the Rugians, the Gepidae, the Heruli, ranged themselves close round the frontiers of the Empire, and, often overpassing its limits, watched with hungry eyes the death-throes of the Mistress of the World. The stalwart forms of these nations prevented the little Langobardic tribe from sharing the plunder or the excitement of the strife: and, for this reason doubtless, their name is not written in the Life of St. Severinus or in the letters of Cassiodorus.

But two events, separated by an interval of sixty years, yet displaying many points of similarity to one another, finally broke down this barrier and opened to the Longobardi the full career of rapine and of conquest. These were the war with the Heruli about 508 and the war with the Gepidae which ended in 567. The history of these two wars will now be related, on the joint authority of Procopius and of Paulus.

3.

War with the Heruli.

 

The tribe of the Heruli, with whom we have already made some acquaintance in the wars of Odovacar and of Belisarius, are a perpetual puzzle to ethnologists. Zeuss, the most careful of all our guides, says of them: ‘The Heruli are the most unstable of German tribes and seem to have wandered over well-nigh the whole of Europe. They appear on the Dniester and the Rhine, they plunder in Greece and in Spain, they threaten Italy and Scandinavia'. It is clear that part at least of this ‘instability’ may be explained by the fact that the tribe was early split up into two great divisions, one of which moved towards the Black Sea, while the other, remaining nearer to the common home of both, eventually made its appearance on the banks of the Rhine. With the western branch of the nation we have no present concern, and only to a very limited extent with the eastern branch, which towards the close of the fifth century appears to have been situated in Hungary on the eastern shore of the Danube, south of the wide ‘Feld' which was occupied by the Longobardi.

Here, from of old, had dwelt the Herulian people, practising a number of strange and savage rites which Procopius (who loathed the race, having often had to endure their unpleasant companionship in camp and garrison) delights to describe to the discredit of their slightly less barbarous descendants. They propitiated their gods with human sacrifices, and the public opinion of the nation was hostile to the prolonged existence of the sick and the aged. As soon as a man found himself sinking into either of these two classes it was incumbent on him to ask his relations with the least possible delay to blot him out from the book of the living. Thereupon a great pile (apparently of pyramidal form) was built with logs of wood: the infirm man was seated on the top of it, and a fellow countryman, but not a kinsman of the victim, was sent up to despatch him with a short sword. When the executioner returned, having effected his purpose, the pious kinsmen set fire to the pile, beginning with the outer circle of logs, and when the whole pile was consumed and the flames had died down they collected their relative’s charred bones and hid them in the earth. Not only was this form of euthanasia practised by the Heruli: the Hindu custom of suttee was also prevalent among them. On the death of a Herulian warrior, his wife, if she wished to preserve her good name, was virtually compelled to feign, if she did not feel, the emotions of a desolate widow, and to die, before many days had elapsed, at her husband's tomb. If instead of this self-sacrifice she chose to continue in life, her character was gone, and she was an object of jeering and derision to the relatives of her husband.

In the course of time the Heruli probably laid aside some of the more repulsive of these savage customs, but they appear to have remained heathens till their disappearance from history. Their power grew greater, and the terror inspired by them was such that many of the nations round them, including the Longobardi, consented to pay them tribute, a mark of subjection, as Procopius observes, unusual among Teutonic nations. At some time during the reign of the Emperor Anastasius, a singular interlude occurred in the savage annals of the Heruli, for it is recorded that having no one to fight with, they laid down their arms and for three years lived in peace. The warriors of the tribe, chafing at this inaction and having no instinct of discipline or subordination, constantly assailed their chieftain Rodulf with taunts and sneers, calling him womanish and soft-hearted. At length, unable any longer to bear these insults, Rodulf determined to make war upon the Longobardi, not alleging any pretext for the attack, but simply asserting that such was his sovereign will. Once, twice, thrice, did the Longobardi send their embassies to dissuade him from the meditated injustice. Submissively they pleaded that they had made no default in the payment of their tribute: yet even the tribute should be increased if the Heruli desired it. Most unwillingly would the Longobardi array their forces against their powerful neighbours, yet they could not believe that God, a single breath of whose power avails to overthrow all the haughtiness of man, would leave them unbefriended if battle was forced upon them. To the humble entreaty and the pious warnings Rodulf returned the same answer, simply driving the ambassadors from his presence with threats, and marching further into the Herulian territory.

At last came the inevitable collision, and Herul and Langobard met in battle-array. At that moment the sky above the Langobardic host was overcast with black clouds, while that above the Herulian army was magnificently clear, an omen (says Procopius) portending certain ruin to the latter nation. But of all this the Heruli took no heed, but, utterly despising their enemies, pressed on, thinking to decide the combat by mere weight of numbers. When, however, the hand-to-hand fight began, many of the Heruli were slain; Rodulf himself fell down dead, and his followers, forgetful of the duty of warriors, fled in headlong haste. Most of them were slain by the closely pursuing Longobardi, and only a few escaped.

Such is Procopius' account of the battle which practically blotted out the Heruli from the list of independent nations. We have another version of the same transactions from the pen of the Lombard historian, and curiously enough it is in many respects a version much less favourable to his people than that which Procopius heard, apparently from the Herulian mercenaries with whom he served in Italy. In the following words Paulus relates the story of the great encounter.

“After the Longobardi had abode in the open Feld for three years, war arose, upon the following occasion, between Tato, their seventh king, and Rodulf king of the Heruli. The brother of King Rodulf had gone to Tato for the purpose of cementing an alliance: and when, having accomplished his embassy, he was returning to his own land, it chanced that he passed before the house of the king's daughter who was named Rumetruda. She, beholding the multitude of men and his noble train of followers, asked who that man could be who had such illustrious attendance: and it was told her that the brother of King Rodulf was returning to his land after accomplishing his mission. Thereupon the maiden sent to beg him to condescend to receive a cup of wine at her hand. He came, as he was asked, in all guilelessness; but because he was little of stature, the maiden looked down upon him in the haughtiness of her heart and uttered words of mockery against him. He, glowing at once with shame and indignation, replied in such wise, as brought yet greater confusion on the maiden. Then she, hot with a woman's rage and unable to repress the passion of her soul, at once set her mind on a wicked revenge. She feigned meekness, she put on a cheerful countenance, and soothing him with more pleasant words, she invited him to sit down and arranged that he should so sit as to have a window at his back. This window, apparently as a mark of honour, but really that his suspicions might not be excited, she had covered with a costly curtain: and then that cruellest she-monster commanded her servants, that when she said ‘Mix' (as if speaking to the butler), they should pierce him in the back with their lances. It was done: the cruel woman gave the sign, her unjust commands were accomplished: her guest, pierced with many wounds, fell forward on the earth and expired.

“When these things were related to king Rodulf, he groaned at the cruel death of his brother, and impatient of his grief, burned to revenge so foul a murder. Breaking off, therefore, the league which he had made with Tato, he declared war against him. To be brief: the two armies met in the broad Feld. Rodulf drew up his men in battle array: then seating himself in his camp, having no doubt of the coming victory, he began to play at draughts. And in truth the Heruli of that day were well trained in the arts of war and already famous for the manifold slaughter of their foes: although (whether it were for nimbleness in the fight or that they might show their contempt of the wounds inflicted by the enemy) they fought entirely naked, save for a girdle round their loins. The king therefore, trusting without hesitation to the valour of his soldiers, while he comfortably continued his game, told one of his followers to climb a tree which happened to be near at hand, in order that he might have the earliest possible tidings of the victory. At the same time he threatened the man that he would cut off his head if he told him that the Herulian army was in flight. The man saw the ranks of the Heruli give way, he saw them being hard pressed by the Longobardi, but when asked again and again by the king, “How are my Heruli getting on?” always answered, “They are fighting splendidly.” Nor did he dare to give utterance to the evil which he beheld until the whole army turned its back to the enemy. Then, at last, he broke forth into speech, “Woe to thee, wretched Herulia, who art chastened by the wrath of the Lord of Heaven!”. At these words the king cried in consternation, “Is it possible that my Heruli are fleeing?”. The soldier answered, “It is thou, O king, who hast said the word, not I.” Then (as is wont to happen in such cases) the king and all his followers, perturbed and doubtful what to do, were sorely smitten by the in-rushing Longobardi, the king himself being slain notwithstanding a brave but fruitless resistance. The fleeing army of the Heruli—so great was the wrath of heaven upon them—when they beheld some green fields of flax, mistook them for lakes [covered with weed], and extending their arms and falling forward upon them as in act to swim were cruelly stricken by the swords of their enemies. When the victory was won, the Longobardi divided among themselves the vast spoil which they found in the enemy's camp : and Tato carried off the standard of Rodulf (which is called in their language bandum) and the helmet which he had been accustomed to wear in battle.

“From that time forward the valour of the Heruli so utterly collapsed that they never had a king over them again. The Longobardi, on the other hand, enriched with plunder and increasing their army out of the various nations which they overcame, began of their own accord to seek for occasions of war, and to push forward the renown of their valour in all directions.”

So far the Longobardic Saga as related by Paulus. As before said, it is less favourable to his own people than the story of the Byzantine historian. As a drama of providential retribution it entirely fails, since the cruel and treacherous deed of Rumetruda is left unavenged. It explains, however, some things which are left obscure in the narrative of Procopius. Well might the Herulian king—perhaps himself like his brother of small stature and unmartial appearance—fear the taunts of his subjects if he left that brother's murder unavenged; and well might he, with such provocation to harden his heart, refuse the threefold petition for peace offered by the L’ngobardi. They, on their part, may very probably have offered a money payment, not so much on account of augmented tribute as by way of weregild for the murdered prince, and the triple embassy may have been due to some barbaric bargaining as to what the amount of this weregild should be.

Though true in substance, the narrative of Paulus is not literally accurate in saying that the Heruli were kingless ever after this defeat. To lose the institution of kingship, to be without a leader in their glorious wars, was in that age a mark of the last stage of national decay and demoralization, and though this calamity did for a time befall the Herulian nation, the obscuration of the kingly office was only temporary. Procopius1 describes their miserable wanderings to and fro after their defeat by the Longobardi. They settled at first in Rugiland, evacuated as that country was by the Rugians when they went with the Ostrogoths into Italy. Driven thence, as the Longobardi before them had probably been driven, by hunger, they entered Pannonia and dwelt there as subjects of the Gepidae, paying tribute to those hard lords, and grievously oppressed by them. They then crossed the Danube, probably into Upper Moesia (which forms part of the modem kingdom of Servia), and there solicited and obtained permission from the Emperor Anastasius to dwell as his loyal foederati. We know, on the excellent authority of the chronicler, Marcellinus Comes, that this reception of the Heruli within the limits of the Roman Empire took place in the year 512, and we may therefore conjecturally assign the great battle between them and the Longobardi to a date a few years earlier, between 506 and 510.

Notwithstanding the hospitality which the Heruli had received from Anastasius, that savage people soon began their usual career of crime and outrage against their civilized neighbours. Anastasius sent an army against them which utterly routed and could easily have destroyed them, but in an evil hour the Emperor and his generals listened to their renewed supplications for mercy and suffered them to live. Procopius, whose bitter words we are here transcribing, regrets this clemency, for he says, “the Heruli never were true allies to the Romans, and never did them a single good turn.” It is true that Justinian, who renewed the foedus with this people, brought them to make an outward profession of Christianity, and spread a little varnish of civilization over their inherent savagery. But they still remained bestial in their morality, fickle in their alliances, and in fact, says the loathing Procopius, ‘they are the wickedest of all men, and utter and unredeemed scoundrels'. Before long they again fell out with the Empire, and the occasion of the quarrel was a curious one. They had suddenly conceived the idea that they would be henceforward kingless, and had therefore killed their king Ochon for no imaginable reason, for in truth he hardly deserved the name of king, since any of his subjects might sit down beside him, dine with him, or insult him with impunity. Then finding an absolutely anarchic existence insupportable, they changed their minds again, and sent to Thule for a prince of the blood royal to come and reign over them.

For, after the great catastrophe of the defeat of the Heruli by the Longobardi, certain of the former nation, not brooking the thought of dwelling with diminished might in the Illyrian lands, and cherishing the old national remembrance of their Scandinavian home, had set off under the leadership of men of the royal blood to seek a new habitation by the shores of the Northern Ocean. They had passed through the lands of the Sclavonians, and then, through a great wilderness, had reached the borders of the Warni, and had travelled through their land and through all the tribes of the Danes unmolested by any of these barbarians. Coming thus to the shores of the ocean, they crossed it in their barks and reached the island of Thule, where they took up their abode. Thule (by which Procopius probably wishes to designate not Iceland, but some part of the Scandinavian peninsula) is a marvellously great island, more than ten times the size of Britain, lying far off from it towards the north wind. The land is barren, but thirteen large nations, governed by as many kings, are settled therein. Procopius, though earnestly desiring to visit this remote land, had never in his busy life found opportunity to do so, but he had heard from accurate and trustworthy observers strange histories of the course of nature therein. For forty days, about the time of the summer solstice, the sun never sets over Thule, but appears, now in the eastern heaven, now in the western, and the inhabitants have to measure the day only by the reappearance of the sun in the same quarter where he shone before. Then, at the winter solstice, the sun is absolutely invisible for forty days. Endless night reigns and the inhabitants, cut off from all communication with one another, are plunged in dejection and sorrow. Though the event is of yearly occurrence, they fear each year that the sun will never return to them again; but at the expiration of thirty-five days (measured by the rising and setting of the moon) they send certain of their number to the tops of high mountains to catch a glimpse of his light. When these messengers return with the glad tidings that they have seen the sun, and that in five days he will shine upon them, the inhabitants of Thule give themselves to unbounded rejoicing, and hold, all in the darkness of their land, the greatest of their national festivals.

To this distant region, then, did the Heruli of the Danube send for a king after they had murdered the over-affable Ochon. The first who was chosen died in the country of the Danes, whereupon the ambassadors returned and persuaded Todasius to accept the distant crown. Todasius and his brother Aordus, with two hundred young men of the Heruli, set forth upon the immense journey: but long before they reached the Danubian lands, the fickle and unstable people, deeming it a disgrace to them to accept a king from Thule, had sought and obtained a king, a Herulian named Suartuas, from the Emperor Justinian. Civil war seemed imminent, but when the Arctic claimant had come within a day’s journey of his rival, the minds of the people changed again. They all deserted by night to the camp of Todasius, and Suartuas with difficulty and alone, escaped to Constantinople. As Justinian seemed disposed to support his candidate by force of arms, the Heruli joined themselves to the confederacy of the Gepidae, who were at that time, notwithstanding their foedus, virtually the incessant enemies of the Empire.

It has seemed worthwhile to follow the fortunes of this remnant of a most savage and unattractive people, as the story illustrates what has been said in an earlier part of this history as to the relation between vigorous royalty and national success, among the Teutonic tribes. The soft and pliable character of Rodulf caused him to be hurried into an unjust war, which he had not sufficient generalship to bring to a successful issue, and the disastrous end of which was fatal to the greatness of his nation. Ruin demoralized the race, and the instinct of national dignity became so deadened that they delighted in flouting the king, the representative of the greatness of the nation, and at length crowned their insults by murdering him. The spasmodic attempts to replace him by pretenders fetched from distant Norway, or begged from haughty Byzantium, all failed, and the nation, kingless, soulless and decayed, sank into a mere appendage to the monarchy of the equally barbarous but more loyal Gepidae.

4.

War with the Gepidae.

 

Returning to the history of Paulus, we find these two sentences as to the succession to the rude throne of the Longobardi:—

‘Tato was, shortly after the war with the Heruli, attacked and slain by his nephew Waccho, who succeeded him. Waccho left a son, the issue of his third marriage, named Waltari, who reigned for nine years. Then Audoin obtained the kingdom, who was succeeded by his son Alboin, the tenth king of the Longobardi'.

We see then that among the triumphant Longobardi also civil war and revolution soon broke out. It was not long after the great victory over the Heruli before king Tato was attacked, defeated, and slain by his nephew Waccho. The son of Tato, Risiulf, and his grandson Ildichis, who became at length refugees at the court of the king of the Gepidae, made apparently frequent attempts to recover the throne of their progenitor, but all these attempts were vain. For thirty years Waccho ruled the Langobardic nation in their settlement on the plains of Hungary, and he seems at last to have died in peace.

The long reign of Waccho is again nearly a blank the Langobardic annals. We are told that he brought the Suavi under subjection to his yoke but it is not easy to see what people are designated by this name. The Suavi, or Suevi, who dwelt in the south-western comer of Germany, called from them Suabia, are much too far off and too much involved in Frankish wars and alliances for any contest between them and the Longobardi to have been likely. More probably we have here another instance of the confusion pointed out in a previous volume between Suavia and Savia: and we are thus being told of the subjugation of the inhabitants of the region between the rivers Drave and Save. Such an event must have occurred after the Ostrogothic monarchy had begun to fall asunder in ruin, since, even in the days of Athalaric, Savia was still administered in his name in accordance with rescripts issued from Ravenna.

In the year 539, when Witigis the Ostrogoth found himself hard pressed by Belisarius, and began, too late, to cast about him for alliances to ward off his impending doom, he sent ambassadors to Waccho, offering him large sums of money if he would become his confederate. This, however, Waccho refused to do, having been, apparently throughout his reign, on cordial terms with the Court of Constantinople. In fact, we can see in the scanty notices concerning this king a determination to strengthen himself by alliances with all his more powerful neighbours, doubtless in order to resist the pretensions, either to dethrone, or to succeed him, which were put forward by the family of his predecessor. He was thrice married; the first time to a daughter of the king of the Thuringians, the second to a daughter of the king of the Gepidae, and the third to a daughter of the king of the Heruli. The last marriage only was fruitful in surviving male issue, but the two daughters of his second marriage were married to two successive kings of Austrasia, Theudebert and Theudebald: and thus these kings, who stood to one another in the relation of father and son, became brothers-in-law in right of their Langobardic wives. When at length Waccho died, probably somewhat advanced in years, he was succeeded by the child of his old age, his son by the Herulian princess Salinga, the boy-king Waltari.

For about seven years the nominal reign of Waltari, lasted, under the administration of the warrior Audoin, and then the young king died. It is distinctly stated that he died of disease, and we have none of those hints of foul play which are so usual when a young king dies and is succeeded by his guardian. Thus did the dynasty of the Lithingi, to which for sixty years or more the rulers of the Longobardi had belonged, cease to reign, and Audoin, father of the mighty Alboin, mounted the throne.

It seems probable that the reign of Audoin lasted for about twenty years. During the greater part of that time there was a simmering feud between the Longobardi and the Gepidae, ever and anon boiling over into actual war. Mere neighbourhood was reason enough for bloodshed between two tribes so barbarous and so faithless. But in addition, there was the fact that the remnant of the conquered Heruli, henceforth the irreconcilable enemies of the Longobardi, had been received into the Gepid nationality, and there were also two pretenders to the throne of the rival nation, each one seated at the hearth of the hostile king. Ildichis, grandson of Tato, and the last descendant of the illustrious house of the Lithingi, in the intervals of his wanderings, which took him to the Sclavonian country, to Constantinople, even to the court of Totila, found his most abiding home in the palace of Thorisind, king of the Gepidae. On the other hand, Thorisind had himself a rival of whom he was in fear, the young Ustrigotthus, son of his predecessor Elemund, and this. pretender was a refugee at the court of Audoin.

To these two rival nations, whose power was so nearly equally balanced, the friendship and alliance of the great Caesar of Byzantium was a matter of supreme importance, and he was generally disposed to throw the weight of that alliance into the scale of the Longobardi, as slightly the weaker and the more remote of the two undesired neighbours. About the year 547, when the war between Totila and Justinian was dying down to its last embers, and when it was plain that either to hold or to conquer Italy alone was a task almost too heavy for either combatant, a great rearrangement of power took place in the countries under the shadow of the Alps. Without any trouble the Frankish kings took possession of the greater part of Venetia, neither Goths nor Romans being able to withstand them. On the other hand, the Gepidae pressed in from the north-east, resumed possession of their once held and long-coveted city of Sirmium, and spreading themselves thence across the Danube, wrested not from Goths, but from Romans, nearly the whole of the provinces which made up the diocese of Dacia. Irritated by this conduct of a people who still professed to call themselves foederati of the Empire, Justinian discontinued the subsidies which he had hitherto allowed them, and, as a counterpoise to the menacing Gepid power, invited the Longobardi across the Danube—not, however, to its southern, but to its western shore—and presented them with the city Noricum of Noricum and other fortresses over against the Pannonian settlements of the Gepidae. This migration, which is generally described as a migration into Pannonia, but which was probably as much into Noricum as into Pannonia, was a most important event in the history of the Langobardic nation. It brought them out of the distant Hungarian plains into the countries which we now know as Styria, Salzburg, and Carinthia. Henceforward the more adventurous huntsmen and warriors of the tribe were constantly scaling mountains from which at least other mountains could be seen that looked on Italy. As Theodosius brought Alaric, so now has Justinian brought the father of Alboin to the threshold of the Imperial land.

It would be a difficult and unprofitable task to endeavour to reduce into their precise chronological order the rude, chaotic struggles which took place between Langobard and Gepid during the reign of Audoin. Procopius gives us one series of facts relating to them, Paulus another; and as neither writer gives us any exact dates, it is impossible to arrange them with any certainty in a consecutive history. A few scenes, however, which illustrate the habits and modes of thought of these barbarians—immeasurably ruder and more anarchic than the Goths, to whom our attention has hitherto been chiefly directed—may here be recorded.

In the first place, at some uncertain date, but probably about the year 550, we have the two tribes, neighbours, and therefore enemies, earnestly desiring to go to war with one another, and fixing a definite time for the encounter. The Longobardi, who knew that they were outnumbered by the Gepidae, sought for a definite alliance with the Romans. The Gepidae, on the other hand, who claimed to be still foederati of the Empire, though the foedus did not restrain them from occupying Dacia, south of the Danube, and laying waste Dalmatia and Illyricum as far as the city of Dyrrhachium, insisted that the Romans were bound either to give them active assistance, or, at the very least, to stand aside and let them fight their battle with the Longobardi unhindered.

Ambassadors from the two nations arrived at Constantinople and received separate audience from e Justinian. The two harangues are given at great length by Procopius. There is much in them which savours of the Greek rhetorician and which is doubtless invented by him, but some of the pleas urged are so quaint and (in the case of the Gepidae) so impudent that we must believe that they were really uttered by the barbarians.

On the first day the Longobardi spoke. “We are perfectly astounded”, said they, “at the presumption of these Gepidae, whose, embassy is the deadliest insult they could possibly have inflicted upon you. So long as the Ostrogoths were mighty, the Gepidae, cowering on the other side of the river, sought shelter in the Imperial alliance, received your yearly gifts, and were in all things the very humble servants of the Empire. As soon as the power of the Ostrogoths declined, when they saw them driven out of Dacia while you at the same time had your hands full with the Italian war, what did these faithful allies of yours do? They spurned the Roman rule, they broke all treaties, they swarmed across your frontier, they took Sirmium, they brought its citizens into bondage, and now they boast that they are making the whole of Dacia their own. Yet in their whole history they have committed no more scandalous action than in this embassy which they are now sending you. For as soon as they perceived that we were about to make war upon them, they dared to visit Byzantium and to come into the presence of the prince whom they have so grievously wronged. Perhaps also, in their abundant impudence, they will dare to invite you to an alliance against us, us your faithful friends. Should the condition of such an alliance be the restoration of the lands which they have wrested from you, the Roman gratitude will be due to the real authors of this late repentance, that is to the Langobardic nation. But if they propose to restore nothing, can anything be imagined more monstrous than their presumption?

“These things we have set forth with barbaric plainness of speech, and in unadorned language, quite inadequate to the offence of which we complain. Do you, Sire, carefully weigh our words and decide on such a course of action as shall be most for the interest, both of the Romans and of your own Langobardi. Especially remember this most important point, that in things pertaining to God we are at one with you in faith. The Gepidae are Arians, and for that very reason are sure to go into the opposite camp to yours, but we hold your creed, and have therefore, from of old, been justly treated by the Romans as their friends.”

Thus spoke the Longobardi. On the next day the Gepidae had audience of the Emperor. ‘We admit, Sire', said they, ‘that he who proposes to a neighbour that he should form an alliance with him, is bound to show that such alliance is just and expedient. That we shall have no difficulty in proving in the present instance. The alliance is a just one, for we have been of old the foederati of the Romans, while the Longobardi have only of late become friendly to the Empire. Moreover, we have constantly endeavoured to settle our differences with them by arbitration1; but this, in their braggart insolence, they have always refused till now, when perceiving that we are in earnest and recognizing their weakness they come whining to you for succour. And the alliance with us will be an expedient one, for anyone who is acquainted with the subject knows that in numbers and martial spirit the Gepidae far surpass the Longobardi. If you choose our alliance on this occasion, grateful for your present succour, we shall follow your standard against every other foe, and the abundance of our strength will ensure you victory.

“But then these robbers pretend that Sirmium and certain other parts of Dacia are a sufficient cause of war between us and you. On the contrary, there is such a superabundance of cities and territory in your great Empire, that you have rather to look out for men on whom to bestow a portion of them. To the Franks, to the Heruli, and even to these very Langobardi, you have given such store of cities and fields as no man can number. Relying in full confidence on your friendship, we anticipated your intentions. When a man has made up his mind to part with a certain possession, how much more highly does he value the friend who reads his thought and helps himself to the intended gift (always supposing there is nothing insulting in his way of doing it), than him who passively receives his favour. Now the former is exactly the position which the Gepidae have occupied towards the Romans.

“Lay these things to heart we entreat you. If it be possible, which we earnestly desire, join us with your whole force against the Langobardi. But if that be not possible, stand aside and leave us to fight out our own quarrels.”

So ended the extraordinary harangue of the Gepidae.

After long deliberation, Justinian decided to help the Longobardi, and sent to their aid 10,000 cavalry under the command of John, nephew of Vitalian, and three other officers whose names we have met with in the Gothic wars. The unstable and disorganized Heruli fought on both sides of the contest; three thousand of them, under their king's brother Aordus, helping their hosts the Gepidae, and seventeen hundred under Philemuth holding to their foedus with Rome and following the standards of John. Aordus and a large part of his Herulian army were slain by a detachment of the Imperial troops. Then, when the two rival nations perceived that Justinian's soldiers were really about to appear on the scene, the barbarians' dread and hatred of the great civilized Empire suddenly reassumed its old sway. The Gepid made proposals of peace and amity to the Langobard, the Langobard accepted them without the slightest reference to his Imperial ally; the quarrel was at an end, and the troops of Justinian, drawn far on into the barbarian territory and suddenly left without allies, were in imminent danger of destruction. Apparently they succeeded at length in making good their retreat, but we have no details of their escape, for Procopius leaves their story half-told.

The two nations, united by this patched-up peace, soon drifted again into war. Large bodies of troops, ‘many myriads of men,' followed each king into the field. But before the armies were in sight of one another, a strange panic seized on either host. All the rank and file of the Longobardi, all the rank and file of the Gepidae, fled impetuously homeward, disregarding both the threats and blandishments of their leaders. Shame forbade these, the nobles of the nation, to fly; but Audoin, finding himself with only a trusty few around him, and ignorant that the enemy were in precisely the same condition, sent an embassy to Thorisind proposing conditions of peace. The ambassadors, finding this king also with only a staff and without an army, asked what had become of his people. ‘They have fled,” was the answer, “though no man pursued them.” “The very same thing has befallen us,” said the Longobardi. “Come, then, since this has evidently happened by a Divine interposition to prevent two great nations from destroying one another, let us obey the will of God by putting an end to the war.” And accordingly a truce for two years was concluded between the two kings.

Again, perhaps at the end of this two years' truce, did the Gepid and the Langobard arm for the inevitable strife. Again, as before, both sides sought the help of Justinian, who, alarmed and angry at the conduct of Gepidae in ferrying his Sclavonic and Hunnish enemies across the Danube, and thus laying Thrace and Moesia open to their invasions, first, through fear, made a solemn treaty with that nation (which was ratified by the oaths of ten Senators of Byzantium), and then in his wrath made an equally solemn treaty with the L’ngobardi and sent an army to their assistance. The leaders of this expedition—Justinian seems, except in the case of Belisarius and Narses, to have shrunk from entrusting one man with the supreme command of an army—were Justin and Justinian, the two sons of Germanus, and great-nephews of the Emperor, Aratius, the Persarmenian, who had served under Belisarius in Italy, Suartuas, once king of the Heruli, who had been thrust aside by the returned wanderer from Thule, and Amalafrid, son of Hermanfrid, king of the Thuringians, and great-nephew of Theodoric. This Thuringian prince had been brought in the train of Witigis from Ravenna by Belisarius, had become a noble in the Court of Justinian and an officer in his army, and his sister had been given in marriage to Audoin, in order to cement the alliance between the Longobardi and the Empire

Of all this many-generalled host only Amalafrid with his comitatus reached the dominions of his brother-in-law. The rest of the generals with their troops tarried behind at Ulpiana, to settle in Imperial fashion some theological disputes which had broken out there, probably in connection with the controversy of the Three Chapters. Thus it came to pass that in the great, long-delayed and terrible battle between the Longobardi and the Gepidae, the former nation fought practically almost single-handed. They did indeed conquer and destroy multitudes of their foes, but king Audoin, in sending tidings of the victory to Justinian, took care to remind him that he had not fulfilled his duties as an ally, and had ill requited the loyalty with which the Langobardi had sent their soldiers, in large numbers, into Italy to fight under the banners of Narses against Totila. And in fact in that campaign, and at the decisive battle of the Apennines, Audoin himself had been present, as we have already seen, with 2500 warriors attended by their 3000 squires.

However, notwithstanding these complaints, the alliance between Justinian and the now victorious Longobardi lasted for the present unbroken, and the Gepidae, in a depressed and broken condition, suing for peace, were admitted to a humble place in the same confederacy. One condition, however, was needed to cement the alliance, and that was the surrender of the fugitive Ildichis, the last remnant of the old stock of the Lithingi. His life was a perpetual menace to the throne of the intruder Audoin, and, moreover, he had rendered himself obnoxious to Justinian, whose court he had deserted, whose stables he had robbed of some of their most valuable inmates, and whose officers he had slain in a well-contrived night attack on a detachment of the Imperial troops in an Illyrian forest. By both Emperor and King, therefore, the surrender of Ildichis was demanded as that of a common enemy, and the Gepidae were plainly informed that, without the fulfilment of this condition, no durable peace could be concluded with them. But when Thorisind assembled the chiefs of his people, and earnestly entreated their advice on the question whether he should yield to the demand of these two powerful princes, the assembly absolutely refused to entertain the proposition of surrender, declaring that it was better for the Gepidae to perish out of hand with their wives and children, than to consent to so impious an act as the betrayal of a guest and a fugitive. Thorisind, who was brought hereby into a most difficult dilemma, between fear of his victorious neighbours and fear of his own nobles, parried the difficulty for a time by making a counter demand from Audoin for the surrender of his rival claimant, Ustrigotthus, son of Elemund. The Langobard nobles were as unwilling to disgrace themselves by the abandonment of Ustrigotthus, as the Gepid nobles had been to countenance the abandonment of Ildichis, and so for the time both demands were refused, and the negotiation was at an end. A community of interest, however, drew the two usurpers together, and each privately got rid of the other's rival by secret assassination, in a manner so foul, that Procopius refuses to describe it. The whole story is a valuable illustration of the character of Teutonic royalty, the limitations which in theory restrained it, and the means which it practically possessed of rendering those limitations nugatory.

Amid these events Alboin, the son of Audoin by his first wife Rodelinda, was growing up to his memorable manhood. Tall of stature, and with a frame admirably knit for all martial exercises, he had also the strenuous aptitude for war of a born general. In the great battle with the Gepidae which has been already spoken of, while the fortune of war was still uncertain the sons of the two kings, Alboin and Thorismund, met in single combat. Drawing his great broad­sword, the Langobard prince cut down his Gepid rival, who fell from his horse lifeless. It was the sight of the death of this their bravest champion which struck terror into the hearts of the Gepidae and gave the victory and abundance of spoil to the Longobardi. When these returned in triumph to their homes they suggested to king Audoin that the son, by whose valour so conspicuous a victory had been wrought, was surely worthy now to take a seat at his father's table as King's Guest: and that he who had shared the royal peril might justly share in the royal conviviality. “Not so,” replied the tenacious king, “lest I violate the customs of our nation. For ye know that it is not according to our manners that a king's son should dine with his father, until he has received his arms from the king of some foreign people.”

When Alboin heard these words of his father he took with him forty young men of his comitatus and rode to the court of Thorisind, his father’s recent foe. Having explained the object of his visit, he was courteously received and placed at the king's table in the seat of honour on his right hand. But Thorisind, though he thus complied with the laws of barbaric courtesy and recognized Alboin’s right to claim adoption at his hands, was filled with melancholy when he saw the slayer of Thorismund sitting in Thorismund’s seat. In one of the pauses of the long banquet he heaved a deep sigh and his grief broke forth in words:

                   ‘That place is to me ever to be loved, but the person who now sits in it is grievous to behold.'

Stirred by these words of his father, the king's surviving son began to taunt the Longobardi with clumsy sarcasms, derived from the white gaiters which they wore wrapped round the leg below the calf. ‘You are like stinking white-legged mares', was the insult addressed to his father's guest by the Gepid prince. One of the Longobardi hurled back the taunt: “Go,” said he, “to the plain of Asfeld. There you will find out plainly enough how those mares can kick, when you see your brother's bones, like those in a knacker's yard, scattered over the meadows.” At these words the Gepidae started up trembling with rage: the Longobardi clustered together for defence : all hands were at the hilts of the swords. The king, however, leaped up from the table and threw himself between the combatants, threatening terrible vengeance on the first of his subjects who should begin the fray, and declaring that a victory earned over his guests in his own palace would be abomination in the sight of God. With these words he at length allayed the storm, and Gepid and Langobard returned with smoothed brows to the wassail bowl, the guttural-sounding song, and all the joys of the interrupted banquet. Thus did Alboin receive from Thorisind the arms of the dead Thorismund, and returning to his home was welcomed as a guest at his father's table, all voices being raised in praise of Alboin's valour and the faith—it is hard not to write the knightly faith—of Thorisind.

About ten years after these events (if we have read the chronology aright) Audoin died, and Alboin, on whom the nation’s hopes were fastened, ascended the throne. Thorisind had meantime been succeeded by Cunimund, who was perhaps a brother of the deceased king of the Gepidae.

It was by a new political combination and by the aid of an altogether new actor on the scene, that the long duel between the two nations was terminated. In the closing years of the reign of Justinian, a fresh horde of Asiatics, apparently of Hunnish origin, but who assumed the name of Avars—a name which for some reason was already terrible—entered Europe, menaced the Empire, extorted large subsidies from the aged Emperor, and even penetrated westwards as far as Thuringia, bent on battle with the Frankish kings. These rude successors of Attila's warriors did, in fact, erect a kingdom far more enduring than his, for it was not till the close of the eighth century that the power of the Avars received its death-blow from the hands of Pippin, son of Charles the Great. The head of this barbarous race bore the title of Chagan (Khan), and the first Chagan of the Avars was named Baian. With him Alboin made a compact of a curious kind, and one which seems to show that hatred of the Gepidae had blunted the edge of the land-hunger of the barbarian. ‘Let us combine to crush out of existence these Gepidae, who now lie between your territories and mine. If we win, yours shall be all their land and half of the spoils of war. Moreover, if I and my people cross over the Alps into Italy and conquer that land, all this province of Pannonia wherein we now dwell shall be yours also'. The league was made : the combined invasion took place: Cunimund heard that the terrible Avars had burst the barrier of the Eastern Carpathians, then that the Longobardi had crossed the Danube and the Theiss and were assailing him from the west. Broken in spirit and in sore distress from the difficulties of his position1 he turned to fight against the older and more hated foes. ‘Let us fight,' said he to his warriors, ‘with the Longobardi first, and if we vanquish them we shall without doubt drive the Huns forth out of our fatherland'. The battle was joined. Both sides put forth all their strength, and the Longobardi with such success and such fury that of all the Gepid host scarce one remained to tell the tale of his nation's overthrow.

Alboin himself slew Cunimund in a hand-to-hand encounter, and, like the untutored savage that he was, cut off his head and fashioned his skull into a drinking-cup, which ever after at solemn festivals was handed to the king full of wine, and recalled to his exultant heart the memory of that day’s triumph.

Nor was this the only trophy carried from the land of the Gepidae to the palace of Alboin. His first wife, Chlotsuinda, daughter of the Frankish king Chlotochar, had died, and Rosamund, daughter of Cunimund, was selected by the conqueror to fill her place at the high- seat beside him. What seemed to the barbarians vast stores of wealth, taken from the Gepid dwellings, enriched the Langobardic homes. The Gepidae, on the other hand, were so depressed and enfeebled that they never thenceforward dared to choose a king of their own, but dragged out an inglorious existence either as subjects of the Longobardi, or in their own fatherland under the hard yoke of the brutal Avars.

Such was the fate of the third nation in the Gothic confederacy, which so many centuries ago, in its laggart ship, made the voyage from Scandinavia to the Livonian shore.

 

NOTE A.

On the Early Homes of the Longobardi.

In order not to encumber the text with the theories of German scholars on this subject, I insert the chief of them here.

I. Zeuss (Die Germanen und die Nachbarskimme) is so careful an enquirer, and is so well acquainted with the details given us by Greek and Roman geographers as to all the German tribes, that one always differs from him with reluctance.

He seems inclined to make Mauringa = the flat country eastward from the Elbe, connecting it with Moor and other kindred words. For Golauda he takes an alternative reading (not well supported by MS. authority), Rugulanda, and suggests that it may be the coast opposite the isle of Rugen. Anthaib is the pagus of the Antae who, on the authority of Ptolemy and Jordanes, are placed somewhere in the Ukraine, in the Dniester and Dnieper countries: Banthaib he gives up as hopeless, Burgundaib he connects with the Urugundi of Zosimus, whom he seems inclined to place in Red Russia, between the Vistula and the Bug. These names, he thinks, ‘lead us in the direction of the Black Sea, far into the eastern steppes' and he connects this supposed eastward march of the Langobardi with their alleged combats with the Bulgarians.

II. Dr. Friedrich Bluhme, in his monograph ‘Die Gens Langobardorum und ihre Herkunft' (Bonn, 1868), places the primeval home of the Langobardi in the extreme north of Denmark, in the peninsula or rather island formed by the Limfiord, which still bears the name Wend-syssel. (This he connects with the original name of the tribe, Winnili.) Thence he brings them to Bardengau on the left bank of the Elbe. I think he accepts the identification Scoringa = Bardengau. He places the Assipitti (the tribe who sought to bar the further progress of the Langobardi) in the neighbourhood of Asse, a wooded height near Wolfenbuttel. He rejects the identification of Mauringa with Holstein, and the reference to the Geographer of Ravenna, and thinks that we have a trace of the name in Moringen near Northeim, at the foot of the Harz mountains. But he makes them wander still further westwards and Rhinewards, chiefly relying on the passage of Ptolemy, which places them in close neighbourhood with the Sigambri. He considers this allocation to be singularly confirmed by the Chronicon Gothanum, which says that they stayed long at Paderborn. Thus he contends for a general migration of the tribe from Eastphalia (Bardengau) to Westphalia; and considers this theory to be strengthened by the great resemblance between the family names of Middle Westphalia and those of Bardengau: between the legal customs of Soest (in Westphalia) and those of Lubeck, and between these two sets of customs and the Lombard Edict.

Bluhme does not offer much explanation of the difficult names Golanda, Anthaib, Banthaib, and Burgundaib, except that he thinks the last was the territory evacuated by the Burgundians when they moved westwards to the Middle Rhine. He puts the migration of the Langobardi to the borders of Bohemia about 373, and thinks that the election of their first king Agelmund was contemporary therewith. He observes that the ruins of the palace of king Waccho (who reigned at the beginning of the sixth century) were still to be seen at Beowinidis, i. e. in Bohemia, probably at Camberg, S.E. of Prague, in the year 805 (Chronicon Moissiacense, s. a.).

Rugiland—Moravia. Feld=the March-feld bordering it on the south.

 

NOTE B.

Extract from the Codex Gothanus.

The opening and closing paragraphs of the Codex Gothanus are so utterly different from the Origo and the history of Paulus, that, instead of attempting to weave them into one narrative therewith, I prefer to give a separate translation of them here.

1. The fore-elders of the Langobardi assert “per Gambaram parentem suam pro quid exitus aut movicio seu visitatio eorum fuisset, deinter serpentibus parentes eorum breviati exissent', a rough and bloody and lawless progeny. But coming into the land of Italy they found it flowing with milk and honey, and, what is more, they found there the salvation of baptism, and receiving the marks of the Holy Trinity, they were made of the number of the good. In them was fulfilled the saying, “Sin is not imputed where there is no law”. At first they were ravening wolves, afterwards they became lambs feeding in the Lord's flock: therefore should great praise and thanks be brought to God who hath raised them from the dung-hill and set them in the number of the just, thereby fulfilling the prophecy of David, “He raiseth the needy from the dung-hill, and maketh him to sit with the princes of the earth”. Thus did the aforesaid Gambara assert concerning them (not prophesying things which she knew not, but, like the Pythoness or Sibyl, speaking because a divine visitation moved her), that “the thorn should be turned into a rose”. How this could be she knew not, unless it were shown to her by God. She asserts, therefore, that they will go forth, moved not by necessity, nor by hardness of heart, nor by the oppression of parents, but that they may obtain salvation from on high. It is a wonderful and unheard-of thing to behold such salvation shining forth, when there was no merit in their parents, so that from among the sharp blades of the thorns the odorous flowers of the churches were found. Even as the compassionate Son of God had preached before, “I came not to call the righteous, but sinners” [to repentance]. These were they of whom the Saviour Himself spoke in proverbs [parables] to the Jews, “I have other sheep, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring to seek for the living water”.

2. Here begins the origin and nation or parentage of the Langobardi, their going forth and their conversion, the wars and devastations made by their kings, and the countries which they laid waste.

There is a river which is called Vindilicus, on the extreme boundary of Gaul: near to this river was their first dwelling and possession. At first they were Winili by their own proper name and parentage: for, as Jerome asserts, their name was afterwards changed into the common word Longobardi, by reason of their profuse and always unshaven beards. This aforesaid river Ligurius flows into the channels of the river Elbe, and . loses its name. After the Longobardi went forth, as has been before said (?), from the same shore, they placed their new habitations at first at Scatenauge on the shore of the river Elbe: then still fighting, they reached the country of the Saxons, the place which is called Patespruna, where, as our ancient fathers assert, they dwelt a long time, and they encountered wars and dangers in many regions. Here too they first raised over them a king named Agelmund. With him they began to fight their way back to their own portion in their former country, wherefore in Beovinidis they moved their army by the sound of clanging trumpets to their own property : whence to the present day the house and dwelling of their king Wacho still appear as signs. Then requiring a country of greater fertility, they crossed over to the province of Thrace, and fixed their inheritance in the country of the city (sic) of Pannonia. Here they struggled with the Avars, and waging many wars with them with most ardent mind, they conquered Pannonia itself. And the Avars made with them a league of friendship, and for twenty-two years they are said to have lived there.”

From this point to the accession of Rothari, A.D. 636, the text of the Codex Gothanus coincides very nearly with that of the Origo. It then proceeds as follows:—

7. Rothari reigned sixteen years: by whom laws and justice were begun for the Langobardi: and for the first time the judges went by a written code, for previously all causes were decided by custom (cadarfada) and the judge's will, or by ordeal (?) (ritus). In the days of the same king Rothari, light arose in the darkness: by whom the aforesaid Langobardi directed their endeavours to the canonical rule and became helpers of the priests.

[8 contains the durations of the kings’ reigns from Rodwald to Desiderius].

9. Here was finished the kingdom of the Longobardi, and began the kingdom of Italy, by the most glorious Charles, king of the Franks, who, as helper and defender of lord Peter, the prince of the Apostles, had gone to demand justice for him from Italy. For no desire of gain caused him to wander, but he became the pious and compassionate helper of the good: and though he might have demolished all things, he became their clement and indulgent [preserver]. And in his pity he bestowed on the Longobardi the laws of his native land, adding laws of his own as he deemed fit for the necessities of the Longobardi: and he forgave the sins of innumerable men who sinned against him incessantly. For which Almighty God multiplied his riches a hundredfold. After he had conquered Italy he made Spain his boundary: then he subdued Saxony: afterwards he became lord of Bavaria, and over innumerable nations spread the terror of his name. But at last, as he was worthy of the Empire's honour, he obtained the Imperial crown; he received all the dignities of the Roman power, he was made the most dutiful son of lord Peter, the apostle, and he defended Peters property from his foes. But after all these things he handed over the kingdom of Italy to his great and glorious son, lord Pippin, the great king, and as Almighty God bestowed the grace of fortitude on the father, so did it abound in the son, through whom the province of Thrace (!), together with the Avars, was brought into subjection to the Franks. They, the aforesaid Avars, who were sprung from a stock which is the root of all evil, who had ever been enemies of the churches and persecutors of the Christians, were, as we have said, by the same lord Pippin, to his own great comfort and that of his father, expelled and overcome: the holy churches were defended, and many vessels of the saints which those cruel and impious men had carried off, were by the same defender restored to their proper homes. Then the cities of the Beneventan province, as they deserved for their violation of their plighted oath, were wasted and made desolate by fire, and their inhabitants underwent the capital sentence. After these things, he also went to Beowinidis (?) with his army and wasted it, and made the people of that land a prey, and carried them captive. Therefore also by his orders his army liberated the island of Corsica, which was oppressed by the Moors. At the present day by his aid Italy has shone forth as she did in the most ancient days. She has had laws, and fertility, and quietness, by the deserving of our lord [the Emperor], through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen'

 

CHAPTER IV.

ALBOIN IN ITALY.