Chapter XXXI: Invasion Of Italy, Occupation Of Territories By

Barbarians.—Part I.

Invasion Of Italy By Alaric.—Manners Of The Roman Senate And
People.—Rome Is Thrice Besieged, And At Length Pillaged, By The
Goths.—Death Of Alaric.—The Goths Evacuate Italy.—Fall Of
Constantine.—Gaul And Spain Are Occupied By The Barbarians.
—Independence Of Britain.

The incapacity of a weak and distracted government may often
assume the appearance, and produce the effects, of a treasonable
correspondence with the public enemy. If Alaric himself had been
introduced into the council of Ravenna, he would probably have
advised the same measures which were actually pursued by the
ministers of Honorius. 1 The king of the Goths would have
conspired, perhaps with some reluctance, to destroy the
formidable adversary, by whose arms, in Italy, as well as in
Greece, he had been twice overthrown. Their active and interested
hatred laboriously accomplished the disgrace and ruin of the
great Stilicho. The valor of Sarus, his fame in arms, and his
personal, or hereditary, influence over the confederate
Barbarians, could recommend him only to the friends of their
country, who despised, or detested, the worthless characters of
Turpilio, Varanes, and Vigilantius. By the pressing instances of
the new favorites, these generals, unworthy as they had shown
themselves of the names of soldiers, 2 were promoted to the
command of the cavalry, of the infantry, and of the domestic
troops. The Gothic prince would have subscribed with pleasure the
edict which the fanaticism of Olympius dictated to the simple and
devout emperor. Honorius excluded all persons, who were adverse
to the Catholic church, from holding any office in the state;
obstinately rejected the service of all those who dissented from
his religion; and rashly disqualified many of his bravest and
most skilful officers, who adhered to the Pagan worship, or who
had imbibed the opinions of Arianism. 3 These measures, so
advantageous to an enemy, Alaric would have approved, and might
perhaps have suggested; but it may seem doubtful, whether the
Barbarian would have promoted his interest at the expense of the
inhuman and absurd cruelty which was perpetrated by the
direction, or at least with the connivance of the Imperial
ministers. The foreign auxiliaries, who had been attached to the
person of Stilicho, lamented his death; but the desire of revenge
was checked by a natural apprehension for the safety of their
wives and children; who were detained as hostages in the strong
cities of Italy, where they had likewise deposited their most
valuable effects. At the same hour, and as if by a common signal,
the cities of Italy were polluted by the same horrid scenes of
universal massacre and pillage, which involved, in promiscuous
destruction, the families and fortunes of the Barbarians.
Exasperated by such an injury, which might have awakened the
tamest and most servile spirit, they cast a look of indignation
and hope towards the camp of Alaric, and unanimously swore to
pursue, with just and implacable war, the perfidious nation who
had so basely violated the laws of hospitality. By the imprudent
conduct of the ministers of Honorius, the republic lost the
assistance, and deserved the enmity, of thirty thousand of her
bravest soldiers; and the weight of that formidable army, which
alone might have determined the event of the war, was transferred
from the scale of the Romans into that of the Goths.

1 (return) [ The series of events, from the death of Stilicho to
the arrival of Alaric before Rome, can only be found in Zosimus,
l. v. p. 347-350.]

2 (return) [ The expression of Zosimus is strong and lively,
sufficient to excite the contempt of the enemy.]

3 (return) [ Eos qui catholicae sectae sunt inimici, intra
palatium militare pro hibemus. Nullus nobis sit aliqua ratione
conjunctus, qui a nobis fidest religione discordat. Cod. Theodos.
l. xvi. tit. v. leg. 42, and Godefroy’s Commentary, tom. vi. p.
164. This law was applied in the utmost latitude, and rigorously
executed. Zosimus, l. v. p. 364.]

In the arts of negotiation, as well as in those of war, the
Gothic king maintained his superior ascendant over an enemy,
whose seeming changes proceeded from the total want of counsel
and design. From his camp, on the confines of Italy, Alaric
attentively observed the revolutions of the palace, watched the
progress of faction and discontent, disguised the hostile aspect
of a Barbarian invader, and assumed the more popular appearance
of the friend and ally of the great Stilicho: to whose virtues,
when they were no longer formidable, he could pay a just tribute
of sincere praise and regret. The pressing invitation of the
malecontents, who urged the king of the Goths to invade Italy,
was enforced by a lively sense of his personal injuries; and he
might especially complain, that the Imperial ministers still
delayed and eluded the payment of the four thousand pounds of
gold which had been granted by the Roman senate, either to reward
his services, or to appease his fury. His decent firmness was
supported by an artful moderation, which contributed to the
success of his designs. He required a fair and reasonable
satisfaction; but he gave the strongest assurances, that, as soon
as he had obtained it, he would immediately retire. He refused to
trust the faith of the Romans, unless Ætius and Jason, the sons
of two great officers of state, were sent as hostages to his
camp; but he offered to deliver, in exchange, several of the
noblest youths of the Gothic nation. The modesty of Alaric was
interpreted, by the ministers of Ravenna, as a sure evidence of
his weakness and fear. They disdained either to negotiate a
treaty, or to assemble an army; and with a rash confidence,
derived only from their ignorance of the extreme danger,
irretrievably wasted the decisive moments of peace and war. While
they expected, in sullen silence, that the Barbarians would
evacuate the confines of Italy, Alaric, with bold and rapid
marches, passed the Alps and the Po; hastily pillaged the cities
of Aquileia, Altinum, Concordia, and Cremona, which yielded to
his arms; increased his forces by the accession of thirty
thousand auxiliaries; and, without meeting a single enemy in the
field, advanced as far as the edge of the morass which protected
the impregnable residence of the emperor of the West. Instead of
attempting the hopeless siege of Ravenna, the prudent leader of
the Goths proceeded to Rimini, stretched his ravages along the
sea-coast of the Hadriatic, and meditated the conquest of the
ancient mistress of the world. An Italian hermit, whose zeal and
sanctity were respected by the Barbarians themselves, encountered
the victorious monarch, and boldly denounced the indignation of
Heaven against the oppressors of the earth; but the saint himself
was confounded by the solemn asseveration of Alaric, that he felt
a secret and praeternatural impulse, which directed, and even
compelled, his march to the gates of Rome. He felt, that his
genius and his fortune were equal to the most arduous
enterprises; and the enthusiasm which he communicated to the
Goths, insensibly removed the popular, and almost superstitious,
reverence of the nations for the majesty of the Roman name. His
troops, animated by the hopes of spoil, followed the course of
the Flaminian way, occupied the unguarded passes of the Apennine,
4 descended into the rich plains of Umbria; and, as they lay
encamped on the banks of the Clitumnus, might wantonly slaughter
and devour the milk-white oxen, which had been so long reserved
for the use of Roman triumphs. A lofty situation, and a
seasonable tempest of thunder and lightning, preserved the little
city of Narni; but the king of the Goths, despising the ignoble
prey, still advanced with unabated vigor; and after he had passed
through the stately arches, adorned with the spoils of Barbaric
victories, he pitched his camp under the walls of Rome. 6

4 (return) [ Addison (see his Works, vol. ii. p. 54, edit.
Baskerville) has given a very picturesque description of the road
through the Apennine. The Goths were not at leisure to observe
the beauties of the prospect; but they were pleased to find that
the Saxa Intercisa, a narrow passage which Vespasian had cut
through the rock, (Cluver. Italia Antiq. tom. i. p. 168,) was
totally neglected.

Hine albi, Clitumne, greges, et maxima taurus Victima, saepe tuo
perfusi flumine sacro, Romanos ad templa Deum duxere triumphos.
—Georg. ii. 147.

Besides Virgil, most of the Latin poets, Propertius, Lucan,
Silius Italicus, Claudian, &c., whose passages may be found in
Cluverius and Addison, have celebrated the triumphal victims of
the Clitumnus.]

6 (return) [ Some ideas of the march of Alaric are borrowed from
the journey of Honorius over the same ground. (See Claudian in
vi. Cons. Hon. 494-522.) The measured distance between Ravenna
and Rome was 254 Roman miles. Itinerar. Wesseling, p. 126.]

During a period of six hundred and nineteen years, the seat of
empire had never been violated by the presence of a foreign
enemy. The unsuccessful expedition of Hannibal 7 served only to
display the character of the senate and people; of a senate
degraded, rather than ennobled, by the comparison of an assembly
of kings; and of a people, to whom the ambassador of Pyrrhus
ascribed the inexhaustible resources of the Hydra. 8 Each of the
senators, in the time of the Punic war, had accomplished his term
of the military service, either in a subordinate or a superior
station; and the decree, which invested with temporary command
all those who had been consuls, or censors, or dictators, gave
the republic the immediate assistance of many brave and
experienced generals. In the beginning of the war, the Roman
people consisted of two hundred and fifty thousand citizens of an
age to bear arms. 9 Fifty thousand had already died in the
defence of their country; and the twenty-three legions which were
employed in the different camps of Italy, Greece, Sardinia,
Sicily, and Spain, required about one hundred thousand men. But
there still remained an equal number in Rome, and the adjacent
territory, who were animated by the same intrepid courage; and
every citizen was trained, from his earliest youth, in the
discipline and exercises of a soldier. Hannibal was astonished by
the constancy of the senate, who, without raising the siege of
Capua, or recalling their scattered forces, expected his
approach. He encamped on the banks of the Anio, at the distance
of three miles from the city; and he was soon informed, that the
ground on which he had pitched his tent, was sold for an adequate
price at a public auction; 911 and that a body of troops was
dismissed by an opposite road, to reenforce the legions of Spain.
10 He led his Africans to the gates of Rome, where he found three
armies in order of battle, prepared to receive him; but Hannibal
dreaded the event of a combat, from which he could not hope to
escape, unless he destroyed the last of his enemies; and his
speedy retreat confessed the invincible courage of the Romans.

7 (return) [ The march and retreat of Hannibal are described by
Livy, l. xxvi. c. 7, 8, 9, 10, 11; and the reader is made a
spectator of the interesting scene.]

8 (return) [ These comparisons were used by Cyneas, the
counsellor of Pyrrhus, after his return from his embassy, in
which he had diligently studied the discipline and manners of
Rome. See Plutarch in Pyrrho. tom. ii. p. 459.]

9 (return) [ In the three census which were made of the Roman
people, about the time of the second Punic war, the numbers stand
as follows, (see Livy, Epitom. l. xx. Hist. l. xxvii. 36. xxix.
37:) 270,213, 137,108 214,000. The fall of the second, and the
rise of the third, appears so enormous, that several critics,
notwithstanding the unanimity of the Mss., have suspected some
corruption of the text of Livy. (See Drakenborch ad xxvii. 36,
and Beaufort, Republique Romaine, tom. i. p. 325.) They did not
consider that the second census was taken only at Rome, and that
the numbers were diminished, not only by the death, but likewise
by the absence, of many soldiers. In the third census, Livy
expressly affirms, that the legions were mustered by the care of
particular commissaries. From the numbers on the list we must
always deduct one twelfth above threescore, and incapable of
bearing arms. See Population de la France, p. 72.]

911 (return) [ Compare the remarkable transaction in Jeremiah
xxxii. 6, to 44, where the prophet purchases his uncle’s estate
at the approach of the Babylonian captivity, in his undoubting
confidence in the future restoration of the people. In the one
case it is the triumph of religious faith, in the other of
national pride.—M.]

10 (return) [ Livy considers these two incidents as the effects
only of chance and courage. I suspect that they were both managed
by the admirable policy of the senate.]

From the time of the Punic war, the uninterrupted succession of
senators had preserved the name and image of the republic; and
the degenerate subjects of Honorius ambitiously derived their
descent from the heroes who had repulsed the arms of Hannibal,
and subdued the nations of the earth. The temporal honors which
the devout Paula 11 inherited and despised, are carefully
recapitulated by Jerom, the guide of her conscience, and the
historian of her life. The genealogy of her father, Rogatus,
which ascended as high as Agamemnon, might seem to betray a
Grecian origin; but her mother, Blaesilla, numbered the Scipios,
Aemilius Paulus, and the Gracchi, in the list of her ancestors;
and Toxotius, the husband of Paula, deduced his royal lineage
from Aeneas, the father of the Julian line. The vanity of the
rich, who desired to be noble, was gratified by these lofty
pretensions. Encouraged by the applause of their parasites, they
easily imposed on the credulity of the vulgar; and were
countenanced, in some measure, by the custom of adopting the name
of their patron, which had always prevailed among the freedmen
and clients of illustrious families. Most of those families,
however, attacked by so many causes of external violence or
internal decay, were gradually extirpated; and it would be more
reasonable to seek for a lineal descent of twenty generations,
among the mountains of the Alps, or in the peaceful solitude of
Apulia, than on the theatre of Rome, the seat of fortune, of
danger, and of perpetual revolutions. Under each successive
reign, and from every province of the empire, a crowd of hardy
adventurers, rising to eminence by their talents or their vices,
usurped the wealth, the honors, and the palaces of Rome; and
oppressed, or protected, the poor and humble remains of consular
families; who were ignorant, perhaps, of the glory of their
ancestors. 12

11 (return) [ See Jerom, tom. i. p. 169, 170, ad Eustochium; he
bestows on Paula the splendid titles of Gracchorum stirps,
soboles Scipionum, Pauli haeres, cujus vocabulum trahit, Martiae
Papyriae Matris Africani vera et germana propago. This particular
description supposes a more solid title than the surname of
Julius, which Toxotius shared with a thousand families of the
western provinces. See the Index of Tacitus, of Gruter’s
Inscriptions, &c.]

12 (return) [ Tacitus (Annal. iii. 55) affirms, that between the
battle of Actium and the reign of Vespasian, the senate was
gradually filled with new families from the Municipia and
colonies of Italy.]

In the time of Jerom and Claudian, the senators unanimously
yielded the preeminence to the Anician line; and a slight view of
their history will serve to appreciate the rank and antiquity of
the noble families, which contended only for the second place. 13
During the five first ages of the city, the name of the Anicians
was unknown; they appear to have derived their origin from
Praeneste; and the ambition of those new citizens was long
satisfied with the Plebeian honors of tribunes of the people. 14
One hundred and sixty-eight years before the Christian era, the
family was ennobled by the Prætorship of Anicius, who gloriously
terminated the Illyrian war, by the conquest of the nation, and
the captivity of their king. 15 From the triumph of that general,
three consulships, in distant periods, mark the succession of the
Anician name. 16 From the reign of Diocletian to the final
extinction of the Western empire, that name shone with a lustre
which was not eclipsed, in the public estimation, by the majesty
of the Imperial purple. 17 The several branches, to whom it was
communicated, united, by marriage or inheritance, the wealth and
titles of the Annian, the Petronian, and the Olybrian houses; and
in each generation the number of consulships was multiplied by an
hereditary claim. 18 The Anician family excelled in faith and in
riches: they were the first of the Roman senate who embraced
Christianity; and it is probable that Anicius Julian, who was
afterwards consul and praefect of the city, atoned for his
attachment to the party of Maxentius, by the readiness with which
he accepted the religion of Constantine. 19 Their ample patrimony
was increased by the industry of Probus, the chief of the Anician
family; who shared with Gratian the honors of the consulship, and
exercised, four times, the high office of Prætorian praefect. 20
His immense estates were scattered over the wide extent of the
Roman world; and though the public might suspect or disapprove
the methods by which they had been acquired, the generosity and
magnificence of that fortunate statesman deserved the gratitude
of his clients, and the admiration of strangers. 21 Such was the
respect entertained for his memory, that the two sons of Probus,
in their earliest youth, and at the request of the senate, were
associated in the consular dignity; a memorable distinction,
without example, in the annals of Rome. 22

13 (return) [

Nec quisquam Procerum tentet (licet aere vetusto Floreat, et claro
cingatur Roma senatu) Se jactare parem; sed prima sede relicta
Aucheniis, de jure licet certare secundo. —-Claud. in Prob. et
Olybrii Coss. 18.

Such a compliment paid to the obscure name of the Auchenii has
amazed the critics; but they all agree, that whatever may be the
true reading, the sense of Claudian can be applied only to the
Anician family.]

14 (return) [ The earliest date in the annals of Pighius, is that
of M. Anicius Gallus. Trib. Pl. A. U. C. 506. Another tribune, Q.
Anicius, A. U. C. 508, is distinguished by the epithet of
Praenestinus. Livy (xlv. 43) places the Anicii below the great
families of Rome.]

15 (return) [ Livy, xliv. 30, 31, xlv. 3, 26, 43. He fairly
appreciates the merit of Anicius, and justly observes, that his
fame was clouded by the superior lustre of the Macedonian, which
preceded the Illyrian triumph.]

16 (return) [ The dates of the three consulships are, A. U. C.
593, 818, 967 the two last under the reigns of Nero and
Caracalla. The second of these consuls distinguished himself only
by his infamous flattery, (Tacit. Annal. xv. 74;) but even the
evidence of crimes, if they bear the stamp of greatness and
antiquity, is admitted, without reluctance, to prove the
genealogy of a noble house.]

17 (return) [ In the sixth century, the nobility of the Anician
name is mentioned (Cassiodor. Variar. l. x. Ep. 10, 12) with
singular respect by the minister of a Gothic king of Italy.]

18 (return) [

Fixus in omnes Cognatos procedit honos; quemcumque requiras Hac de
stirpe virum, certum est de Consule nasci. Per fasces numerantur
Avi, semperque renata Nobilitate virent, et prolem fata sequuntur.

(Claudian in Prob. et Olyb. Consulat. 12, &c.) The Annii, whose
name seems to have merged in the Anician, mark the Fasti with
many consulships, from the time of Vespasian to the fourth
century.]

19 (return) [ The title of first Christian senator may be
justified by the authority of Prudentius (in Symmach. i. 553) and
the dislike of the Pagans to the Anician family. See Tillemont,
Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 183, v. p. 44. Baron. Annal.
A.D. 312, No. 78, A.D. 322, No. 2.]

20 (return) [ Probus... claritudine generis et potentia et opum
magnitudine, cognitus Orbi Romano, per quem universum poene
patrimonia sparsa possedit, juste an secus non judicioli est
nostri. Ammian Marcellin. xxvii. 11. His children and widow
erected for him a magnificent tomb in the Vatican, which was
demolished in the time of Pope Nicholas V. to make room for the
new church of St. Peter Baronius, who laments the ruin of this
Christian monument, has diligently preserved the inscriptions and
basso-relievos. See Annal. Eccles. A.D. 395, No. 5-17.]

21 (return) [ Two Persian satraps travelled to Milan and Rome, to
hear St. Ambrose, and to see Probus, (Paulin. in Vit. Ambros.)
Claudian (in Cons. Probin. et Olybr. 30-60) seems at a loss how
to express the glory of Probus.]

22 (return) [ See the poem which Claudian addressed to the two
noble youths.]